April 2004
Rebecca Zarger, Contributing Editor
Anthropology and Environment Section
National Public Radio series and web-based educational programs on the relationship
between religious purity and environmental pollution in India
Contributed by: Kelly Alley (Auburn)
An ongoing interest of many section members is the need for anthropologists engaged in environmental research to find new ways to communicate our perspectives to wider, non-academic audiences. Kelly Alley (Auburn U) is involved in a new project that does just that through development of a National Public Radio series and Web-based educational programs on the relationship between religious purity and environmental pollution in India. The research, funded in part by a three-year National Science Foundation grant, uses the Ganges River as the setting for an examination of religion, ecology and culture. Alley will provide expertise to independent documentary maker Julian Crandall Hollick, whose program will examine many of the issues raised by Kelly in her 2002 book On the Banks of the Ganga: When Wastewater meets a Sacred River. The book examines the interaction of science and environmental issues within a deeply religious culture. Alley is one of three academics who will work with Hollick as co-principal investigators for the series. The others are Graham Chapman of the University of Lancaster in England and two professors from India, R.K. Sinha of the University of Patna and Vinor Tare of the University of Kanpur. Chapman is the author of “Water and the Quest for Sustainable Development in the Ganges Valley” and Sinha and Tare have conducted extensive environmental studies of the Ganges River.
Although heavily polluted by cities and industries along its banks, the Ganges, or Ganga as it is known in India, remains a sacred symbol of purity for hundreds of millions of Hindus. Due to the divergent views of the same river, environmental scientists have been frustrated in their attempts to clean up the Ganges. The barrier to communication between science and religion is present in many cultures but India provides one of the most prominent examples of that complexity. The radio series will explore conflicting scientific, religious and activist approaches to understanding the river Ganga and using her waters. This will be presented to listeners in the U.S. in a way that provokes a reexamination of their own consumption patterns and the ways they link these patterns to status and power.
If you are involved in a project focused on communicating findings or perspectives from your research to a broad audience, please contact the section editor about your project. Other essays, reports, and announcements of interest to section members can be sent to: : Rebecca Zarger (zarger@fiu.edu), Dept. of Environmental Studies & Sociology/Anthropology, ECS 332, Florida International University, Miami, FL 33199.