Political Spirituality for a Century of Water Wars: The Angel of the Jordan Meets the Trickster of Detroit

Description

This book offers resources for re-imagining the biblical vision of water for a time quickly emerging as “the century of water wars.” It takes its urgency from the author’s 5-year activist engagement with a grass-roots-led social movement, pushing back on Detroit water shutoffs as global climate crises intensify. Concerned with both white supremacist “biopolitics” and continuing settler colonial reliance on the Doctrine of Christian Discovery, and beholden to an interreligious methodology of “crossing over and coming back,” the text creatively re-reads the biblical tradition under tutelage to the mythologies and practices of various indigenous cultures (Algonquian/Huron, Haitian/Vodouisant, and Celtic/Norman) whose embrace of water is animate and spiritual as well as political and communal. Not enough, today, merely to engage the political battle over water rights, however; indigenous wisdom and biblical prophecy alike insist that recovery of water spirituality is central to a sustainable future. Front Matter ....Pages i-xiii Introduction: Politics and Spirit in the Emerging Water War—Crossing Over and Coming Back (James W. Perkinson)....Pages 1-13 Water Monopoly at the Strait: White Supremacy and Biopower (James W. Perkinson)....Pages 15-52 Water Struggle Along the Border: Settler Colonialism and Christian Dominion (James W. Perkinson)....Pages 53-86 Water Story Around the Bend: The Windigo Monster and the Nanabozho Trickster (James W. Perkinson)....Pages 87-123 Water Spirituality Beyond the Basin: Detroit Dwarf, Celt Hound, Afro-Orisha (James W. Perkinson)....Pages 125-171 Water Combat on The Coast: Canaanite Storm-Gods and Israelite Wind-Spirits (James W. Perkinson)....Pages 173-210 Water Divination Around the Jordan: The Ford-Fight of Jacob and the Water-Test of Jesus (James W. Perkinson)....Pages 211-253 Water Prophecy from the Wadi: River-Rites, Fish-Signs, and Rain-Promises (James W. Perkinson)....Pages 255-294 Water Wars on a Living Planet: The Globe and the Strait (James W. Perkinson)....Pages 295-328 Correction to: Political Spirituality for a Century of Water Wars (James W. Perkinson)....Pages C1-C1 Back Matter ....Pages 329-358