Nature, Harmony, and the Kaliyugaya: Global/Local Discourses on the Human-Environment Relationship
Author(s)
Weeratunge, Nireka
Abstract
“Living in harmony with nature” has become a root metaphor and an imperative in a postcolonial global discourse on environmental crisis. This article uses an interpretive approach to problematize the concepts of “harmony” and “nature” by juxtaposing “global” and “local” discourses on the human-environment relationship. It argues that harmony is a “Western/global” discourse borrowed by Sri Lankan environmentalists that has varying levels of resonance with “local” cultural concepts through a discussion of myths of the Golden Age, nature and morality, the human-deity-nature triad, and the microcosm-macrocosm relationship. The harmony discourse, however, leaves no space for the articulation of an alternative local discourse on the kaliyugaya, which also offers an interpretation of environmental crisis.
