Alternatives Unincorporated: Earth Ethics from the Grassroots

Alternatives Unincorporated is a creative attempt at ecotheology and environmental ethics that emerges through the agency of the victims of environmental destruction. this book construe an earth ethics from the grassroots in the crucible of subaltern political practice, invoking the Narmada Bachao Andolan (the Save Narmada Movement in India) as text, and proposes the social movements are theological texts. It convincingly demonstrates that the social movement discursive sites can inform the construction of an earth ethics that is life affirming, communicating: and liberating.

An earth ethics from the grassroots envisions the interconnectedness between social justice, differences and environmental degradation. It is a grassroots vision and praxis to interpret reality and to change it radically from the subaltern standpoint. It further rejects all theological and ethical discourses mediated from detached and disembodied views from seemingly nowhere, instead proposes alternative narratives informed by the oppositional gaze of the subalterns ethics from the grassroots is alternative as it subverts the prevailing social and ecological relations: It does not stop there. By demystifying the doctrine of the totality "there is no alternative" - earth ethics from the grassroots strives to create alternatives to celebrate the foretaste of different world and to demonstrate that there are alternatives.

George Zachariah serves the Gurukul Lutheran Theological College and Research Institute. Chennai, India as associate professor in the field of theology and ethics.