It is neither a rat nor a bird: taboos and eco-resilience in Yoruba sacred orature
Key information
- Date
- Time
-
5:00 PM to 6:30 PM
- Venue
- Virtual Event
About this event
Dr Oluwabunmi Tope Bernard (Obafemi Awolowo University, Nigeria)
A.G. Leventis Seminar
Abstract
Scholarly debates surrounding the current global crises of environmental degradation are not only epistemological, but also normative. Using an ethnographic lens, this study examines how strict taboos are used as tools for environmental sustainability in Yorùbá sacred orature. This perspective has much to contribute to a core claim of Yorùbá vision of eco-justice, that the imperative of economic development should not obscure the community’s moral responsibilities for conservation and a sustainable environment. Reading the selected sacred orature in light of Buber’s “I and Thou” idea, I argue that Yorùbá sacred orature-inflected morality allows us to regard nature as a living entity that has life, existence, and being. This study concludes that the imposition of taboos on killing or eating certain insects, reptiles, birds, mammals, and cutting of certain trees and the consequences of flouting them as contained in the selected sacred orature also ensured the survival of the fauna within this ecological niche.
Loading the player...It is neither a rat nor a bird: taboos and eco-resilience in Yoruba sacred orature
Speaker Biography
Dr Oluwabunmi Tope Bernard, Ph.D. teaches Yorùbá language and literature at Obafemi Awolowo University, Nigeria. Her research interest includes Yorùbá language, literature, gender and sexuality, postcolonial and environmental studies. She has authored and co-authored peer-reviewed articles in Journals, Encyclopedia, and books in reputable outlets. Her research titled “Lend me your penis: sex and sexuality in Yorùbá lampooning songs” won the prestigious University of Michigan African Presidential Scholar (UMAPS) fellowship in 2020. In 2021, she was invited to participate in Sustainable Futures in Writing project that was sponsored by University of Glasgow and British Academy. She is currently a visiting scholar at SOAS University of London under the Leventis Research Co-operation Programme doing research on the discourse on environmental sustainability in Yorùbá.
Contact email: cas@soas.ac.uk