Dr. VANDANA SHIVA on Becoming Untameable /212
The non-violent, women-led Chipko environmental movement in the 1970s in Uttarakhand, India; photographer unknown
This past year has forced many of us to transfer our practices into the digital realm, and while this has been done for the safety of our communities, billionaires and tech giants have no desire to see us sever ourselves from the perceived convenience technology provides us. So we must ask ourselves, to what extent does our quality of life become reduced when we relinquish our sovereignty for the sake of convenience? How does our reliance on technology diminish our collective skillset? Our relationship with Earth? Our ways of thinking? Are we finding pleasure in the portals of our phones and computers or are we merely allowing ourselves to be mined and surveilled for digital data?
In this week’s episode, Dr. Vandana Shiva joins us to discuss how we are being set up to become accessories to the digital world and how we can reclaim our intellectual freedom and sovereignty from the hands of digital dictatorship. Vandana provides us with compelling examples of Monsanto’s targeted erasure of Traditional Ecological Knowledge and simultaneous acquisition of the world’s largest data corporations, and the correlation between philanthrocapitalism and the World Intellectual Property Organization. This episode is a powerful reminder that we are meant to live beautiful lives as sovereign beings, not as digital appendages. We are nourished by the examples of freedom Vandana seeds inspiration from and the power of compassionate courage.
“A seed is not invented by Monsanto. Our bodies are not invented by Microsoft. Invading our bodies is not an invention.”
Photo of Dr. Vandana Shiva by Kartikey Shiva
Dr. Vandana Shiva is a leader in the International Forum on Globalisation and of the Slow Food Movement. Director of Navdanya and of the Research Foundation for Science, Technology, and Ecology, and a tireless crusader for farmers’, peasants’, and women’s rights, she is the author and editor of a score of influential books, including her latest from Chelsea Green Publishing, Oneness vs the 1%: Shattering Illusions, Seeding Freedom.
♫ Music featured in this episode is “Picking Moths” by John Newton, “Augmented” by Lady Moon & The Eclipse, and “Humm” and “Wild Seed” by Dzidzor.
References & Recommendations
Oneness vs. the 1%: Shattering Illusions, Seeding Freedom
by Dr. Vandana Shiva with Kartikey Shiva
The Two Futures of Health and Humanity
by Dr. Vandana Shiva and Dr. G.G. Gangadharan
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For The Wild is a slow media organization dedicated to land-based protection, co-liberation, and intersectional storytelling. We are rooted in a paradigm shift away from human supremacy, endless growth, and consumerism. As we dream towards a world of grounded justice and reciprocity, our work highlights impactful stories and deeply-felt meaning making as balms for these times.