Animism
Animism encompasses worldviews in which non-human entities—such as animals, plants, inanimate objects, and geographical features—possess a spiritual essence, agency, or personhood. While originally framed by Victorian anthropologists as a "primitive" precursor to organized religion, contemporary academia has reimagined it through the lens of "New Animism," viewing it as a sophisticated relational ontology that dissolves the boundaries between nature and culture.
The Origins of the Term: Classical Animism
The concept of animism was formally introduced into modern anthropology in 1871 by Sir Edward Burnett Tylor in his foundational work, Primitive Culture.[1] Seeking a minimal definition of religion, Tylor characterized animism simply as "the belief in spiritual beings."[2]
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Evolutionary Framework: Tylor operated under the framework of Victorian social evolutionism. He posited that animism was the earliest and most "primitive" stage of human cognitive and religious development, born from early humans attempting to rationalize phenomena like dreams, consciousness, and death.[2:1]
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Epistemological Error: In this classical view, animism was perceived as an intellectual failure—a mistaken projection of human life and soul onto inanimate matter. Anthropologists assumed that as societies "progressed," animistic superstitions would naturally be superseded by polytheism, monotheism, and eventually scientific rationalism.[3]
Classical anthropological perspectives on animism were deeply rooted in Cartesian dualism—the Western philosophical divide between subject/object, mind/body, and culture/nature. Early anthropologists judged animistic cultures as primitive specifically because they failed to recognize these "inherent" divisions.[4]
The "New Animism" and Relational Ontology
In the mid-to-late 20th century, anthropologists began to reject Tylor's ethnocentric and teleological assumptions. The foundational shift began with anthropologist Irving Hallowell's fieldwork among the Ojibwe communities of Canada.[4:1] Hallowell observed that for the Ojibwe, personhood did not require a human form. Entities like stones and bears were perceived as "other-than-human persons" possessing will and agency.[5]
Key Characteristics of New Animism
Contemporary scholars like Nurit Bird-David, Graham Harvey, and Tim Ingold subsequently coined the term "New Animism" to describe a paradigm shift away from belief-centered definitions toward relational practices.[2:2]
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Relational Epistemology: According to Bird-David, animism is not a failure of primitive reasoning, but rather a "relational epistemology." Identity is not derived from isolated internal characteristics (the modern "individual") but emerges dynamically through reciprocal interactions with other beings ("dividuals").[4:2]
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Other-Than-Human Persons: Religious studies scholar Graham Harvey defines animists as people who recognize that the world is entirely composed of persons, only some of whom are human, and that life must be lived in a respectful relationship with these others.[5:1]
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Mutual Responsiveness: Animism in this context is less a rigid belief system and more a daily practice of respect, communication, and reciprocal care with the environment.[2:3] For example, Indigenous hunting traditions often involve mimicking prey to enter its sensory world, demonstrating a deep psychological identification with the environment rather than dominion over it.[4:3]
Contemporary Applications and Environmentalism
Animism has transcended its origins in religious studies to become a vital framework in modern ecological movements, Indigenous land rights, and postmodern philosophy.
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Ecological Obligations: Animist cosmologies place humans under the dominion of the landscape, overturning the Abrahamic concept of human dominion over the earth. Rituals and practices are designed to establish relationships of obligation between people and the land they inhabit.[6]
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Rights of Nature: The ideological descendants of New Animism are visible in global legal movements seeking to secure legal personhood rights for non-human entities, such as rivers, glaciers, and mountains.[6:1]
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Challenging the Anthropocene: By dismantling Western dualisms, New Animism offers an alternative to the destructive "resource extraction" mindset. It suggests that humanity's survival depends on re-animating the world and treating nature as an interactive community of subjects rather than a static collection of objects.[5:2]
"Personhood, in the new animist framework, is not projected onto 'inanimate' beings (as Tylor argued) but rather emerges from the field of reciprocal interactions uniting humans, animals, and elements." — Benjamin D. Schluter[3:1]
Backlinks
- Ojibwe Ontology and the Roots of the New Animism — Hallowell's fieldwork among the Berens River Ojibwe and his concept of "other-than-human persons" is the foundational source for the New Animism framework explored in this note. His insight that the Ojibwe recognized inherent relational personhood in the natural world — rather than projecting human traits onto dead matter — directly informs the shift from classical to New Animism described here.
References
The Wicked Griffin / Animism Beliefs: Understanding the First Religion Through Ancient Worldviews and Modern Anthropology / thewickedgriffin.com ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎
Benjamin D. Schluter / Animism / The Ohio State University ↩︎ ↩︎
Wikipedia / Animism / wikipedia.org ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎
CAMNES / New Animism in the Study of Religion / camnes.org ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎