Unlearning through spirituality : Mongolian and Western animistic traditions as pathways to enhance sustainability
Segura, Jesse (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Institut de Ciència i Tecnologia Ambientals)
Gerber, Julien-Francois (Erasmus University Rotterdam)
Sekulova, Filka Tsvetkova (Universitat de Barcelona)

Date:	2026
Abstract:	This paper explores how animistic rituals-specifically the ovoo offering in Inner Mongolia-can serve as embodied engagements with what Roy Bhaskar (1975) calls the "real": a deeper layer of reality shaped by unseen causal and spiritual forces. By acknowledging the 'inhabitants' of this deeper layer, we contribute to the broader post-humanist, or more-than-human, turn in the social sciences and humanities. Using a sensory collaborative autoethnographic approach, we take the ovoo encounter as a point of departure to examine our own onto-epistemic assumptions and to build a conceptual bridge for Western-trained audiences to loosen the grip of empirical-positivist habits of thought. We show how these practices enact a relational ontology that disrupts capitalist modernity's extractivist, anthropocentric, and dualistic assumptions. We argue that, for those embedded in Western knowledge systems, openness to such place-based spiritual practices can foster the unlearning of dominant colonial-capitalist ways of being. The paper's contribution is twofold: first, it demonstrates how engaging with the ovoo offering nurtures reciprocal, embodied connections that unsettle anthropocentric and dualistic worldviews; and second, it highlights how animistic traditions can counter the mechanistic cosmologies underlying extractivism. Such encounters can help reawaken suppressed spiritual lineages within Western thought, expanding the ethical and affective horizons of sustainability. At the same time, we remain attentive to the risks of co-optation through commodification, tourism, or detached New Age reinterpretations. We conclude by situating these reflections within wider debates on sustainability, ecological justice, and relational ethics.
Note:	Unidad de excelencia María de Maeztu CEX2019-000940-M
Rights:	Aquest document està subjecte a una llicència d'ús Creative Commons. Es permet la reproducció total o parcial, la distribució, la comunicació pública de l'obra i la creació d'obres derivades, fins i tot amb finalitats comercials, sempre i quan es reconegui l'autoria de l'obra original.
Language:	Anglès
Document:	Article ; recerca ; Versió publicada
Subject:	Animism ; Posthumanism ; Rituals ; Spirituality ; Sustainability
Published in:	Environmental science & policy, Vol. 175 (January 2026) , art. 104296, ISSN 1873-6416

DOI: 10.1016/j.envsci.2025.104296

10 p, 3.1 MB

The record appears in these collections:
Research literature > UAB research groups literature > Research Centres and Groups (research output) > Experimental sciences > Institut de Ciència i Tecnologia Ambientals (ICTA)
Articles > Research articles
Articles > Published articles