Eco-theo-logical Hope: Subjectivity, Religions, and Human Rights—A Translational Approach

Any determination of the human subject emerges from and represents one of innumerable and distinct worldviews. All worldviews depend on both holistic and relational conceptions, infused with specificities of language, kinship, and religious/spiritual ties and understandings. This is particularly evident when considering issues of human rights and the environment, another domain in which an interrelational understanding is inescapable. I will argue that an intercultural translation methodology is our best hope for moving beyond stale dichotomies that treat human rights and religions as isolatable oppositional categories and the environment as a reified set of resources meant to fuel relentless post-capitalist drives. Furthermore, learning to translate religious perspectives understood anthropologically can enfranchise a critically important relational understanding of human flourishing. To be gained are invaluable opportunities towards saving human rights from the semantic fog that otherwise obscures any possibility for their fulfilment.