24: Vandana Shiva – Earth Democracy in Defence of the Life World

Global Governance Futures: Imperfect Utopias or Bust

Vandana Shiva is a world-renowned Indian scholar, ecological feminist and activist who over a career spanning decades has emerged as one of the world’s most prominent critics of GMOs, intellectual property rights and free trade. She holds a PhD in philosophy of physics and wrote her thesis on ‘Hidden Variables and Locality in Quantum Theory’. Her books include ‘The Violence of Green Revolution’ and ‘Monocultures of the Mind’. Dr Shiva is the Founder of Navdanya, a movement for Earth Democracy based on the philosophy of 'Vasudhaiv Kutumbakam' (The Earth as one Family), as well as the Founding Board Member of the International Forum on Globalisation and Diverse Women for Diversity. In this conversation, we talk about non-violence as positive action, hyper-globalization as recolonisation, WIPO patent 060606, what it means to be human, and much more. Vandana writes at Navdanya: https://www.navdanya.org/site/ We discussed: ‘Earth Democracy: Recognising the Rights of Nature, Respecting Human Rights’: https://www.navdanya.org/bija-refelections/2021/04/21/earth-democracy-recognising-the-rights-of-nature-respecting-human-rights/ ‘WIPO Patent 060606 – Cryptocurrency System Using Body Activity Data’: https://patentscope.wipo.int/search/en/detail.jsf?docId=WO2020060606 ‘Universal Declaration of Rights of Mother Earth: https://www.therightsofnature.org/universal-declaration/ ‘A message for International Day for Biological Diversity, 22nd May 2020’: https://navdanyainternational.org/a-message-for-international-day-for-biological-diversity-22nd-may-2020/