Sarah M. Pike - For the Wild

For the Wild

For the Wild

Ritual and Commitment
in Radical Eco-Activism

Sarah M. Pike

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS

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distinguished university presses in the United States,
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University of California Press

Oakland, California

2017 by Sarah M. Pike

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Pike, Sarah M., 1959 author.

Title: For the wild : ritual and commitment in radical
eco-activism / Sarah M. Pike.

Description: Oakland, California : University of
California Press, [2017] | Includes bibliographical
references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2017013715 (print) | LCCN 2017015386
(ebook) | ISBN 9780520967892 (ebook) |
ISBN 9780520294950 (cloth : alk. paper) |
ISBN 9780520294967 (pbk : alk. paper)

Subjects: LCSH : Animal rightsMoral and ethical
aspectsUnited States. | Animal rights movement
United States. | Animal rights activistsUnited States. |
EnvironmentalistsUnited StatesAttitudes. |
NatureEffect of human beings on. | Environmental
ethicsUnited States.

Classification: LCC HV 4708 (ebook) | LCC HV 4708 . P 565
2017 (print) | DDC 179/.30973dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017013715

Manufactured in the United States of America

25 24 23 22 21 20 19 18 17

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

For my children, Dasa Grey Schill, Jonah Paul Schill,
and Clara Bergamini, with all my love

Contents

Acknowledgments

This book has been over ten years in the writing and many people have helped it along the way.

I owe much to the many activists who took time to speak with me or shared their stories by mail from prison. I am particularly grateful to Jeffrey Luers, Rod Coronado, Peter Young, and Chelsea Gerlach for the letters they wrote that set me along certain paths I never would have taken without their insights. Thanks to Nettle and Darryl Cherney for hanging out with me for hours and telling me about their lives. The Earth First! Journal and its many editors over the years of my research had a profound effect on this project. The artists included in EF!J and the authors of letters, articles, pleas, complaints, reportbacks, and poems shaped my understanding of activism and confirmed much of what I saw and heard during fieldwork. Many other activists generously tolerated being interviewed, taught me medic and climbing skills, accompanied me to gatherings, told me about their childhoods, shared meals with me, and welcomed me into their communities. This book would not have been possible without their hard work and passionate dedication to the lives of other species.

Much appreciation goes to Max Lieberman for fieldwork assistance and his thoughtful perspectives on a number of thorny issues.

Eric Schmidt at the University of California Press was positive and encouraging towards this project from the moment I first mentioned it. Thanks to Maeve Cornell-Taylor, Kate Hoffman, and others at the press who worked on the book during various phases of its production.

California State University Chico provided me with several leaves that supported the initial phases of research for this book. The Department of Comparative Religion and Humanities at CSU, Chico, has been a warm and supportive academic home. The University of Oslo hosted me as a visiting scholar and it was during my sabbatical in Oslo that much of this book was written. The Norwegian Research Council generously funded this research as part of the multiyear, international, collaborative project based at the University of Oslo, Reassembling Democracy: Ritual as Cultural Resource. I owe much to the scholars who participated in REDO, whose questions and suggestions enriched this book: Michael Houseman, Marion Grau, Morny Joy, Donna Seamone, Jens Kreinath, Graham Harvey, Paul-Franois Tremlett, Gitte Buch-Hansen, Lotte Danielsen, Kjetil Hafstad, Birte Nordahl, Tony Balcomb, Grzegorz Brzozowski, Cora Alexa Dving, Ida Marie Heg, Samuel Etikpah, Sidsel Roalkvam, and to the other participants in REDO France, REDO London, and REDO Berkeley workshops. Thanks especially to project director Jone Salomonsen, a companion on various adventures over our professional years, who has made much possible for me. The time and ideas shared with all of you in special places far from California transformed this book.

The work of religious studies scholar Bron Taylor has been invaluable to my understanding of radical environmentalism. He saw a richly lived spiritual world in radical environmentalism when others labeled these activists terrorists or dismissed them as tree-huggers. I am deeply indebted to Brons work. Much of the territory I explore here echoes themes and ideas he has written about in many books and articles over the past twenty-five years.

Mentors and friends who have been important in my personal and professional life read and commented on parts of this manuscript. The care and support of three of them has been essential. David Haberman, my fellow lover of forests, has been urging me for years to finish this book and was the first person to read it all the way through. Bob Orsi has always read my work like no one else and has shaped my scholarly life in more ways than I can possibly put into words. Ron Grimes has inspired and pushed me in the right ways, both compassionate and challenging. Reading for U.C. Press, Adrian Ivakhiv and Evan Berry provided excellent critiques and questions on the entire manuscript. To the other colleagues and friends who read and commented on portions of the bookJason Bivins, Graham Harvey, Lisa Sideris, Robert Jones, Heather Altfeld, Gretel van Wieren, and Sarah FredericksI am grateful for the insight and sensitivity with which you read (and edited in Heathers case) my work, even if I did not always follow your good advice!

I was fortunate indeed to be able to write at Laird Eastons dining room table. Thanks to the changing personnel of the Chico writing group and my colleagues at Chico State in addition to Laird who joined me in various venues around Chico when I was working on early versions of some of these chapters: Vernon Andrews, Jason Clower, Daniel Veidlinger, Heather Altfeld, and Troy Jollimore.

My parents, Thomas Howell Pike III and Lucy Grey Gould, always met my reports on the progress of this book, and all my other adventures, with curiosity and encouragement. They nurtured my love of the outdoors when I was a child by leaving me alone to roam outside and taking us hiking in many beautiful places around Louisville, Kentucky. I am truly blessed to have had parents such as these!