Ecological crises threaten all forms of life on earth. Democracy too is endangered, as popular discontent, elite malfeasance, and unresponsive institutions imperil its survival. Present political concepts have proven inadequate to meeting these challenges, and their inadequacies are themselves symptoms of the failures of prevailing political, cultural, and ecological stories and practices. This book offers a new vision of ecological and participatory democratic life for a time of crisis. Identifying myth and ritual as key resources for contemporary politics, Earthborn Democracy excavates practices and narratives that illustrate the interdependence necessary to inspire ecological renewal. It tells stories of multispecies agency and egalitarian political organization across history, from ancient Mesopotamia and the precolonial Americas to contemporary social movements, emphasizing Indigenous traditions and resistance. Resonating across these practices and stories past and present is a belief that we are all―human as well as nonhuman―earthborn, and this can serve as the basis for reimagining democracy. Allying visionary political theory with environmental activism, Earthborn Democracy provides a foundation and a guide for collective action in pursuit of earthly flourishing. Needed is a new account of democracy, one that incorporates the Earth and its needs, abandoning the myth of human control and power over the Earth. [ Earthborn Democracy ] calls for a radical change in the stories people tell about themselves, drawing on sources such as Indigenous cultural practices and myths, to develop the political ideas vital for overcoming current environmental and political crises...Recommended ― Choice I think this book is extraordinary. It contains synthetic, creative, grand thinking on a scale that is not often seen anymore; it is ambitious, hopeful, and provocative. ― Theory and Event Are you tired of democratic theories organized only around human exceptionalism and institutional representation? Then this is the book for you. Earthborn Democracy exposes layer after layer of the unconscious modern myth as it engages the pertinence of Indigenous earthborn myths to democracy. It is time, the authors show, to replace simplified stories of causality with morphic fields of entanglement, doing so to release the potential vitality of democracy today. A bracing study, always alert to how earthborn we are. -- William E. Connolly, author of Stormy Weather: Pagan Cosmologies, Christian Times, Climate Wreckage Part manifesto, part how-to guide, 100 percent visionary political theory, Earthborn Democracy reframes how we understand worldmaking, ecology, refusal, rituals, myths, and the experience of natality, a birth out of and by the earth. The authors invite us to reimagine democracy and discern its relationship to freedom and flourishing through acknowledging first the fundamental entanglement connecting all the world’s humans and nonhumans. -- Neil Roberts, coeditor of Creolizing Hannah Arendt In a time of peril, Earthborn Democracy offers incisive ways to understand our deep desire to live in a just world and both practical and poetic maps for how we might achieve it. -- Barbara Smith, author of The Truth That Never Hurts: Writings on Race, Gender, and Freedom I found this to be an incredibly compelling argument and discussion of the myriad ways in which democracy and environmental justice are entangled, using a nonspeciesist frame, humbly leaning upon Indigenous thinking and practices, and generously incorporating the work of other leading thinkers. -- Adrian Parr, author of Earthlings: Imaginative Encounters with the Natural World Earthborn Democracy asks what sustains collective life and enables us to work together for a sustainable future, particularly when we live under persistent crisis. Deeply interdisciplinary, original, and really delightful to read―a conversation among the authors that imbues the text with life, play, and joy. This visionary political theory is committed to imagination and renewal, ambitious and humble in its commitment to community and solidarity. -- Sara Rushing, author of Virtues of Vulnerability: Humility, Autonomy, and Citizen-Subjectivity Resuscitating political theory's mission to break down outworn ways of thinking, Earthborn Democracy dares to imagine alternative ways of coexisting, and even thriving. -- Keally McBride, author of Collective Dreams: Political Imagination and Community Bracing and visionary, Earthborn Democracy confronts our conjoined ecological and democratic crises with the moral gravity and imaginative vigor they demand. Insisting that democracy is unavoidably bound up with more-than-human flourishing, it offers an unflinching and inspiring challenge to begin rethinking our politics and remaking our world. -- Alyssa Battistoni, author of A Planet to Win: Why We Need a Green New Deal Earthborn Democracy is an important and vi