[Linganth] today on the blog -- Beekeeping in the End Times

[Ilana Gershon]

Dear Colleagues,
Today  Larisa Jašarević discusses her new book, Beekeeping in the End
Times, with Mira Guth.

campanthropology.org

Best,
Ilana


Press blurb: Every hundred years, as the story goes, two angels wonder out
loud whether the bees are still swarming. For as long as the bees are
swarming, the angels are reassured, the world holds together. Still, the
tale suggests, the angels live in anxious anticipation of the End. Local
beekeepers in Bosnia and Herzegovina retell the old tale with growing
unease, as their honeybees weather the ground effects of climate change.

Beekeeping in the End Times relates extreme weather events and quieter
disasters that have been altering honey ecologies across Bosnia and
Herzegovina since 2014. While world-wide endangerment of pollinators, and
bees in particular, has been the subject of much global concern, effects of
climate change on the indispensable honeybees,remain understudied. Drawing
on a five-year long study, the book suggests that local apiarists' field
observations resonate with many climate biologists' concerns and
speculations about the future of plant-bee relations on the warming planet.
Local practice also adds to the record complex and puzzling trends that
make honey scarce in otherwise lush, biodiverse landscapes.

To Bosnian Muslims, honeybees are more than pollinators. They are inspired
beings whose honey is another form of divinely revelation. To appreciate
the meaning of honeybees and to grasp the dire ecological catastrophe
underway, Jašarević reads contemporary environmental writings and Sufi
texts, she listens to the seasoned beekeepers and collects local wisdom
tales. From start to finish, Jašarević pores over key Islamic texts, the
Quran and the Hadith, and their popular retellings. The Islamic end-times
lore, the book proposes, holds surprising lessons on how to live and strive
in the 'not yet,' stalling the apocalypse.
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