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April 25, 2023
The Peacebuilders
Many scholars who study the evolution of humanity - sociologists, anthropologists, biologists - have come to the conclusion that we, all of us, would not have survived, let alone have evolved into the complex, resilient and innovative species that we...
Many scholars who study the evolution of humanity - sociologists, anthropologists, biologists - have come to the conclusion that we, all of us, would not have survived, let alone have evolved into the complex, resilient and innovative species that we are - without millennia of stability and peace.
This episode’s guest, Heide Goettner-Abendroth, established the formal study of this peaceful past - and present - known as Matriarchal Studies. Through the institute she founded, International Academia Hagia of Modern Matriarchal Studies, she has spent nearly 40 years researching and disseminating a vast repository of knowledge about matriarchal societies around the world - their politics, economics, social practices and spirituality.
In this episode we barely scratch the surface of what there is to know, but for those of us who worry about our violent and unequal present, where only a few humans at the top of the hierarchy are getting their needs met, and great masses of our human family suffer - it feels like a key to a different world, a different humanity.
Credits
Host: Elle Kamihira
Produced by Elle Kamihira
Audio Engineering by Jason Sheesley at Abridged Audio
Cover Art by Bee Johnson
Music by Beware of Darkness
Dr. Heide Goettner-Abendroth
Founder & Director of International Academia Hagia of Modern Matriarchal Studies
Dr. Heide Goettner-Abendroth is a mother and a grandmother. She earned her Ph.D. in philosophy of science at the University of Munich where she lectured for ten years (1973-1983).
She has published on philosophy of science, and extensively on matriarchal society and culture, and through her lifelong research on matriarchal societies has become the founder of Modern Matriarchal Studies. Her main works are Matriarchal Societies: Studies on Indigenous Cultures across the Globe, (New York 2013, Peter Lang) in which she defines scientifically this new field of knowledge and provides a world tour of examples of contemporary matriarchal cultures; Matriarchal Societies of the Past and the Rise of Patriarchy in West Asia and Europe (New York 2022, Peter Lang) in which she uses her deep knowledge about matriarchal societies to review archaeological records and re-write the history of cultures.
She has been visiting professor at the University of Montreal in Canada, and the University of Innsbruck in Austria. She lectured extensively at home and abroad. In 1986, she founded the International Academy HAGIA for Modern Matriarchal Studies in Germany, and since then has been its director.
In 2003, 2005 and 2011 she guided three World Congresses on Matriarchal Studies in Europe and the U.S.A. She was twice a nominee for the Nobel Peace Prize, in 2005 by a Swiss initiative, in 2008 by a Finish initiative.