The Spiritualization of Ecology and (De)politicization

Abstract

This article examines the political effects of the spiritualization of ecology by considering the theoretical debate opposing ecology as subpolitics (i.e., a vector of new forms of politicization) and ecology as post-politics (i.e., a vector of depoliticization). This debate addresses the links between ecology, spirituality, and politics and hinges on the contrasting ways in which these terms may be understood. This study brings empirical specilcity to this debate by analyzing how it unfolds among environmentalist farmers in France. The lndings show how different views on ecology, spirituality, and politics coexist in one and the same movement depending on the farmers’ backgrounds. This demonstrates the ongoing redelnition of spirituality as a cultural category crosscutting the modern opposition between politics and religion, and highlights an understanding of the spiritualization of ecology as the addition of alternative political perspectives, more or less openly competing, rather than as a one-dimensional process of (de)politicization.