‘Lived’ Environmentalism
Lifestyle Politics or Nonreligious Worldview?
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/jasr.26752Keywords:
Environmentalism, Nonreligion, Worldviews, social movementsAbstract
In this article, I synthesise three literatures that—whilst having significant overlap, are largely not in conversation with one another: social movement theory on the ‘religion-like’ characteristics of social movements (particularly environmentalism); work by scholars in religious studies tracing the religious roots and contemporary spiritual aspects of environmental movements; and the emerging literature on the contours of nonreligious belief and practice in contemporary societies—especially as they relate to nature. Using these literatures, I show how environmentalisms articulate a ‘cosmology’ or worldview that gives meaning to the world, imbues ethical meaning to material objects like single-use plastics and their reusable alternatives, and is translated into everyday practices that attempt to remoralise activists’ relationship with the natural world. The article responds to a call by scholars of nonreligion to pay greater attention to ‘lived’ nonreligion, and in particular, how nonreligious worldviews translate into ‘world-repairing’ forms of social and political action. I argue that social movements are rich sites for the study of lived nonreligion, as they offer their participants space for the cultivation, expression, and embodiment of ‘moral visions’.
References
Alaimo, Stacy 2010 Bodily Natures: Sciences, Environment and the Material Self. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Ammerman, Nancy 2006 Everyday Religion: Observing Modern Religious Lives. New York: Oxford University Press.
Ammerman, Nancy 2014 2013 Paul Hanly Furfey Lecture: Finding Religion in Everyday Life. Sociology of Religion 75(2): 189–207. https://doi.org/10.1093/socrel/sru013
Armstrong, Karen 2022 Sacred Nature: Restoring Our Ancient Bond with the Natural World. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
Australian Bureau of Statistics 2022 Religious Affiliation in Australia: Exploration of the Changes in Reported Religion in the 2021 Census. https://www.abs.gov.au/articles/religious-affiliation-australia
Beaman, Lori G. 2017 Living Well Together in a (Non)Religious Future: Contributions from the Sociology of Religion. Sociology of Religion 78(1): 9–32. https://doi.org/10.1093/socrel/srw054
Beaman, Lori G. 2021 Reclaiming Enchantment: The Transformational Possibilities of Immanence. Secularism and Nonreligion 10(1): 1–14. https://doi.org/10.5334/snr.149
Berry, Evan 2015 Devoted to Nature: The Religious Roots of American Environmentalism. Oakland, CA: University of California Press.
Bramadat, Paul 2022 Reverential Naturalism in Cascadia: From the Fancy to the Sublime. In Religion at the Edge: Nature, Spirituality, and Secularity in the Pacific Northwest, edited by Paul Bramadat, Patricia O’Connell Killen and Sarah Wilkins-Laflamme, 23–40. Vancouver, BC: UBC Press.
Breines, Wini 1989 Community Organization in the New Left, 1962–1968: The Great Refusal. Piscataway, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
Bullivant, Stephen 2020 Explaining the Rise of ‘Nonreligion Studies’: Subfield Formation and Institutionalization within the Sociology of Religion. Social Compass 67(1): 86–102. https://doi.org/10.1177/0037768619894815
Bullivant, Stephen, and Lois Lee 2016 Existential Cultures. In A Dictionary of Atheism. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Online: https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/acref/9780191816819.001.0001/acref-9780191816819-e-42?rskey=fbOoox&result=42
Carvalho, António, and Vera Ferreira 2022 Climate Crisis, Neoliberal Environmentalism and the Self: The Case of ‘Inner Transition’. Social Movement Studies 23(1): 1–18. https://doi.org/10.1080/14742837.2022.2070740
Crossley, Nick 2003 Even Newer Social Movements? Anti-Corporate Protests, Capitalist Crises and the Remoralisation of Society. Organization 10(2): 289–305.
Deflorian, Michael 2021 Refigurative Politics: Understanding the Volatile Participation of Critical Creatives in Community Gardens, Repair Cafés and Clothing Swaps. Social Movement Studies 20(3): 346–63. https://doi.org/10.1080/14742837.2020.1773250
Diani, Mario 1993 Themes of Modernity in New Religious Movements and New Social Movements. Social Science Information 32(1): 111–31. https://doi.org/10.1177/053901893032001006
Driscoll, Daniel 2018 Beyond Organizational Ties: Foundations of Persistent Commitment in Environmental Activism. Social Movement Studies 17(6): 697–715. https://doi.org/10.1080/14742837.2018.1519412
Eder, Klaus 1990 The Rise of Counter-Culture Movements Against Modernity: Nature as a New Field of Class Struggle. Theory, Culture & Society 7(4): 21–47. https://doi.org/10.1177/026327690007004002
Engelke, Matthew 2012 Material Religion. In The Cambridge Companion to Religious Studies, edited by Robert Orsi, 209–29. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Eyerman, Ron, and Andrew Jamison 1991 Social Movements: A Cognitive Approach. Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State University Press.
Gottlieb, Roger 2006 Religion and Ecology—What Is the Connection and Why Does It Matter? In The Oxford Handbook of Religion and Ecology, edited by Roger S. Gottlieb, 3–21. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Haenfler, Ross, Brett Johnson and Ellis Jones 2012 Lifestyle Movements: Exploring the Intersection of Lifestyle and Social Movements. Social Movement Studies 11(1): 1–20. https://doi.org/10.1080/14742837.2012.640535
Hancock, Rosemary 2015 Is There a Paradox of Religion and Liberation? Islamic Environmental Activism in the United States and Great Britain. Journal for the Academic Study of Religion 28(1): 42–60.
Hancock, Rosemary 2018 Islamic Environmentalism: Activism in the United States and Great Britain. London: Routledge.
Hancock, Rosemary 2019 Ecology in Islam. In Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Religion. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press. Online: https://oxfordre.com/religion/display/10.1093/acrefore/9780199340378.001.0001/acrefore-9780199340378-e-510
Hancock, Rosemary 2020a Environmental Conversions and Muslim Activists: Constructing Knowledge at the Intersection of Religion and Politics. Social Movement Studies 19(3): 287–302. https://doi.org/10.1080/14742837.2019.1665505
Hancock, Rosemary 2020b Muslim Environmentalists, Activism, and Religious Duty. In Muslim Volunteering in the West: Between Islamic Ethos and Citizenship, edited by Mario Peucker and Merve Reyhan Kayikci, 141–60. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan.
Hannigan, John A. 1993 New Social Movement Theory and the Sociology of Religion: Synergies and Syntheses. In A Future for Religion? New Paradigms for Social Analysis, edited by William H. Swatos, 1–18. London: Sage Publications.
Hawkins, Gay 2019 Plastic Materialities. In Political Matter: Technoscience, Democracy and Public Life, edited by Bruce Braun, Sarah Whatmore, Isabelle Stengers and Jane Bennet, 119–39. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Herbert, David, and Josh Bullock 2020 Reaching for a New Sense of Connection: Soft Atheism and ‘Patch and Make Do’ Spirituality amongst Nonreligious European Millennials. Culture and Religion 21(2): 157–77. https://doi.org/10.1080/14755610.2020.1862887
Jasper, James M. 1997 The Art of Moral Protest. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press.
Katz, Solomon H. 1999 Toward a New Concept of Global Morality. Zygon 34(2): 237–54. https://doi.org/10.1111/0591-2385.00209
Kneale Gould, Rebecca 2005 At Home in Nature: Modern Homesteading and Spiritual Practice in America. Los Angeles: University of California Press.
Lappé, Frances Moore 1972 Diet for a Small Planet: Tenth Anniversary Edition. New York: Ballantine Books.
Lee, Lois 2012 Talking about a Revolution: Terminology for the New Field of Nonreligion Studies. Journal of Contemporary Religion 27(1): 129–39. https://doi.org/10.1080/13537903.2012.642742
McCalman, Caroline 2023 ‘A Proper Environmentalist Wouldn’t Do That’: Discourses of Alienation from the Environmental Periphery. Social Movement Studies 22(4): 530–48. https://doi.org/10.1080/14742837.2022.2054796
McGuire, Meredith 2008 Lived Religion: Faith and Practice in Everyday Life. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Melucci, Alberto 1994 Strange Kind of Newness. In New Social Movements: From Ideology to Identity, edited by Enrique Larana, Hank Johnston and Joseph R. Gusfield, 101–30. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
Melucci, Alberto 1996 Challenging Codes: Collective Action in the Information Age. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Micheletti, Michele 2003 Political Virtue and Shopping: Individuals, Consumerism and Collective Action. New York: Palgrave MacMillan.
Morgan, David 2016 The Material Analysis and Study of Religion. In Materiality and the Study of Religion: The Stuff of the Sacred, edited by Tim Hutchings and Joanne McKenzie, 14–32. Taylor & Francis.
Oelschlaeger, Max 1994 Caring for Creation: An Ecumenical Approach. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Office for National Statistics 2022 Religion, England and Wales: Census 2021. https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/culturalidentity/religion/bulletins/religionenglandandwales/census2021
Pew Research Center 2022 Modeling the Future of Religion in America. https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2022/09/13/modeling-the-future-of-religion-in-america/
Pike, Sarah 2017 For the Wild: Ritual and Commitment in Radical Eco-Activism. Oakland, CA: University of California Press.
Salonen, Anna Sofia 2019 Dominion, Stewardship and Reconciliation in the Accounts of Ordinary People Eating Animals. Religions 10(12): 1–16. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel10120669
Salonen, Anna Sofia 2022 Creator, Saviour, Garburator: (Re)Imagining the Human Role in the World through a Case of Food Waste. Social Compass, December. https://doi.org/10.1177/00377686221144400
Singleton, Andrew, Mary Lou Rasmussen, Anna Halafoff and Gary Bouma 2021 Freedoms, Faiths and Futures: Teenage Australians on Religion, Sexuality and Diversity. London: Bloomsbury Academic.
Smith, Jesse M., and Caitlin L. Halligan 2021 Making Meaning without a Maker: Secular Consciousness through Narrative and Cultural Practice. Sociology of Religion 82(1): 85–110. https://doi.org/10.1093/socrel/sraa016
Stacey, Timothy 2020 Imaginary Friends and Made-Up Stories: How to Explore (Non) Religious Imaginaries Without Asking Belief-Centred Questions. Secularism and Nonreligion 9: 1–7. https://doi.org/10.5334/snr.125
Statistics Canada 2022 The Canadian Census: A Rich Portrait of the Country’s Religious and Ethnocultural Diversity. Statistics Canada. 2022. https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/221026/dq221026b-eng.htm
Statistics NZ Tatauranga Aotearoa 2019 Losing Our Religion. Stats NZ Tatauranga Aotearoa. 2019. https://www.stats.govt.nz/news/losing-our-religion
Taves, Ann 2018 What is Nonreligion? On the Virtues of a Meaning Systems Framework for Studying Nonreligious and Religious Worldviews in the Context of Everyday Life. Secularism and Nonreligion 7(1): 1–6. https://doi.org/10.5334/snr.104
Taylor, Bron 1997 Earthen Spirituality or Cultural Genocide?: Radical Environmentalism’s Appropriation of Native American Spirituality. Religion 27(2): 183-215. https://doi.org/10.1006/reli.1996.0042
Taylor, Bron 2001 Earth and Nature-Based Spirituality (Part I): From Deep Ecology to Radical Environmentalism. Religion 3(2): 175–93. https://doi.org/10.1006/reli.2000.0256
Vogel, Steven 1988 Marx and Alienation from Nature. Social Theory and Practice 14(3): 367–87. https://doi.org/10.5840/soctheorpract198814317
Published
Issue
Section
License
Equinox Publishing Ltd.
