Managing Spirituality
Public Religion and National Parks
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/jsrnc.v1i4.431Keywords:
public religion, national parks, spiritualityAbstract
This article outlines four techniques through which the National Park Service manages the spirituality of park visitors: (1) the maintenance of bodily discipline; (2) evocation of the natural sublime; (3) implication of global interconnectedness; and (4) facilitation of individual differentiation. These techniques work together to construct spirituality as a private investment in the public space of the park. I argue that the National Park Service thus creates structural links between the individuality of visitors and a certain way of organizing the parks, a way that appears natural and is highly managed by the state. In this way a private, individualistic nature spirituality takes on the character of public religion.
References
Albanese, C.L. 1990 Nature Religion in America: From the Algonkian Indians to the New Age (Chicago: University of Chicago Press).
American Spiritualities: A Reader (Bloomington: Indiana University Press).
Eissler, M. 2002 ‘Ranger Walk—Music for Parks’ (interpretive program presented in Yosemite National Park; Yosemite, California, 7 September).
Kant, I. 2000 Critique of the Power of Judgment (New York: Cambridge University Press).
Kelley, K.W., and J.Y. Cousteau 1988 The Home Planet (Reading, MA: Pearson Addison Wesley).
Luhmann, N. 1986 ‘The Discovery of Incommunicability’, in Love as Passion: The Codification of Intimacy (Stanford: University of California Press): 121-28.
Mitchell, K. n.d. ‘“This Is My Church”: Spirituality and National Parks’ (PhD dissertation; University of California, Santa Barbara).
National Park Service 1994 [1960] ‘A Back Country Management Plan for Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks’, in Lary M. Dilsaver (ed.), America's National Park System: The Critical Documents (New York: Rowman & Littlefield): 211-16.
Parker, J. 2003 ‘Mewu Eh, Ahwahneechee Traditions’ (interpretive program presented in Yosemite National Park; Yosemite, California, 9 August).
Roof, W.C. 1993 A Generation of Seekers (San Francisco: Harper).
Spiritual Marketplace (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press).
Ross-Bryant, L. 2005 ‘Sacred Sites: Nature and Nation in the U.S. National Parks’, Religion and American Culture 15: 31-62. doi:10.1525/rac.2005.15.1.31.
Runte, A. 1979 National Parks: The American Experience (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press).
Shelby, B., and T.A. Heberlein 1986 Carrying Capacity in Recreation Settings (Corvallis: Oregon State University Press).
Spirit of Yosemite 2001 Produced and directed by David Vassar (Greystone Films).
Taylor, B. 2001 ‘Earth and Nature-Based Spirituality (Part I): From Deep Ecology to Radical Environmentalism’, Religion 31: 175-93. doi:10.1006/reli.2000.0256.
Zinnbauer, B. et al. 1997 ‘Religion and Spirituality: Unfuzzying the Fuzzy’, Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 36: 549-64. doi:10.2307/1387689.
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
.jpg){kind=spacer}
Religion Feeds
