Ecotopian Exceptionalism
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/jsrnc.v5i2.145Keywords:
ecotopia, exceptionalism, Pacific Northwest, spirituality, utopia, dystopiaAbstract
Literature on the U.S. Paci?c Northwest generally paints the region in exceptionalist stripes, certainly in the deep connection its people maintain with an abundant natural landscape. Is Ecotopia exceptional? We interrogate the empirical basis for this claim, applying results from a mixed-method study of intentional and other communities in Oregon, and a comparative survey situating the Paci?c Northwest amidst other regions of the United States. Our focus was on imagined landscapes, both utopian and dystopian, as expressions of late-modern nature spirituality; we situated this emphasis in larger conversations around contemporary spiritual seeking and dwelling. Though there is no doubt that the biographies of those living in intentional communities and in the Paci?c Northwest are to some extent unique, our results suggest the need to temper this exceptionalist trope, both as a distinctive category of regional and spiritual identity, and as a salutary model of late-modern living worthy of the inordinate amount of attention it has received.References
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Tweed, Thomas. 2006. Crossing and Dwelling: A Theory of Religion (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press).
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Bauman, Zygmunt. 2000. Liquid Modernity (Cambridge: Polity Press).
———. 2007. Consuming Life (Cambridge: Polity Press).
Bingham, Edwin R., and Glen A. Love (eds.). 1979. Northwest Perspectives: Essays on the Culture of the Paci_c Northwest (Seattle: University of Washington Press).
Bloch, Jon P. 1998. ‘Alternative Spirituality and Environmentalism’, Review of Religious Research 40.1: 55-73. doi:10.2307/3512459.
Buell, Frederick. 2003. From Apocalypse to Way of Life: Environmental Crisis in the American Century (New York: Routledge).
Callenbach, Ernest. 1975. Ecotopia: The Notebooks and Reports of William Weston (New York: Bantam Books).
de Geus, Marius. 1999. Ecological Utopias: Envisioning the Sustainable Society (Utrecht: International Books).
Demerath, N.J. 1998. ‘Excepting Exceptionalism: American Religion in Comparative Relief’, Annals of the American Association of Political and Social Sciences 558: 28-39. doi:10.1177/0002716298558001004.
Genia, Vicky. 1997. ‘The Spiritual Experience Index: Revision and Reformulation’, Review of Religious Research 38.4: 344-61. doi:10.2307/3512195.
Hall, David (ed.). 1997. Lived Religion in America: Toward a History of Practice (Princeton: Princeton University Press).
Jacoby, Russell. 2005. Picture Imperfect: Utopian Thought for an Anti-Utopian Age (New York: Columbia University Press).
Killen, Patricia O’Connell, and Mark Silk. 2004. Religion and Public Life in the Paci_c Northwest: The None Zone (Lanham: AltaMira Press).
Kopp, Jim. 2009. Eden within Eden: Oregon’s Utopian Heritage (Corvalis: Oregon State University Press).
Lipset, Seymour Martin. 1996. American Exceptionalism: A Double-Edged Sword (London: Norton & Co.).
Marler, Penny Long, and C. Kirk Hadaway. 2002. ‘“Being Religious” or “Being Spiritual” in America: A Zero-Sum Proposition?’, Journal for the Scienti_c Study of Religion 41.2: 289-300. doi:10.1111/1468-5906.00117.
Pargament, Kenneth. 1999. ‘The Psychology of Religion and Spirituality: Yes and No’, International Journal for the Psychology of Religion 9.1: 3-16. doi:10.1207/s15327582ijpr0901_2.
Pepper, David. 2005. ‘Utopianism and Environmentalism’, Environmental Politics 14.1: 3–22. doi:10.1080/0964401042000310150.
Plumwood, Val. 2002. Environmental Culture: The Ecological Crisis of Reason (New York: Routledge).
Proctor, James D. 2008. ‘Old Growth and a New Nature: The Ambivalence of Science and Religion’, in Thomas A. Spies and Sally Duncan (eds.), Old Growth in a New World: Ecological and Social Perspectives on Forest Conservation in the Paci_c Northwest (Washington, DC: Island Press): 104-15.
Proctor, James D., and Evan Berry. 2005. ‘Social Science on Religion and Nature’, in Bron Taylor (ed.), Encyclopedia of Religion and Nature (New York: Continuum International): 1571-77.
Roof, Wade Clark. 1993. A Generation of Seekers: The Spiritual Journeys of the Baby Boom Generation (San Francisco: Harper).
———. 1998. ‘Modernity, the Religious and the Spiritual’, Annals of the American Association of Political and Social Sciences 558: 211-24. doi:10.1177/0002716298558001016.
Sennett, Richard. 2006. Culture of the New Capitalism (New Haven: Yale University Press).
Shibley, Mark. 2004. ‘Secular but Spiritual in the Paci_c Northwest’, in Killen and Silk 2004: 139-68.
Silk, Mark, and Andrew Walsh. 2008. One Nation, Divisible: How Regional Religious Differences Shape American Politics (Lanham: Rowman & Little_eld).
Smith, Neil. 1998. ‘Nature at the Millenium: Production and Re-enchantment’, in B. Braun and N. Castree (eds.), Remaking Reality: Nature at the Millenium (New York: Routledge): 271-85.
Stone, Donald. 1978. ‘New Religious Consciousness and Personal Religious Experience’, Sociological Analysis 39.2: 123-34. doi:10.2307/3710212.
Tiryakian, Edward A. 1993. ‘American Religious Exceptionalism: A Reconsideration’, Annals of the American Association of Political and Social Sciences 527: 40-54. doi:10.1177/0002716293527001004.
Todd, Douglas. 2008. Cascadia: The Elusive Utopia: Exploring the Spirit of the Paci_c Northwest (Vancouver: Ronsdale Press).
Tweed, Thomas. 2006. Crossing and Dwelling: A Theory of Religion (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press).
Wilde, Oscar. 1905. The Soul of Man under Socialism (Greenwich: The Literary Collector Press).
Wuthnow, Robert. 1998. After Heaven: Spirituality in America Since the 1950s (Berkeley: University of California Press).
Zinnbauer, Brian J. et al. 1997. ‘Religion and Spirituality: Unfuzzying the Fuzzy’, Journal for the Scienti_c Study of Religion 36.4: 549-64. doi:10.2307/1387689.
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Published
2011-08-29
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Articles
How to Cite
Proctor, J. D., & Berry, E. (2011). Ecotopian Exceptionalism. Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture, 5(2), 145-163. https://doi.org/10.1558/jsrnc.v5i2.145
