RT Article
T1 ‘Lived’ Environmentalism: Lifestyle Politics or Nonreligious Worldview?
JF Journal for the academic study of religion
VO 37
IS 3
SP 274
OP 296
A1 Hancock, Rosemary
LA English
YR 2024
UL https://ixtheo.de/Record/1915255422
AB 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’.
K1 Environmentalism
K1 GE195-199 Environmentalism
K1 Nonreligion
K1 Studies in religion
K1 Worldviews
K1 Social Movements
DO 10.1558/jasr.26752