Faith-based Groups and Everyday Environmentalism: Challenge to Elite Privilege?

• In Event: Religious-Based Mobilization

Abstract

Recent work on environmentalism has uncovered new forms of environmental mobilization, engagement and practice. Scholarship on ‘everyday environmentalism’ (J Meyer; L Yates) and ‘sustainable materialism’ (D Schlosberg) has explored distinct forms of environmental activism based not on the traditional advocacy of NGOs, parties, or movements but on small scale initiatives seeking to counter elite privilege by building an alternative collective politics surrounding everyday processes, especially those linked to the flows of materials (like food, energy, clothing) through our everyday lives. This paper investigates these processes with a specific focus on the different (often new) type of actors involved. One such actor is the faith based group, many of whom have become increasingly engaged with issues of climate and sustainability, often linked to concerns of social justice. Focusing on a case study of eco-congregations in the UK, a non-denominational network of churches taking action on issues of climate and justice, this paper analyses how these groups engage with everyday practices linked to energy, gardening, food and waste. It compares their actions and motivations with other secular actors engaged in small actions to challenge dominant practices and ‘create a better world.’ The analysis should help us understand the diverse type of people involved in the understated and under-researched forms of ‘everyday environmentalism’. It will helps us probe in more depth the varied motivations of the groups so engaged. And it will help assess the extent to which ‘politics of the everyday’ can challenge dominant material flows.

Author

• Elizabeth Bomberg, University of Edinburgh