Longing for Nature in the Context of Massive Urbanization: An Analysis of Enchantment ”Practices Implying Trees“
FBK Aula Piccola
Fondazione Bruno Kessler - Polo delle Scienze Umane e sociali
Aula Piccola
FBK Aula Piccola
Fondazione Bruno Kessler - Polo delle Scienze Umane e sociali
Aula Piccola
In the first decades of the new millennium, a large number of demonstrations and climate strikes led to a rapid rise in environmental awareness in Western Europe. At the same time, the religious composition of Western societies has undergone fundamental changes in terms of both secularization and diversification. Moreover, spirituality no longer counts just as piety or esoterism, but is given a wide variety of meanings through the influence of global cultural exchanges, especially as an individual dimension that finds expression in the fields of art, culture and commercial branding. Hubert Knoblauch speaks of a popularisation of spirituality[1] that also affects the ecological sphere currently. In 2015, a research team I led at the University of Lausanne also began to document the convergence of an “ecologisation of religion” and a “spiritualisation of ecology” in French-speaking Switzerland, as urban environmentalists increasingly referred to “spirituality”.
In numerous parts of Europe, in cities and their surroundings, persons oppose the felling of trees through sit-ins or petitions. Cites are on the one hand going through massive urbanization and densification as the population is rapidly growing, which puts huge economic pressure to increase real estate. Cities are also confronted increasingly to health problems linked to pollution and to heat peaks so that for a dozen of years at least they also promote the planting of trees. Symbolically trees do have a high value in this given context.
[1] Knoblauch, Hubert, “Popular Spirituality.” In Present-Day Spiritualities: Contrasts and Overlaps, edited by Elisabeth Hense, Frans Jespers and Peter Nissen, 81-102. Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2014
Speaker: IRENE BECCI | Università di Losanna
Scientific coordination: Massimo Leone, Director FBK-ISR
Cycle of seminars: “(Dis-)Enchantment in Religion and Ethics“
The talk will be held in English.
The presentation will be in-person in the FBK Aula Piccola while seats last and online.
Registration by October 11, 2024 at 12:00 a.m. is required in order to arrange the connection.
The speaker will join remotely.
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L’iniziativa è stata realizzata anche grazie al contributo della Direzione generale Educazione, ricerca e istituti culturali del Ministero della Cultura. |
Speakers
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IRENE BECCI - SpeakerIrene Becci studied sociology and anthropology in Switzerland, Italy, the USA and Germany. She has done theoretical and empirical research on the links between religion and the state, new spiritual practices and recognition. Since 2012 she has been holding, as a professor, the chair of Emerging Religions and New Spiritualities at the University of Lausanne (CH). Her main research interests are the implications of religious and spiritual diversity in specific contexts, such as ecological commitment, marginal urban areas, post-socialist areas, or state institutions as well as epistemological and methodological issues of qualitative research. Most recently she published (as author and editor ): Les éco-spiritualités contemporaines. Un changement culturel en Suisse (2024. CULTuREL, Seismo).
Registration
Registration to this event is mandatory.
Registration closed on 11/10/2024.
Deadline: October 11, 2024 at 12:00 a.m.