Is There a Paradox of Liberation and Religion? Muslim Environmentalists, Activism, and Religious Practice
Issue: Vol 28 No. 1 (2015)
Journal: Journal for the Academic Study of Religion
Subject Areas: Religious Studies Buddhist Studies Islamic Studies Biblical Studies
Abstract:
Social movement theorists have often posited that religion and political activism are inherently opposed—that religion cannot liberate people from situations of social or political discontent in the same manner as activism. Through a study of Muslim environmental activists in the United Kingdom and United States of America, this article directly challenges this belief—not only by charting the theoretical problems of this belief within the social movement theory corpus, but also by demonstrating that Muslim environmentalists in the US and UK are both religious and politically active simultaneously. Environmental activism is drawn into Islamic practice in such a way that activism becomes religious practice in the lives of these Muslim activists.
Author: Rosemary Hancock
References :
Ali, Zainab
2013 Interview by Rosemary Hancock, (July 5)
Bayat, Asef
2005 Islamism and Social Movement Theory. Third World Quarterly, 26(6): 891–908.
Beck, Ulrich
1995 Ecological Politics in an Age of Risk. Polity, Cambridge.
Benford, Robert D., and David A. Snow
2000 Framing Processes and Social Movements: An Overview and Assessment. Annual Review of Sociology, 26: 611–639.
Brechin, Steven R., and Willet Kempton
1994 Global Environmentalism: A Challenge to the Postmaterialism Thesis? Social Science Quarterly, 75(2): 245-269.
Connor, Linda H.
2012 Experimental Publics: Activist Culture and Political Intelligibility of Climate Change Action in the Hunter Valley, Southeast Australia. Oceania, 82(3): 228-249.
Cotgrove, Stephen, and Andrew Duff
1981 Environmentalism, Values, and Social Change. The British Journal of Sociology, 32(1): 92-110.
Doyle, Aaron
2003 Arresting Images: Crime and Policing in Front of the Television. University of Toronto Press, Toronto.
Dunlap, Riley E. and Richard York
2012 The Globalization of Environmental Concern and the Limits of the Postmaterial Values Explanation: Evidence from Four Multinational Surveys. The Sociological Quarterly, 49(3): 529-563.
Ferree, Myra Marx, and Carol McClurg Mueller
2004 Feminism and the Women’s Movement: A Global Perspective. In The Blackwell Companion to Social Movements, edited by David A. Snow, Sarah A. Soule, and Hanspeter Kriesi, 576–607. Blackwell Publishers Ltd, Oxford.
Fitzgerald, Scott T.
2009 Cooperative Collective Action: Framing Faith-Based Community Development. Mobilization, 14(2): 181–198.
Fraser, Nancy
1995 From Redistribution to Recognition? Dilemmas of Justice in a ‘Post-Socialist’ Age. New Left Review, I(212): 68-93.
Gerlach, Luther, and Virginia Hine
1970 People, Power, Change: Movement of Social Transformation. Bobbs-Merill, Indianapolis.
Green Muslims DC
2013 Green Muslims. Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/greenmuslims (accessed September 3, 2013)
Habermas, Jurgen
1981 New Social Movements. Telos, 49: 33–37.
Hannigan, John A.
1991 Social Movement Theory and the Sociology of Religion: Toward a New Synthesis. Sociological Analysis, 52(4): 311–331.
Huntington, Samuel P.
1993 The Clash of Civilizations? Foreign Affairs, (Summer)
Hussain, Muzammal
2013 Interview by Rosemary Hancock, (July 19)
Inglehart, Ronald
1977 The Silent Revolution. Princeton University Press, New Jersey.
Jandali, Ameena
2013 Interview by Rosemary Hancock, (June 30)
Johnson, Erik W., and Scott Frickel
2011 Ecological Threat and the Founding of the U.S. National Environmental Movement Organizations 1962-1998. Social Problems, 58(3): 305–329.
Kadir, Khalid
2013 Interview by Rosemary Hancock, (June 30)
Kamil, Bhawana
2013 Interview by Rosemary Hancock, (June 21)
Khalid, Fazlun M., and Dawud Price
2012 Interview by Rosemary Hancock, (April 23)
Khalid, Fazlun M., and Dawud Price
2013 Interview by Rosemary Hancock, (July 25)
Khan, Hana
2013 Interview by Rosemary Hancock, (June 21)
Kidd, Quentin and Aie-Rie Lee
1997 Postmaterialist Values and the Environment: A Critique and Reappraisal. Social Science Quarterly, 78(1): 1-15.
Kniss, Fred, and Gene Burns
2004 Religious Movements. In The Blackwell Companion to Social Movements, edited by David A. Snow, Sarah A. Soule, and Hanspeter Kriesi, 694–716. Blackwell Publishers Ltd, Oxford.
Kurzman, Charles
1994 A Dynamic View of Resources: Evidence from the Iranian Revolution. In Research in Social Movements, Conflict and Change, edited by Michael Dobkowski and Isidor Wallimann, 17:53–84. Jai Press Inc, Connecticut.
2004 Conclusion: Social Movement Theory and Islamic Activism. In Islamic Activism: A Social Movement Approach, 289–303. Indiana University Press, Bloomington.
1996 Structural Opportunity and Perceived Opportunity in Social-Movement Theory: The Iranian Revolution of 1979. American Sociological Review, 61(1): 153–170.
Kuzmiak, D.T.
1991 The American Environmental Movement. The Geographical Journal, 157(3): 265–278.
Lewis, Bernard
1990 The Roots of Muslim Rage. The Atlantic, (September) Online: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1990/09/the-roots-of-muslim-rage/304643/ (accessed October 5, 2013)
Lymer, Elizabeth
2013 Interview by Rosemary Hancock, (July 16)
Marx, Karl
1967 [1844] Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher. Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt.
Maslow, Abraham
1943 A Theory of Human Motivation. Psychological Review, 50(4): 370–396.
McAdam, Doug
1982 Political Process and the Development of Black Insurgency, 1930-1970. University of Chicago Press, Chicago.
Melucci, Alberto
1989 Nomads of the Present: Social Movements and Individual Needs in Contemporary Society. Temple University Press, Philadelphia.
1996 Challenging Codes: Collective Information in the Information Age. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Morris, Aldon D.
1984 The Origins of the Civil Rights Movement: Black Communities Organizing for Change. The Free Press, New York.
North, Peter
2011 The Politics of Climate Activism in the UK: A Social Movement Analysis. Environment and Planning, 43: 1581-1598.
Oberschall, Anthony
2004 Explaining Terrorism: The Contribution of Collective Action Theory. Sociological Theory, 22(1): 26–37.
Offe, Claus
1985 New Social Movements: Challenging the Boundaries of Institutional Politics. Social Research, 52(4): 817–868.
Oliver, Pamela E., and Hank Johnston
2000 What a Good Idea! Ideologies and Frames in Social Movement Research. Mobilization, 4(1): 37–54.
Paltridge, Brian
2006 Discourse Analysis. Continuum Press, London.
Park, Robert E.
1967 On Social Control and Collective Behaviour. University of Chicago Press, Chicago.
Rootes, Christopher
2012 Climate Change, Environmental Activism and Community Action in Britain. Social Alternatives, Vol 31(1): 24-28.
2004 Environmental Movements. In The Blackwell Companion to Social Movements, edited by David A. Snow, Sarah A. Soule, and Hanspeter Kriesi, 608–640. Blackwell Publishers Ltd, Oxford.
Sea Shepherd
2014 Campaign History
http://www.seashepherd.org.au/relentless/about-the-campaign/campaign-history.html (accessed November 3, 2014)
Snow, David A., and Robert D. Benford.
1988 Ideology, Frame Resonance, and Participant Mobilization. In From Structure to Action: Social Movement Participation Across Cultures, edited by Bert Klandermans, Hanspeter Kriesi, and Sidney Tarrow, 197–217. JAI Press, Connecticut.
Snow, David A., and Scott C. Byrd
2007 Ideology, Framing Processes, and Islamic Terrorist Movements. Mobilization, 12(1): 119–136.
Snow, David A., and Susan E. Marshall
1984 Cultural Imperialism, Social Movements, and the Islamic Revival. Research in Social Movements, Conflict and Change, 7: 131–152.
Stark, Rodney
1964 Class, Radicalism, and Religious Involvement in Great Britain. American Sociological Review, 29: 698–706.
Tarrow, Sidney
1998 Power in Movement: Social Movements and Contentious Politics. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Touraine, Alain
1988 Return of the Actor : Social Theory in Postindustrial Society. trans. Myrna Godzich, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis.
1971 The Post-Industrial Society: Tomorrow’s Social History: Classes, Conflicts and Culture in the Programmed Society. Random House, New York.
Wiktorowicz, Quintan
2002 Islamic Activism and Social Movement Theory: A New Direction for Research. Mediterranean Politics, 7(3): 187–211.
2004 (ed.) Islamic Activism: A Social Movement Theory Approach. Indiana University Press, Bloomington.
Wisdom in Nature
2013 Core Strands. http://www.wisdominnature.org.uk/About%20Us/Core_strands/core_strands.htm (accessed February 4, 2013)