The Institute for Ethics and Society at the University of Notre Dame Australia (Sydney) in collaboration with Deakin University’s Religion, Society and Culture Network invites paper proposals for a workshop on the theme of (Non)Religion, Spirituality and Ecological Politics to be held on 31 October 2022. The workshop will explore the interaction of contemporary religion, spirituality and non-religion with environmental politics and planetary wellbeing. We invite reflection upon the relationship of diverse religious, spiritual, and non-religious worldviews to politics of action and non-action addressing ecological crisis.

A significant body of scholarship examines the relationships of the so-called ‘world religions’ to environmental politics and ecology – in this workshop we wish to move beyond this paradigm to one of ‘worldview complexity’–exploring the interconnections between diverse worldviews and planetary wellbeing. In this workshop we are interested in both engagement in political action, and in the political significance of stillness, slowness and ‘non-action’, often grounded in spiritual practice, in resisting the pace and pressures of neoliberalism.

We invite reflections exploring any aspect of diverse religious, spiritual, and non-religious worldviews and their interaction with environmental politics and ecology such as:

• The role of First Nations, religious and holistic spiritual knowledges in ecological politics and action;
• The significance of traditions of asceticism or nonaction for environmental politics;
• Diverse religious, spiritual, and non-religious worldviews mobilised for and against action on climate change;
• Diverse religious, spiritual, and non-religious worldviews informing or opposing multispecies justice;
• The nexus between personal and planetary wellbeing.

Please send abstract submissions to Dr Rosemary Hancock (rosemary.hancock@nd.edu.au) by 30 September 2022 to participate in the workshop.

To attend via zoom, please register by emailing Dr Hancock.