MACMILLAN Religion, Sustainability, and Place: Moral Geographies of the Anthropocene

This book explores how religious groups work to create sustainable relationships between people, places and environments. This interdisciplinary volume deepens our understanding of this relationship, revealing that the geographical imagination―our sense of place―is a key aspect of the sustainability ideas and practices of religious groups.  The book begins with a broad examination of how place shapes faith-based ideas about sustainability, with examples drawn from indigenous Hawaiians and the sacred texts of Judaism and Islam. Empirical case studies from North America, Europe, Central Asia and Africa follow, illustrating how a local, bounded, and sacred sense of place informs religious-based efforts to protect people and natural resources from threatening economic and political forces. Other contributors demonstrate that a cosmopolitan geographical imagination, viewing place as extending from the local to the global, shapes the struggles of Christian, Jewish and interfaith groups to promote just and sustainable food systems and battle the climate crisis. Review “The editors and authors are right to note that the field of sustainability studies has been strangely silent on the salience of religion. This volume provides exactly the right kind of intervention to this emerging and multidisciplinary field, that is one which includes a diverse range of voices, practitioners alongside academics, and focuses on a range of landscapes from Ethiopia to Scotland where religion and sustainability meet in specific problems and forms of praxis. I highly recommend it!” (Jeremy Kidwell, Department of Theology & Religion, University of Birmingham) From the Back Cover “The editors and authors are right to note that the field of sustainability studies has been strangely silent on the salience of religion. This volume provides exactly the right kind of intervention to this emerging and multidisciplinary field, that is one which includes a diverse range of voices, practitioners alongside academics, and focuses on a range of landscapes from Ethiopia to Scotland where religion and sustainability meet in specific problems and forms of praxis. I highly recommend it!” ― Jeremy Kidwell, Department of Theology & Religion, University of Birmingham This book explores how religious groups work to create sustainable relationships between people, places and environments. This interdisciplinary volume deepens our understanding of this relationship, revealing that the geographical imagination―our sense of place―is a key aspect of the sustainability ideas and practices of religious groups.  The book begins with a broad examination of how place shapes faith-based ideas about sustainability, with examples drawn from indigenous Hawaiians and the sacred texts of Judaism and Islam. Empirical case studies from North America, Europe, Central Asia and Africa follow, illustrating how a local, bounded, and sacred sense of place informs religious-based efforts to protect people and natural resources from threatening economic and political forces. Other contributors demonstrate that a cosmopolitan geographical imagination, viewing place as extending from the local to the global, shapes the struggles of Christian, Jewish and interfaith groups to promote just and sustainable food systems and battle the climate crisis. About the Author Steven E. Silvern is Professor of Geography and Sustainability at Salem State University. His research has appeared in journals such as Political Geography, Cultural Geographies, Historical Geography, and American Indian Culture and Research Journal. He is also editor of The Northeastern Geographer. Edward H. Davis is Professor and Chair in the Department of Geography and Environmental Studies at Emory & Henry College in Virginia, USA. He has published extensively on rural and agricultural change in the US and Central America. Funded by the USDA, his explorations for se