The Development of Ecospirituality Among British Quakers

Authors

  • Peter Jeffrey Collins Dept of Anthropology Durham University UK

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.37536/ECOZONA.2011.2.2.420

Abstract

This paper focuses on the historical development of ecospirituality, that is, a faith and practice both generating and informed by an appreciation of environmental concerns, among the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) in Britain. Decisions made within and by such groups are significantly determined by their understanding of the moral and ethical character of the environment and their relation to it. This ethical and moral character might derive from a variety of sources; in contemporary concerns for the environment it resides primarily in the cultural, economic, and political context of particular social phenomena. Quakers, it would seem, are more or less typical environmentalists in so far as their decision either to buy or refrain from buying this or that item is informed by both moral and religious judgement. The historical trajectory of Quaker consumption is characterised by a principle, plaining, that has enabled Quakers to frame their environmentalism in a more or less unique way. During the first hundred years of the movement (1650-1750), Quakers adopted a system of discipline in which committees (local, regional, and national) imposed upon the membership a strict regime of prescriptions and proscriptions. These lists of dos and don’ts, justified by reference to Biblical and other texts, concerned virtually every aspect of life, and these decisions were informed by specific environmental sensibilities central to Quaker faith and practice. From 1750 to 1950, this intense and intrusive discipline, upheld through group-surveillance, diminished. After 1950, the evolution of the group from a discipline which itemised the plain to the internalisation of individual members of the process of plaining was more or less complete. Discipline was increasingly a matter of self-surveillance. Contemporary Quakers emphasise efficient and effective dissemination of information, particularly relating to issues such as human rights and the environment. This process contributes to the local and national narratives which together sustain a kind of ecospirituality which has developed over the course of three centuries.


Este artículo analiza el desarrollo histórico de la eco-espiritualidad, una fe y una práctica generadora y resultante de una percepción de los problemas medioambientales entre la Sociedad Religiosa de los Amigos (cuáqueros) en Gran Bretaña. Las decisiones tomadas por y dentro de estos grupos están significativamente determinadas por su compresión del carácter moral y ético del medioambiente y por su relación con el mismo; en cuanto a las inquietudes ecologistas contemporáneas residen fundamentalmente en el contexto cultural, económico y político de determinados fenómenos sociales. Parecería que los cuáqueros serían más o menos ecologistas típicos en función de si su decisión de comprar algo o abstenerse de hacerlo es resultante de juicios morales y religiosos. La trayectoria histórica del consumo de los cuáqueros está caracterizada por un lema, la "sencillez" (plaining), que los ha incapacitado para encuadrar su ecologismo en una vía más o menos única. Durante el primer siglo de vida del movimiento (1650-1750), los cuáqueros adoptaron un sistema disciplinario en el que comités locales, regionales y nacionales impusieron un estricto régimen de prescripciones y prohibiciones entre sus miembros. Dicho régimen, justificado por referencias a textos bíblicos y de otra índole, afectaba a cada aspecto de su existencia y se fundamentó en la específica sensibilidad ecológica de la fe y la práctica cuáqueras. De 1750 a 1950 esta intensa y molesta disciplina, sustentada en la vigilancia grupal, disminuyó. De modo que podemos considerar que la evolución del grupo desde una disciplina que desglosaba el plan hasta la internacionalización de miembros individuales de la "sencillez" (plaining) estaba más o menos realizada en 1950. La disciplina fue pues convirtiéndose progresivamente en una cuestión de auto-vigilancia. Los cuáqueros contemporáneos destacan por su diseminación eficiente y efectiva de información, particularmente  relacionada con aspectos como los derechos humanos y el medioambiente. Este proceso contribuye a sus narrativas locales y nacionales que juntas sostienen un tipo de eco-espiritualidad que se ha desarrollado a lo largo de tres siglos.

Descriptores: Eco-espiritualidad; Ecologismo; Cuaquerismo; Plaining.

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Author Biography

Peter Jeffrey Collins, Dept of Anthropology Durham University UK

Peter Collins is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Anthropology, Durham University. His research interests include religion, historical anthropology, space and place, and narrative theory. He has carried out fieldwork among British and Kenyan Quakers, local government employees in the North of England, and Chaplaincies in British NHS acute hospitals, and has published widely on the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) in particular. He has recently co-edited The Quaker Condition: the Sociology of a Liberal Tradition (Cambridge Scholars Press, with P. Dandelion), Locating the Field: Space, Place and Context in Anthropology (Berg, with Simon Coleman), Texts and Religious Contexts (Ashgate, with Elisabeth Arweck); The Ethnographic Self as Resource (Berghahn, with Anselma Gallinat); and Dislocating Anthropology? Bases of Longing and Belonging in the Analysis of Contemporary Societies (Cambridge Scholars Press, with Simon Coleman).

Published

2011-12-19

Issue

Section

Ecospirit: Religion and the Environment