Unearthing Lifestances: What Community Gardens Tell Us About Nonreligion

A growing number of people across the western world are identifying as nonreligious. This book examines this shift through the lens of community gardens. We do not ask people what they believe in ways that are abstracted from their everyday lives. Rather, by focusing on gardening we enter the world of action—what people do, the practices of their everyday lives. Drawing on interviews from community gardeners in Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, England, Finland, Norway, Northern Ireland, and the United States, the book explores themes of community-building, ritual, ethics, and relationships with humans, non-humans, and the natural world, arguing for their conceptualization as ‘lifestances’. The book reveals a shifting sensibility about the relationship between humans and the world around them. That relationship is shifting from a vertical relationship to a horizontal one; from a relationship of human dominance to a relationship of shared responsibility and equality. This is possible because there is an increasing recognition that the current hierarchical model, based in religious teachings and human exceptionalism, is untenable. Community gardens offer an ideal vantage point from which to explore these changes.