Constructing Identity with Dreamstones

Megalithic Sites and Contemporary Nature Spirituality

Bibliographic Data

ID20201013
AuthorsPhillip Charles Lucas (corresponding author)
Year2007
Volume11
Issue1
Pages31-60
Publication date2007-08-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueNova Religio The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1092-6690 • E-ISSN: 1541-8480
PublisherProject MUSE (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1525/nr.2007.11.1.31
OpenAlexW1966871068
LanguageEN
Citations received11
References cited4

For growing numbers of people, the postmodern construction of identity includes the search for a spirituality that reconnects them with the natural world and fosters activity that protects the ecosystem and its many forms of life. Practitioners of this "nature spirituality" construct their identities using a large toolkit of symbols, myths, histories, rituals, sacred places, and beliefs. The megalithic sites of Western Europe constitute one element of this toolkit. This paper considers the ways these sites are interpreted and experienced in the nature-spirituality subculture and how these interpretations and experiences help individuals construct empowering identities that tie together their spiritual and ecological commitments. This interpretive process is occurring outside the control of governing elites, ecclesiastical authorities, or dominant religious institutions. It is at root an exercise in both individual and communal identity construction, a movement of resistance to a world system that has lost its secure moorings in the natural order

Aesthetics · Archaeology · Environmental ethics · Epistemology · Megalith · Postmodernism · Sociology · Spiritualities · Spirituality · Gender Studies · Geographies of human-animal interactions · History · Philosophy · Religion, Ecology, and Ethics · Spatial and Cultural Studies · Ecology

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