Killing dragons: religionisations in the Alps
This article shows how the discursive use of religionisations – the interpretation and positioning of an object in a religious semantic – becomes a central strategy in the evaluation of mountaineering and climbing. Starting with the French Revolution and the consequences of its appropriations of nat...
Main Author: | |
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Format: | Electronic Article |
Language: | English |
Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
Journals Online & Print: | |
Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
Published: |
Taylor and Francis Group
2020
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In: |
Culture and religion
Year: 2020, Volume: 21, Issue: 1, Pages: 72-85 |
Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains: | B
Alps
/ Nature
/ Mountaineering
/ Sacralization
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RelBib Classification: | AD Sociology of religion; religious policy AF Geography of religion AG Religious life; material religion ZB Sociology |
Further subjects: | B
Alps
B Religious Criticism B Modernity B Enlightenment B Colonialism B Mountaineering B Social Identity B climbing |
Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
Summary: | This article shows how the discursive use of religionisations – the interpretation and positioning of an object in a religious semantic – becomes a central strategy in the evaluation of mountaineering and climbing. Starting with the French Revolution and the consequences of its appropriations of nature, the article shows how evaluations of mountaineering endeavours use religionisations (a sacralising of different aspects of mountain culture) as a legitimising strategy. Contrasting with these affirmative religionisations, the article moves on to more critical evaluations of these religionisations, such as it is used in the debate about the ‘right’ way of approaching mountains, for instance in debates about ‘wilderness.’ In such debates, ‘Religion’ is used to distinguish between the usual and the unusual, the constitutive outside of the spaces and value systems we normally inhabit. Applying the Foucauldian notion of ‘apparatus’ to the data of Alpinist discourse, ‘Religion’ becomes a ‘boundary-object’ in a system of reference allowing for the evaluation of identities. |
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ISSN: | 1475-5629 |
Contains: | Enthalten in: Culture and religion
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Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1080/14755610.2020.1858549 |