Faith, Care, Despair. Affect and Religion in Climate Activism (D12#)

• Subject Area: Empirical Social Research
• Term: since 2025
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 258523721

This anthropological sub-project explores the affective dynamics of contemporary religious and secular climate activist movements. The ethnographic field research, which takes place mainly in Berlin, includes participant observation at protest actions and network meetings as well as semi-structured interviews and participatory survey methods with members of climate activist groups. The project aims at a nuanced understanding of how specific forms of affectively grounded relations between religious and secular actors affect processes of de-/mobilization both within and between groups engaged in environmental protection and climate activism.

• DFG Programme: Collaborative Research Centres
• Subproject of: SFB 1171: Affective Societies: Dynamics of Social Coexistence in Mobile Worlds
• Applicant Institution: Freie Universität Berlin
• Project Head: Professor Dr. Dominik Mattes