Public Pro-Environment Activism and Socio-Ecological Practices Promoted By the Humanist Movement in Europe

This paper originates in the research project RE-Green funded by the
University of Padua’s Supporting Talent in ReSearch Programme. The project
investigates practices of contemporary parenting focusing on an underresearched social movement: the secular International Humanist Movement.
The project focuses on the pro-environment activism of members of this
movement in the public and private sphere and their work to socialize the
next generation to socio-ecological practices and responsibilities toward the
environment’s future. The project considers the Humanist system of meaning -
different from that of religions - and humanist ethics as emergent perspectives
useful to reframe citizens’ environmental responsibilities and draws on the
concept of environmental responsibilities.
By combining different theoretical debates and methods within the
framework of Institutional Ethnography, the project focuses on three countries
(Norway, the UK, and Italy). The project collects data through desk research,
in-depth interviews, diaries, participant observation, focus groups, and Delphi
method by involving Humanist activists, parents, and children.
The research study starts with a content analysis of texts available online
regarding environmentalist campaigns promoted by the Humanist movement
in Europe and the selected three countries.
This paper discusses the socio-ecological practices promoted by these
groups through these campaigns during the last five years, the disjunctures
between environmental public policies and parents’ (and their children’s)
everyday needs that these groups highlight, and how the climate change issue
is framed by these campaigns. Furthermore, the paper analyzes how humanist
ethics and beliefs affect the promotion of such socio-ecological practices.