Queen's School of Religion Professor James Miller is co-directing a new workshop to investigate the relationship between religious diversity and ecological sustainability in China.  Funded by the Max Planck Institute for Religious Diversity and Minzu University of China, the project begins with a conference in March 2011 and a book to be co-edited by Professor Miller with Dan Smyer Yu and Peter van der Veer in Germany.

The project has three key strengths.  Firstly it investigates the capacities of the five officially recognized religions in China to contribute to the task of developing China's emerging ecological consciousness.  Secondly, it incorporates a wide diversity of minority nationalities that have developed local beliefs, values and practices regarding their local geographies, ecosystems and environments.  Thirdly, the project critically engages China's official secular ideologies of industrial development, economic modernization and more recent calls for "ecological civilization".

"This is a great opportunity to foster critical dialogue in China about the role of culture and religion in shaping people's beliefs and values towards the natural environment," says Professor Miller.  "China is a country of wide ethnic, religious and enrivonmental diversity.  There is no magic bullet or top-down solution that will solve China's growing ecological crisis.  China's diverse religions and cultures have an important voice when it comes to articulating an ethical vision for the human relationship with the natural world."

Professor Miller has long been involved in the study of religion and nature in China.  This summer he undertook fieldwork among the Blang minority nationality in Southwest China, with Minzu University doctoral student An Jing.  In Winter 2012 he will be co-teaching an interdisciplinary seminar course with Queen's history professor Emily Hill on the intersection of religion, politics, and environment in modern China.

For more information about the research project, visit the Max Planck Institute for Religious Diversity website.