The Abject and Ecological Enchantment: Disgust, Discomfort and Disappointment in Urban Environmental Initiatives

ABSTRACT

The Abject and Ecological Enchantment: Disgust, Discomfort and Disappointment in Urban Environmental Initiatives 

Much existing research on the significance of environmental politics on the one hand, and nature on the other, for spiritual and/or nonreligious meaning-making has emphasised the positive aesthetic and affective value of both experiences of nature and of being-in-community with others in political action. However, scholars such as Jane Bennett and Franklin Ginn have argued that negative aesthetic and affective experiences – in nature, and in political action – also deserve attention. This paper is based on a 12-month ethnography with community gardens and bush regeneration groups in inner Sydney, Australia. It explores the role of disgust and discomfort in the cultivation of meaning and environmental commitments, focusing upon the gardening and micropolitical practices undertaken in decidedly unpleasant, non-aesthetic urban spaces. The groups are religiously diverse – with some participants who are affiliated with a range of conventional religious groups, some who identify with a variety of spiritual beliefs, and many who are either atheists or show no interest in religion. I argue that through careful, ongoing engagements with nature – including experiences of abjection recounted in this paper – the participants cultivate a political culture that both transcends their religious diversity and nurtures the development of environmental subjectivities amongst the gardeners. The paper explores the importance of less-than-enchanting relationships for ethics: considering how negative experiences with un-aesthetic or unwanted non-human nature shape political ecologies.

AUTHOR

Rosemary Hancock is a sociologist of religion at the University of Notre Dame Australia, where she is convener of the Religion, Culture and Society research focus area in the Institute for Ethics and Society, and Academic Lead for Graduate Research. She is the Co-Editor of the Journal for the Academic Study of Religion, Co-Area Editor for Oceania for the Religious Studies Review, and Co-host of the sociology podcast Uncommon Sense. In April 2026 she will begin a 12-month Humboldt Research Fellowship at the University of Leipzig.