Introduction. From conversion to participation: The entry of religious actors into ecology

The aim of this thematic issue is to examine the involvement of religious actors in environmental issues and, more broadly, the practices and discourses that link religious commitment with engagement in environmental causes. It focuses in particular on two phenomena: from the perspective of activism, the dual process of the reconfiguration of religious commitment and its hybridization with ecological forms of engagement; and, from an institutional perspective, the participation of religious institutions in political debates surrounding ecology. The central hypothesis is that this dual movement of reconfiguration and hybridization in the commitments of religious actors affects their dispositions, their conception of their social and political participation, and, by extension, the religious institutions with which they identify. This introduction first situates the thematic issue within the existing political science literature on the hybridization of ecological and religious commitments, while highlighting its contributions to the analysis of the ways religious actors participate in and position themselves with respect to ecological debates and policies. It then proposes a dialogue between the articles by identifying, within their analyses, the trajectories, discourses, and frames of reference of religious actors engaged in ecology that help explain the various forms their ecological conversion can take.