Invention of an activist ethos: Virtuosos of ecology and religion

French environmentalists have developed a distinct activist ethos composed of practices and representations of engagement that define and distinguish them. This article analyzes processes of reinterpretation, the importance of collective belonging, and forms of activist hexis approaching a kind of exemplarity. Through this study, classic questions in the sociology of engagement are explored, particularly those concerning identity continuums or the reinterpretations individuals make of themselves and of the collectives with which they identify. The question of religious socialization, which encompasses both beliefs and practices, constructs a dichotomy between positive and negative values (attraction, repulsion, and a sense of injustice), offering an important avenue for understanding the contemporary environmental movement, particularly in terms of repertoires of action. Far from being solely strategic, the choice of such repertoires also involves an identity dimension tied to the “social recognition of their struggles” within the public space.

This study revisits the question of the origins of a social movement carried by a generation of activists who stabilized a collective identity in such a way that contemporary practices and representations of the movement—even in a secularized context—continue to shape new generations of activists through forms of socialization oriented toward universal values and self-sacrifice.