Paper short abstract:

This paper argues that ‘landscape’, as a concept through which national belonging is articulated in cultural terms, is enriched by considering religious uses of the outdoors. It can thus act as a vehicle for developing dialogues about polyvalent religious signifiers in diverse societies.

Paper long abstract:

The focus of this paper is the way in which religious observations have the capacity to form, amplify, and contest culturally sedimented ‘meanings’ in landscapes. The concerns of the paper are therefore the sacralization of the landscape but with a broad understanding of both the ‘sacred’ and ‘religious’. Its approach is thus to treat as meaningful beliefs and practices that might best be understood through the framing of vernacular religion than more formal understandings of religious practice.

The paper will argue that it is important to acknowledge the heterogeneous uses of landscapes by diverse religious groups. It will focus on the vernacular religious practices that are given meaning in the Derbyshire Peak District, considering how different groups including ‘Muslim Hikers’, Aetherians, and local pagan groups add to the layers of religious meaning that provide layers of cultural sediment to the Peak District hills.

The importance of acknowledging these varied articulations of vernacular religion is crucial to counter groups that seek to narrow and limit the meaning of the sacred landscape. The overlapping stories of the groups above will be contrasted with attempts to claim an English sacred landscape by far right groups. Patriotic Alternative parading banners on hillfort summit of Mam Tor in Derbyshire by Patriotic Alternative on Indigenous Peoples' Day 2020 serves here as an example of how the landscape is continually at the centre of competing visions of religio-cultural meaning.

This paper will argue that a polyvocally religious landscape can counter racist, ethnonational attempts to delimit the spiritual boundaries of the landscape. The shared discourse of an enchanted, multistoried countryside offers the potential for not only a heterogeneous, multifaith retort to monovocal bigotry but also demonstrates how landscape might offer a means to explore faith-based approaches to wider environmental awareness in nominally secular societies.