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This article explores the role of religion in local energy transition processes. By combining insights from (a) sustainability studies and (b) academic contributions on religion and sustainability, a theoretical approach for describing the role of religion in local energy transitions is developed. Religion is conceived of as a subsystem among other local subsystems that potentially contribute via their competences to energy transition processes. Three potential functions of religion are identified: (1) campaigning and intermediation in the public sphere; (2) ‘materialization’ of transitions in the form of participation in projects related to sustainable transitions; (3) dissemination of values and worldviews that empower environmental attitudes and action. These functions are studied in the case of the energy transition in Emden, a city in north-western Germany. Although religion attends, to some degree, each of the three functions, it does not assume a dominant role relative to other local subsystems. Actors from other social subsystems appear to take over these functions in a more efficient way. Consequently, in this highly environmentally active region, there are few indicators of a specific function of religion. These results shed a critical light on the previously held assumption that religion has a crucial impact on sustainability transitions.

A growing body of research stresses the importance of religion in understanding and addressing climate change. However, so far, little is known about the relationship between Muslim communities and climate change. Globally, Muslims constitute the second largest faith group, and there is a strong concentration of Muslims in regions that are particularly affected by global warming. This review synthesizes existing research about climate change and Muslim communities. It addresses (a) Islamic environmentalism, (b) Muslim perceptions of climate change, and (c) mitigation strategies of Muslim communities. The analysis shows that there is no uniform interpretation of climate change among Muslims. Based on their interpretations of Islam, Muslims have generated different approaches to climate change. A small section of Muslim environmentalists engages in public campaigning to raise greater concern about climate change, seeks to reduce carbon emissions through sociotechnological transition efforts, and disseminates proenvironmental interpretations of Islam. However, it remains unclear to what extent these activities generate broader changes in the daily activities of Muslim communities and organizations. Contributions to this research field are often theoretical and stress theological and normative aspects of Islam. Empirical studies have particularly addressed Indonesia and the United Kingdom, whereas knowledge about Muslim climate activism in other world regions is fragmented. Against this backdrop, there is a need for comparative studies that consider regional and religious differences among Muslims and address the role of Muslim environmentalism in climate change mitigation and adaptation at the international, national, and local scales. This article is categorized under: Social Status of Climate Change Knowledge > Sociology/Anthropology of Climate Knowledge

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Today, there are new approaches in academic debates about religion which enjoy high popularity and engage concepts such as post-secularity, public religion and desecularization. These approaches suppose that religion has an increasing presence in and impact on the public sphere of modern societies, including Western Europe. This article questions these assumptions by arguing that the public presence and impact of religion is widely overstated. An excessively vast definition of religion allows these approaches to identify religion in a wide variety of phenomena in the public sphere. Applying, instead, a more precise definition of religion, it appears that religious actors participate mainly in a non-religious way in the public sphere. Therefore, this article argues that religious actors adapt their public communication to the requirements of a secularized public sphere in which religion assumes a public role only in very exceptional occasions and specific contexts. Finally, the author supposes that the current debates about public religion create a myth of past secularity. This myth wrongly suggests that there was a secular past in which religious actors were banned from the public sphere of modern societies.

There is a rising debate about the religious dimensions of environmentalism. A prominent approach to this phenomenon is Bron Taylor's Dark Green Religion. Taylor proposes that Dark Green Religion is a globally growing phenomenon which involves 'para-religious' perceptions and feelings towards nature. Followers of Dark Green Religion would experience feelings of connectedness to nature, consider it to be sacred and worthy of reverent care, and reject anthropocentrism. I discuss Taylor's argument in the light of a study on an urban energy transition process in Northern Germany. Interviewing actors strongly participating in this process, I find some evidence for features of Dark Green Religion while also revealing their ongoing anthropocentric orientations. The findings suggest a need for more in-depth studies to improve our understanding of eco-religious worldviews among environmentally engaged actors and their impact on sustainability transitions.

Local energy transitions involve various types of actors (e.g., politicians, businesses, public administrators, and citizens) that differ in their objectives, values, problem-related perspectives, and professional jargons: these differences risk deterring the collaboration that is needed to pursue energy transitions as encompassing socio-technological transformations. Based on a boundary work-approach, this contribution studies the interplay of actors in these transitions. The approach suggests that boundary bridging arrangements (e.g., boundary objects, boundary settings, and boundary organizations) evolve in local energy transitions, facilitating communication across the boundaries between the various types of actors. In applying the boundary work approach to the energy transitions in two German cities, the article explores the potentials and limitations of this approach.

The Evolution and Implications of Boundary Work 242 9.1 The Evolution of an Appropriate Pentecostalism 242 9.2 The Inappropriate Other 249 9.3 Summary 260After many years of research, I am sitting at my office desk and, a bit astonished, I am realizing that with these lines, I am finishing the draft of the book manuscript and concluding a period of my life. Although I experienced this time as an opportunity, it was also marked by doubts and struggles with my own background, capacities, beliefs, and ideas. The help and ideas of Heinrich Schäfer and Nathalie Luca inspired my work and encouraged me to go on and further develop my thinking. In my personal life, finishing this study would not have been possible without my partner Marcia Palma: her strength, affection, and patience helped me to cope with the difficulties related to this work.Writing this book and conducting the related research project was facilitated by the financial and administrative support of various institutions: the generous funding of the German National Academic Foundation (Deutsche Studienstiftung) during my doctorate; the excellent research context at the Bielefeld Graduate School in History and Sociology (bghs) and the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (ehess) and their financing of numerous field trips; a publication grant from the Swiss National Science Foundation; and a mobility grant from Franco-German University which facilitated carrying out the doctoral project as a co-tutelle between France and Germany.Apart from the aforementioned persons and institutions, numerous people have contributed in some way or another to this publication. When I arrived in Argentina, I enjoyed the generous hospitality of the Theological Institute,