Research
My research interests are in New Religious Movements, nature-based spirituality, environmental policy, addressing climate change and biodiversity loss, the role of social movements, and decolonial and anti-colonial theory. I am specifically interested in the ways religion and spirituality serve as catalysts and motivators for change in social movements.
Before starting my PhD at University College Cork, I did a year of postgraduate work at University of Washington and Vancouver School of Theology, studying Indigenous philosophies, the Indigenous language of Lushootseed, and Indigenous ethics.
My PhD thesis is due for completion in 2028:
“We Only Want the Earth”: The Role of Nature Based Spiritualities in Addressing Ecological Crisis in Ireland and the United States
This study on environmental activists who engage nature based spiritualities and folk religion will confront histories of colonialism in the US and Ireland. It will use decolonial theory to reflect on whether nature based spiritualties can offer motivation to address the ecological crisis and build solidarity with Indigenous peoples.
The title of this study is taken from a poem written by Irish revolutionary James Connolly; “Our demands most moderate are/ We only want the earth.” These words are echoed, a century later, in the lyrics of Irish musician and activist Eoghan Ó Ceannabháin, when he uses these same words in a song critiquing extractive economies: “We only want the earth/ We only want the love.”
My research occupies the continuum between Ireland, and its history of colonization, and the United States, where European peoples (including parts of the Irish diaspora) created a settler colonial state on Indigenous land and asks what these realities mean today, in an era of increasing ecological disaster. In this context, do nature based spiritualities have anything to offer movements for ecological justice? Can reimaginings of folk religion and nature based spiritualities provide motivation to live with the earth differently and in this time of polycrisis? Can these reimaginings build solidarity with Indigenous people in the wider movement for ecological change?