Var går gränsen? : En kvalitativ text- och innehållsanalys på Greta Thunberg och den miljöaktivistiska rörelsen utifrån Ninian Smarts sjudimensionella religionsmodell

Sammanfattning: This essay examines if Greta Thunberg and the environmentalist movement can be considered a religion. The method used is a qualitative text and content analysis, which is applied to three of Thunberg’s speeches, together with external factors from her life and the movement’s structure. The material is applied to Ninan Smart’s seven-dimensional model of religion to answer the research questions from a theoretical perspective. The research tradition of religious studies that consider the border between what is religion and what seems to be religion is also discussed in the essay. This to mediate knowledge and contribute to new perspectives within the tradition. Since Thunberg and the environmentalist movement is a relatively new phenomenon, it was chosen to expand the understanding of where one should draw the line. The essay argues that Thunberg and the environmentalist movement cannot fully be considered a religion, from a traditional point of view. The conclusions point to the idea that Thunberg and the movement, instead, can be considered to be implicit religion. The reasoning is based on the results from the analysis of the phenomenon in Smart’s model. Furthermore, the conclusions and argumentation are supported by previous research on activism that shows religious tendencies, as well as lived religion and nature-religions such as deep green religion.