The interlocking roles of media, marketplace, and sustainabilityFrom organic produce and clothing to socially conscious investing and eco-tourism, the lifestyles of health and sustainability, or LOHAS, movement encompasses diverse products and practices intended to contribute to a more sustainable lifestyle for people and the planet. In The Gospel of Sustainability, Monica M. Emerich explores the contemporary spiritual expression of this green cultural shift at the confluence of the media and the market.This is the first book to qualitatively study the LOHAS marketplace and the development of a discourse of sustainability of the self and the social and natural worlds. Emerich draws on myriad sources related to the notions of mindful consumption found throughout the LOHAS marketplace, including not just products and services but marketing materials, events, lectures, regulatory policies, and conversations with leaders and consumers. These disparate texts, she argues, universally project a spiritual message about personal and planetary health that is in turn reforming capitalism by making consumers more conscious.
Preface; Introduction: The Business of Consciousness Methodology; Terminology: LOHAS as Marketplace, Culture, Movement and Discourse; Methods; A Short Tour of the Book One: Neither Mainstream or Alternative: LOHAS at the Crossroads; The New Battleground of Values A Look Back at Events: the History of LOHAS; ''No More New Age!'' Two: Healing the Self to Heal the World; From New Thought to Quantum Physics: Self-Healing Spiritualities; LOHAS in the Positive Thinking Tradition Three: A Vision of Health: Self, Society and the Natural World; The Ideology of Health Healing the Division between Nature and Human Four: Apologies, Redemption and Repair; Repairing The ''Consequences of Modernity''; Reworking Desire Five: LOHAS, Social Reform and Good Capitalism; Success and the LOHASian; Good Capitalism, Bad Capitalism Six: Mindful Consumption; The LOHAS ''Middle Way''; Spiritualizing Consumption, Consuming Spirituality; Evangelizing LOHAS: Media, Spirituality and Culture; LOHAS: A Spirituality of Sustainability Seven: The Collective Conscience; LOHAS Communities; Class Issues, Taste and Distinction in LOHAS Conclusion Toward an Integrative Spirituality of Sustainability; Rationality and a ''Reflexive Spirituality''; Spreading the Word Works Cited
''Monica M. Emerich treats seriously the green culture and contextualizes the social changes that have repositioned such products as central to public discourse about capitalism and the material production of spirituality. Scholars of media, religion, and cultural studies will relish this stimulating book, the first of its kind.'' --Claire Hoertz Badaracco, author of Prescribing Faith: Medicine, Media and Religion in American Culture''The Gospel of Sustainability fits in well with expanding research in the areas of faith, media, and the marketplace. LOHAS already is a significant influencing group and it seems to be growing. There are no other books addressing this topic that I am aware of. Moreover, Monica M. Emerich does not just cover the market. She explains how LOHAS has evolved through the nexus of communication, consumer products, and spirituality.''--Mara Einstein, author of Brands of Faith: Marketing and Religion in a Commercial Age
