Urban Religious Events: Public Spirituality in Contested Spaces

How might we best understand the relationship between the vibrant religious landscapes we see in many cities and contemporary urban social processes? Through case studies drawn from around the world, contributors explore the ways in which these processes interact in cities. This book argues that religious events – including rituals, processions, and festivals – are not only choreographies of sacred traditions, but they are also creative disruptions that reveal how urban cultural hierarchies are experienced and contested. Exposing the power dynamics behind these events, this book shows how performative uses of urban space serve to destabilize dominant genealogies and lineages around urban identities just as they lay claims to cultural supremacy or heritage. Through exploring the affective disruptions and political controversies caused by religious events, the contributors engage theoretical discussions in urban studies, the sociology of religion and the ethnography of ritual. This book is a significant contribution to understanding emerging patterns in contemporary religion and also for theories related to heritagization, eventization, and urbanization.

Paul Bramadat is Professor and Director at the Centre for Studies in Religion and Society at the University of Victoria, Canada.

Paul-Francois Tremlett is Senior Lecturer of Religious Studies at The Open University, UK

Mar Griera is Associate Professor and Director at the ISOR Research Centre, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain.

John Eade is Professor in Sociology and Anthropology at the University of Roehampton, London, UK, member of the Migration Research Unit, ULC, UK, and Visiting Professor at the Department for the Study of Religion, University of Toronto, Canada.

Marian Burchardt is Professor of Sociology at Leipzig University, Germany.