Bisherige Tagungen

Geographical dimensions of religious change
Session STS 21 at the 29th Conference of the International Society for the Sociology of Religion (ISSR)
on Secularity and Religious Vitality in Leipzig, July 24, 2007

Convenors and chairmen: Reinhard Henkel (University of Heidelberg/University of Zagreb,Croatia) and Tomáš Havlíček (Charles University Prague,Czechia)

Venue: Neues Geisteswissenschaftliches Zentrum („GWZ“) Leipzig, Beethovenstraße 15

The geography of religion has been regarded as a marginal field until recently. In the past years, this has changed. Two directions of research have become apparent. One of them mainly considers social geographical problems and methods while the other has been influenced by the new cultural geography approach. Both now work more frequently with theoretical approaches which are also used in the sociology of religion.  The geography of religion always has to point to the fact that all religious processes „take place“ in space and have a spatial dimension. The spatial turn in the social sciences emphasizes the necessity of this approach as well. Nine papers from geographers and other social scientists were presented.

1. The place(s) of religions. Observations on new developments in the geography of religion
   HENKEL, Reinhard (Heidelberg/Zagreb)
   
   In many parts of the world, the significance of religion has increased during the last years and decades. In the sociology of religion, the secularization thesis was the dominant framework for the interpretation of developments in the realm of religion for a long time. Meanwhile, other explanation patterns have become more prominent, such as the individualization thesis and economic theories. The so-called “spatial turn” does not seem to have reached sociology of religion yet. In history of religion (religious studies), however, questions of spatiality and locality are being studied intensively.
   
   Geography of religion has been regarded a diverse and incoherent field until recently. In the past years this has changed. Two directions of research have become apparent. One of them mainly considers social geographical problems and methods while the other has been influenced by the new cultural geography approach. Both should more frequently work with the above mentioned theoretical approaches of sociology of religion. Geography of religion must not, however, lose track of its main goal: it always has to point to the fact that all religious processes take place in space and have a spatial dimension.
   
2. Local culture and the maintenance and transmission of religious practice
   VOAS, David (University of Manchester) and Daniel V.A. OLSON (Indiana University South Bend)
   
   In many parts of the world, the significance of religion has increased during the last years and decades. In the sociology of religion, the secularization thesis was the dominant framework for the interpretation of developments in the realm of religion for a long time. Meanwhile, other explanation patterns have become more prominent, such as the individualization thesis and economic theories. The so-called “spatial turn” does not seem to have reached sociology of religion yet. In history of religion (religious studies), however, questions of spatiality and locality are being studied intensively.
   
   Geography of religion has been regarded a diverse and incoherent field until recently. In the past years this has changed. Two directions of research have become apparent. One of them mainly considers social geographical problems and methods while the other has been influenced by the new cultural geography approach. Both should more frequently work with the above mentioned theoretical approaches of sociology of religion. Geography of religion must not, however, lose track of its main goal: it always has to point to the fact that all religious processes take place in space and have a spatial dimension.
   
3. Demography of religions – Methods for assessing membership data and growth or decline of religious groups
   WARBURG, Margit (University of Copenhagen)
   
   The quantitative assessment of the spread of a particular religion and the prospects of its growth or decline, is a cross-disciplinary field between demography and religious studies. Studies in the demography of religions are important in the sociology of religion; however, they are hampered by problems of access to relevant demographic data and unresolved issues of methodology. The initial methodological considerations concern the delimitation of the group, the definition of membership and the harvest of membership data  Further problems of methodology are addressed through a quantitative case study of the Baha’i-religion. The Baha’i religion shows the typical pattern of a rapid growth with the enrolment of the first generation of believers, followed by a decline in growth in the next generation. Access to detailed demographic data of the Baha’is through decades has provided the basis for testing and further developing existing models of demography. Projections of the demographic development of the Danish Baha’i community show that overall growth is likely, but also that the ethnic profile of the community invariably will change.
   
4. Regional differentiation of development changes in the religious landscape of Czechia
   HAVLÍČEK, Tomáš (Charles University Prague)
   
   The contribution is concerned with an analysis of the main trends and processes in the religious landscape of Czechia during the time of transformation. The post-1989 period has witnessed i.a. a more distinct diversification of the religious landscape, which has occurred in particular thanks to an increase in the number of new religious orientations and movements. How has the development affected the territorial distribution of those communities? How has the development affected the regional differentiation of sacral objects in Czechia? The contribution attempts to monitor certain key factors of the transformations of sacral objects and to identify, on the basis of selected localities, the crucial consequences of those changes. The results of field and questionnaire surveys among members of the religious community in selected model territories of Czechia imply that religious symbols have been restored gradually (in particular chapels, wayside shrines and crosses) and sacred objects have been undergoing important transformations. The restoration is not primarily based on religious grounds but rather on historical (subsidies from German and Austrian people of Sudeten origin) or cultural (subsidies from the state for the restoration of monuments) grounds. Sacralisation is apparent also in the construction of new religious objects or in the transformation of existing secular structures into religious objects. This trend can be observed mainly in Protestant denominations, which have been increasing in number. On the other hand, the Roman-Catholic Church has been selling or leasing its unused religious property, in particular in border regions or in the so-called inner periphery territories.
   
5. Greek  Orthodoxy, Territoriality and Globality: Religious Responses and Institutional
   ROUDOMETOF, Victor (University of Cyprus)
   
   This paper offers an interpretation of Greek-Orthodox responses to globality. During globalization’s modern period, relativization and de-territorialization led to a modern synthesis between Orthodoxy and nationality. During globalization’s contemporary period (1840s-1945), the Ecumenical Patriarchate has adopted a relatively open perspective toward globalization, which offers an opportunity to empower the Patriarchate’s status as a supra-territorial institution. In contrast, many national churches–like the Church of Greece–cling to a defense of the modern synthesis and view contemporary globalization as a threat to their vision of re-territorialized religiosity. These institutional perspectives are closely aligned to theological responses to contemporary globality, which are also polarized between Orthodox globalists and defenders of the modern synthesis. The 2003/04 dispute between the Ecumenical Patriarchate and the Church of Greece over the issue of ecclesiastical governance exemplifies these contrasting perspectives. The dispute was fueled in large part by the endorsement of opposite religious responses toward globality by the two institutions: The Patriarchate adopted an institutional perspective favoring de-territorialization and the Church of Greece adopted an institutional perspective favoring re-territorialization.
   
6. The religious sites of Cyprus –  indicators of co-presence and symbols of lost territory
   DIETZEL, Irene (University of Erfurt)
   
   Religious sites, such as churches, mosques, graveyards, and monasteries fulfil multiple functions within both cultural and built environments. They are places of worship, provide spatial centres for a community of co-religionists, form places of pilgrimage and sometimes stand as durable, monumental records of a particular culture’s presence. Within the multi-religious environment of Cyprus, the religious sites are spatial indicators of a long-standing co-presence of Muslim and Christian communities. Subsequent to the island’s division into two nationally homogenous territories, the dislocation of great parts of the rural population has not only proven disruptive to local religious practice, but it has also redefined the significance of the religious sites on both sides of the border. The churches and monasteries in the occupied area have since become focal points in the territorial disputes between the Turkish and Greek sides. This paper examines these shifts in significance, while arguing for a reassessment of the importance of Religious Place to the national identities present in modern day Cyprus.
   
7. Crossroads of religion: Shrines, mobility and urban space in Goa
   HENN, Alexander (Arizona State University)
   
   Wayside shrines — representing Hindu, Catholic and Muslim traditions respectively— show an astonishing dynamic in the cities of Goa / India: they not only persist in a milieu of drastic socio-cultural and infrastructural change, but some of then even flourish enormously exceeding temples, churches and mosques in popularity. I will argue in this presentation that this dynamic is owed to the fact that the shrines respond to and enact three forms of mobility particular to urban environments: a) cultural mobility, that is the conciliation of religious difference in a hybrid cultural milieu, b) social mobility, that is the negotiation of shifting social and economic conditions, and c) physical mobility, that is the ‘control’ of hazards in a steadily increasing traffic movement.
   
8. Landscape of religious Action-Orientation: The American City under Examination
   HARDINGHAUS, Matthias (Anglia Ruskin University Cambridge)
   
   The contribution refers to a research project which negotiates the thesis of the ongoing impact of Protestant Calvinist imagery on urban landscape in modern USA. It was inspired by Max Weber’s “Protestant Ethic” and his examination of the influence of Protestantism on the development of modern society. Weber does not establish a conceptionally founded relationship to spatial-material development; here a social-geographical framework is applied to enable the interrelationships to be understood between religious motives, which, as cultural imagery and components of the frame of reference of action orientation, influenced the development of a specific American settlement culture, and the topological development. Cultural guiding images like the Garden of Eden, the Moral Wilderness and the Frontier built by in a tradition of Protestant, Calvinist Puritanism are linked with a specifically Christian corpus of broadly biblical ideas. They are integral parts of the American Way of Life and were not only of great importance for the European settlers in their sen-sual appropriation of the new continent, but also had a lasting impact on modern urban development, in particular, in the USA.
   
9. Urban religion in shaping space
   WEDAM, Elfriede (Loyola University Chicago) and Lowell W. LIVEZEY (New York Theological Seminary)
   
   All groups, including religious congregations, compete for space in the urban environment and in the process build local and metropolitan relationships in diverse ways, depending on the resources available to them.  But it’s not just economic competition that congregations engage in, which is a reflection of exchange value, but congregations also have much at stake in the use value of their locations.  They are concerned with the building or rebuilding of community in a new way among their members and with those outside.  In Logan and Molotch’s (1987) words, we address the political and cultural factors, and “emotional and social resources” that individuals and groups use to build their “schemes around the opportunities that certain places afford them.”  We present three cases that use space at three different scales: the local neighborhood, a broader corridor often facilitated by transportation links, and a metropolitan wide reach that crosses city and suburban borders.  Thus, we anticipate the argument in our book under contract that competition for space involves the use of cultural and religious resources to gain access to political decision makers; attract and mobilize members; facilitate economic mobility; and redraw group boundaries, each outcome facilitated differently by the limits and opportunities of space.

Symposium Radikalisierte Religion: Risiken und Raumkonflikte
und Mitgliederversammlung
Heidelberg, 24. April 2006

Am 24. April 2006 fand am Geographischen Institut der Universität Heidelberg ein Symposium zum Thema „Radikalisierte Religion: Risiken und Raumkonflikte“ mit einer anschließenden Mitgliederversammlung des AK Religionsgeographie statt.

In der Mitgliederversammlung gab sich der Arbeitskreis eine neue Geschäftsordnung, die u.a. vorsieht, dass zukünftig zwischen Vollmitgliedern und assoziierten Mitgliedern des Arbeitskreises unterschieden wird. Während von Vollmitgliedern mindestens eine einschlägige wissenschaftliche Publikation zu einem religionsgeographischen Thema erwartet wird, steht die assoziierte Mitgliedschaft allen Interessierten offen, insbesondere auch Studenten. Alle Mitglieder können an einer neu eingerichteten Mailingliste des Arbeitskreises teilnehmen, über die nicht nur regelmäßig Informationen über religionsgeographische Neuerscheinungen und Projekte verbreitet werden, sondern die auch der Diskussion der Mitglieder untereinander dient. Wer auf diese Mailingliste mit aufgenommen werden möchte, kann sich an edgar.wunder@geog.uni-heidelberg.de wenden.

Zum neuen geschäftsführenden Sprecher des Arbeitskreises wurde Edgar Wunder (Heidelberg) gewählt, zusammen mit Reinhard Henkel (Heidelberg/Zagreb), Gisbert Rinschede (Regensburg) und Thomas Schmitt (Bayreuth) als weiteren Mitgliedern des Sprecherkreises.

Bei dem begleitenden Symposium referierte zunächst der bekannte US-amerikanische Religionsgeograph Roger W. Stump von der State University of New York (SUNY) in Albany zum Thema „Boundaries of Faith: Geographical Perspectives on Religious Fundamentalism“. Stump unterstrich dabei – wie auch schon in seinem im Jahr 2000 veröffentlichten gleichnamigen Buch – die Bedeutung von Kontrollbedürfnissen über Territorien für die Entstehung und Entwicklung fundamentalistischer Bewegungen sowie ihre Konflikte mit der jeweiligen sozialen Umwelt. In einem weiteren Vortrag „The Crusade Against Evil: Millenarian Fundamentalism in the White House“ ging der Theologe Robert Jewett von der Northwestern University in Evanston/Chicago (USA) der Frage nach, inwiefern endzeitliche Prophetien und eine damit verbundene Mobilisierung fundamentalistischer Milieus Einfluss auf den Ausgang von Präsidentschaftswahlen in den USA bzw. auch auf politische Entscheidungen der aktuellen US-Administration hatten und haben. Edgar Wunder berichtete im dritten Vortrag „Begrenzungsversuche radikalisierter Religion: Die Lebensgemeinschaft der „Zwölf Stämme“ und ihr Konflikt mit dem bayerischen Kultusministerium um die Schulpflicht“ über Ergebnisse seiner teilnehmenden Beobachtungen bei einer Religions- und Lebensgemeinschaft, die im Nördlinger Ries einen Gutshof betreibt. Im letzten Vortrag „Islam und Demokratie – Islam und Terrorismus: Positionierungen und Argumentationen islamischer Dachverbände in Deutschland“ schließlich verglich Thomas Schmitt öffentliche Auseinandersetzungen um den Bau von Moscheen in Deutschland im Zeitraum vor und nach dem 11. September 2001.

Fachsitzung Die neuen Tempel der Postmoderne
54. Deutscher Geographentag Bern, 29. September 2003
Leitung: Anton Escher (Mainz) und Reinhard Henkel (Heidelberg/Zagreb)

Folgende Vorträge wurden gehalten:

Ulrich Best (Plymouth): Der „Millennium-Dome“ als Heilsversprechen und Kontrolltechnik

Martin Levison (Monticello): Sport Arena: Fans, Brands, and Tourism

Heike Egner und Beate Ratter (Mainz): Fetische der Natur als mobile Tempel der Postmoderne

Florian Scherz (Erlangen): Drinnen und Draußen: Religöse Selbstverortung in der postmodernen Gesellschaft

Symposium Religion – Kultur – Migration
Geographisches Institut, Universität Mainz, 8./9. November 2002
Organisation und Leitung: Anton Escher (Mainz)