Infrastructuring Religion: Materiality and Meaning in Ordinary Urbanism
This article draws on the infrastructural turn in urban studies to explore the profane materialities that enable particular forms of urban religion. Assuming that cities are configurations of spaces, actors and materialities characterized by dominant modes of belonging, hegemonic definitions of publ...
Main Author: | |
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Format: | Electronic Article |
Language: | English |
Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
Journals Online & Print: | |
Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
Published: |
Sage Publications
2023
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In: |
Space and Culture
Year: 2023, Volume: 26, Issue: 2, Pages: 180-191 |
Further subjects: | B
Space
B Materiality B Infrastructure B Religion B South Africa B Urbanism |
Online Access: |
Volltext (kostenfrei) |
Summary: | This article draws on the infrastructural turn in urban studies to explore the profane materialities that enable particular forms of urban religion. Assuming that cities are configurations of spaces, actors and materialities characterized by dominant modes of belonging, hegemonic definitions of public space, and hierarchical orderings of spatial uses, infrastructures are a central element of cities? material bases. Based on ethnographic research in Cape Town, I develop the notion of ?infrastructuring religion? as a new modality of the spatialization of religion. Practices of infrastructuring draw religious life into the profane realm of ordinary urbanism in which religious meanings run up against machines of bureaucratization, divergent investments in scarce space, and criminal economies. I argue that infrastructuring is an important addition to architecture and place-making as the hitherto dominant concepts for the analysis of urban religion. |
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ISSN: | 1552-8308 |
Contains: | Enthalten in: Space and Culture
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Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1177/12063312221130248 |