Religious Pluralism and the City: Inquiries into Postsecular Urbanism

249 Pages·2018·2.191 MB·English

by  Helmuth Berking, Silke Steets, Jochen Schwenk

Religious Pluralism and the City
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Bloomsbury Studies in Religion, Space and Place
Series editors: Paul-François Tremlett, John Eade, and Katy Soar
Religions, spiritualities and mysticisms are deeply implicated in processes of
place- making. Th ese include political and geopolitical spaces, local and national
spaces, urban spaces, global and virtual spaces, contested spaces, spaces of
performance, spaces of memory and spaces of confi nement.
At the leading edge of theoretical, methodological, and interdisciplinary
innovation in the study of religion, B loomsbury Studies in Religion, Space and
Place brings together and gives shape to the study of such processes. Th ese places
are not defi ned simply by the material or the physical but also by the sensual and
the psychological, by the ways in which spaces are gendered, classifi ed, stratifi ed,
moved through, seen, touched, heard, interpreted and occupied. Places are
constituted through embodied practices that direct critical and analytical
attention to the production of insides, outsides, bodies, landscapes, cities,
sovereignties, publics and interiorities.
Religion and the Global City , edited by David Garbin and Anna Strhan
ii
Religious Pluralism and the City:
Inquiries into Postsecular Urbanism
Edited by
Helmuth Berking , Silke Steets , and Jochen Schwenk
iii
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iv
To Peter L. Berger, who was not just a mentor but a friend.
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Contents
List of Figures ix
List of Tables x
List of Contributors xi
Acknowledgments xiii
Introduction: Filling the Void? – Religious Pluralism and the
City Helmuth Berking, Jochen Schwenk, Silke Steets 1
Part One   From Secularization to Pluralization
1 Urbanity as a Vortex of Pluralism: A Personal Refl ection
about City and Religion Peter L. Berger 27
Part Two   Between Fundamentalism and Postsecularism: Conceptualizing
the Relations between City and Religion
2 Th e Death and Life of the Fundamentalist City: A Prelude to
a Medieval Modernity N ezar AlSayyad 39
3 Postsecularity and a New Urban Politics – Spaces, Places, and
Imaginaries Christopher Baker 51
4 Religion o f the City: Urban-Religious Confi gurations on a
Global Scale Stephan Lanz 65
Part Th ree   Religious Pluralism: Confl icts and Negotiations in the City
5 Religious Superdiversity and Urban Visibility in Barcelona and
Turin Marian Burchardt, Irene Becci, Mariachiara Giorda 83
6 Capturing Carnival: Religious Diversity and Spatial Contestation
in Rio de Janeiro M artijn Oosterbaan 105
7 Migration and Morality: Secular and Religious Considerations
among Romanian and Bulgarian Migrants in and around
London John Eade 121
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viii Contents
8 Marketplace, Fallow Ground, and Special Pastoral Care: What
Christian Churches in Germany know about the City – an
Interdenominational Comparison V eronika Eufi nger 137
Part Four   Changing Urban Imaginaries
9 Worlds within Worlds: Vernacular Pluralism, Publics of Belonging,
and the Making of Modern Bangalore Tulasi Srinivas 157
10 Jerusalem’s Imaginaries in the Neo-Liberal City: Re-Visiting
Visual Representations in the “Holy City” Tovi Fenster 175
11 “Th e Sumerian Tempelstadt”: Th e Modern Making of an
Ancient Urban Concept E va Cancik-Kirschbaum 185
Notes 199
References 205
Index 231
List of Figures
8.1 Front of the Ö kumenisches Forum HafenCity
(Photo courtesy Veronika Eufi nger) 148
8.2 Vista of the chapel’s anteroom at night
(Photo courtesy Veronika Eufi nger) 149
9.1a/b Russell Market (left ) and St. Mary’s Basilica (right)
(Photos courtesy Tulasi Srinivas) 157
9.2a/b Hawkers in the Square
(Photos courtesy Tulasi Srinivas) 158
9.3 Temple in the street leading to the Square
(Photo courtesy Tulasi Srinivas) 159
9.4 Businesses that front the Square
(Photo courtesy Tulasi Srinivas) 162
10.1a/b Before 2008 election graffi ti (left 2008; right 2016)
(Photos courtesy Tovi Fenster) 177
10.2a/b Modesty signs in Mea Shearim neighborhood (left 2002;
right 2016)
(Photos courtesy Tovi Fenster) 177
10.3a/b Graffi ti on the café wall (left 2008; right 2016)
(Photos courtesy Tovi Fenster) 179
10.4a/b New shops and maintenance in Mea Shearim main road (2016)
(Photos courtesy Tovi Fenster) 180
10.5a/b Neo- liberal housing in ultra-Orthodox neighborhood (2016)
(Photos courtesy Tovi Fenster) 181
11.1 Major cities of ancient Mesopotamia (not all contemporaneous)
(Graphic courtesy Eva Cancik-Kirschbaum) 186
11.2 Developmental stages of the cuneiform script
(Graphic courtesy Eva Cancik-Kirschbaum. Representation
based on A. Wolf on the basis of Nissen 1990: Fig. 20) 187
11.3 Th e sacred precinct in the center of Uruk
(Graphic courtesy Eva Cancik-Kirschbaum. Representation
based on A. Wolf on the basis of Yoff ee 2005/9: 84) 188
11.4 Book cover of Anna Schneider’s Th e Sumerian Temple City (1920)
(Source: https://archive.org ) 190
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