Religiozita je časovo a priestorovo podmienený kľúčový sociálny fenomén s veľkou vnútornou variabilitou. V článku sa zameriavame na výber najvýznamnejších ukazovateľov prejavov tohto javu v slovenskej spoločnosti. Prostredníctvom časových štatistických údajov s náznakmi niektorých štruktúrnych rozdielov v súčasnosti, poukazujeme na dynamiku a veľkú priestorovú diverzifikáciu konfesionálnych pomerov na Slovensku. Výrazným formujúcim faktorom boli aj politické rámce regulujúce náboženský život-vzťahy štátu a cirkví, ktorých variabilita v kontexte spoločensko-politických zmien bola nezanedbateľným determinantom vývoja religiozity a náboženského života. V analýze religiozity naznačujeme aj vnútorné aspekty religiozity meranej výberovými zisťovaniami poukazujúcich na pestrosť vnútorných prejavov viery a jej odlišnosti v porovnaní s meraním konfesionality v sčítaniach obyvateľstva.

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The quality of social networks influences the quality of life in old age because the absence of them leads to social exclusion and loneliness, which are, according to the literature, the most serious concerns perceived by seniors. We focused on the social networks of seniors and loneliness in the urban environment. We were interested in how seniors reflect their social networks. Do they place emphasis on family or community networks? The paper was based on a mixed-method with a questionnaire on a sample of 1,026 seniors living in cities in Slovakia in combination with in-depth interviews. In connection to the assumption of the influence of long-term patterns of family structures on intergenerational relationship and relationships with friends, it was found that there is a preference for family networks. Friendship networks are long-lasting, transforming and, unlike kinship networks, do not extend geographically beyond city boundaries.

Giving Ethnic Diversity its Spatial and Temporal Meaning-Examples from Slovakia. Ethnic diversity represents one of the most accurate ways of exploring regional identity, with its temporal and spatial variations. In the methodological framework of emerging diversity studies, this paper approached the elementary forms of ethnic diversity change in regions of Slovakia in 1880-2011 using census data and simple, yet expressive and exact, diversification indices and intercensal change. The regions of Slovakia are shown in a broad timespace analysis, with data adapted to one regional structure. Although ethnic diversity is only a minor part of a superdiversity approach and, as such, is insufficient to express the identity of a region and its population, historical and spatial data can work to provide a useful overview for the broader social analysis of a region.

Cultural geography (as the main field in geography with no connection to religion) is strongly influenced by constructivist approaches today. Geographer Doreen Masey wrote in 2010 (Massey 2010: 107) that space is always being made and always, therefore, in a sense, unfinished. The ‘always’ is rather that there are always connections yet to be made, juxtapositions yet to flower into interaction, or not, potential links which may never be established. Loose ends and ongoing stories. With these ideas she perfectly outlined the relationship of space, time, and social world. In the field of religious identity and its expression it indicates not just variability of its representations but can also work as a hub to the local projections of identity interactions and how this space is formed within local actors and local circumstances. All interactions within the various scales forms two paradigms of how place and space can be analysed – as politics and poetics of space. If the cult of the Virgin Mary prevails within the Catholic religious practice, then the poetics and politics of space can have vast forms of expression and impacts. This chapter attempts to outline the spatiality of this cult represented in dedications of sacred buildings, and open up questions on forming such distributions and regional specificities in Slovakia. Research on the spatial aspects of dedications of sacred buildings provide interesting intersections of relations between sacred and profane as well as various levels of research resulting in a relationship between the ‘politics’ and ‘poetics’ of place. This chapter introduces such relationship within cultural geography. Although this approach is fully applicable in local or regional research, we have outlined the spatial aspects of the cult of the Virgin Mary as embodied in the dedication of sacred buildings, introducing the differences in the types of such dedication. The link between time and space is observed in living as well as obliterated dedications, which helps us understand in a very broad sense the dynamics of construction and maintenance of sacred space and the projections of initiatives at various levels of political administration with an impact on the poetics of space and community. Research on the spatial distribution of dedications in Slovakia is still a little explored field, even though the extensive data sources are relatively high in quality and quantity and enable the interpretation of different relations in various scales. In the con- text of important dedications, it is the Marian ones that have a significant position in church life and are the most common ones, reflecting the intensity of the worship of the Virgin Mary within the Slovak environment. The research also indicates that the importance and popularity of Marian dedications are accompanied by great diversity with growth over time. It also reflects on the background based on social changes, such as the extinction of the Kingdom of Hungary, the declaration of Our Lady of Sorrows as the patron of Slovakia, etc.