Globalization and the Religious Production of Space

Glocal Religions: An Introduction

“…Of special importance for the incorporation of the problematic of globalization within the sociology of religion is the gradual extension of Appadurai's (1990) notion of -scapes into the area of religion. Although religion is not included within his original typology of -scapes, the notion of religious landscape or religioscape has been gradually introduced into social-scientific discourse (McAlister 2005) and used to study the differential signification and contested nature of religious sites that operate within competing religioscapes (Hayden and Walker 2013). It has also been further applied to religious traditions within Christianity (Roudometof 2014a) as a means of capturing the religious unity formed by such traditions.…”

Religiously Motivated Migration

“…Modern globalization has enabled missionaries to migrate practically anywhere there are people (Wuthnow and Offutt 2008) and embed religious value systems within regional cultures (Wellman and Keyes 2007). In very calculating acts, Pentecostals and other evangelicals have mapped out global areas of "unreached people groups" that are the target of their missions (McAlister 2005).…”

Mobilizing Cathedral Metaphors: The Case of ‘Sacred Space, Common Ground’

“…Certain sacred spaces may be 'agreed-upon' by religious insiders and respected by outsiders (McAlister, 2005); yet, the adjective 'sacred' may apply equally to a site 'that has the capacity to be remembered and to evoke what is most precious' (Sheldrake, 2001: 1). Examples of such sacralization would be temporary roadside shrines that memorialize victims of traffic collisions and help to make sense of inexplicable loss (Collins and Opie, 2010) and sites of terror such as Ground Zero (Jacobs, 2004).…”