Responses to Religious Diversity in Spain

Abstract

Thei ncrease in religious diversity is an indisputably clear trendi nm ost European countries.This transformationhas givenrise to challenges to the ways in whichstatesand secular institutions have traditionally provided their services.Our research is embedded in academic debates aboutthe responses of secular state-run institutions to the religious diversification of the population. We compare two different institutionalsettings:prisons and hospitals.D rawing on ethnographic research conducted in eight prisonsa nd six hospitals in two regions in Spain,weshow that there is no single nationwidepolicy that addresses religious diversity in public institutions.R ather we suggest that institutionspecificc haracteristics along with context-related factors help explain how these two types of institutions respond differently to religiousd iversity.T his showsh ow national regimeso fs tate secularism are deployed in differing directions,d ependingo nv arious organisational and contextual factors.