Search Results (42)

This study examines the complex process of Islam’s localization in Sudan, focusing on how hospitality, Sufi dhikr, and Mawlid celebrations integrate with Islamic practices. Drawing on three years of qualitative fieldwork, it demonstrates how Sudan’s geography, ethnic diversity, and historical heritage enable the blending of core religious principles with local customs. Sufi brotherhoods—particularly Qādiriyya, Tījāniyya, Shādhiliyya, and Khatmiyya—play a pivotal role in local culture by incorporating traditional musical, choreographic, and narrative art forms into their rituals, resulting in highly dynamic worship and social interaction. In Sudan, hospitality emerges as a near-sovereign social norm, reflecting the Islamic ethics of charity and mutual assistance while remaining deeply intertwined with local traditions. Islam’s adaptability toward local customs is further illustrated by the vibrant drumming, chanting, and dancing that enhance large-scale Mawlid al-Nabi celebrations, uniting Muslims under a religious identity that goes beyond dogmatic definitions. Beyond their spiritual meanings, these Sufi practices and networks also serve as tools for social cohesion, often functioning as support systems in regions with minimal state presence. They help prevent disputes and foster unity, demonstrating the positive impact of a flexible Islam—one that draws on both scripture and local traditions—on peacebuilding in Sudan. While highlighting the country’s social realities, this study offers insights into how Islam can function as a transformative force within society. Full article

The study examines how individual skills influence adolescents’ and young adults’ commitment to climate protection and global health. Based on 21st-century skills and transformative education, it focuses on competences in science, geography, mathematics, religion, ethics, and media. A representative online survey of 783 participants in Germany assessed topic relevance, information-seeking behavior, and active engagement. The results show that subject-specific skills significantly affect engagement, especially when closely related to the topics. Scientific, mathematical, and geographical competences enhance all three engagement dimensions. Media competence primarily increases perceived importance, while religious and ethical competences positively influence all areas. Structural equation modeling reveals a process: perceived relevance leads to information search, which then drives engagement. Thus, competences have both direct and indirect effects on active involvement. The findings highlight that long-term engagement is not only driven by campaigns but also by education that equips young people with the skills to recognize important issues, seek information, and take action independently. Full article

Urban space is the social field in which religious diversity in contemporary Italy becomes most evident and where religious groups compete for visibility, recognition, and places of worship. The sites of so-called minorities can be observed as indicators of a plural religious geography. Peaceful and conflictual dynamics are both expressed precisely through external recognition, which may be horizontal—religious and social—when between peers or vertical therefore juridical. This study presents the findings of research conducted in the city of Turin, an emblematic case within the Italian religious landscape for the management of religious diversity and interreligious dialogue initiatives. The analysis focuses on the Romanian Orthodox Church located in the historic center, which we interpret as a shared religious place. This case shows how a spatial and material perspective can offer an innovative approach to the field of interreligious dialogue. Places of worship are crucial spaces for interreligious dialogue: they serve as laboratories of local peace-building and experiments in coexistence, mutual respect, encounter, and conflict mediation. However, in a frame of multiple secularities, the ambiguity of both the national and regional legal systems contribute to marginality of the religious dimension in the city’s urban planning policies, ignoring the important role these places play as spaces of cohesion, identity, inclusion. Full article

In late imperial China, a type of painting known as “panoramic maps” (shengjing tu 聖境圖, literally “sacred realm maps”) depicted Buddhist sacred sites. Often surviving as woodblock prints, examples from Mount Wutai and Mount Putuo are particularly representative. Previous research has often viewed these images as pilgrimage guides or focused on the relationship between pictorial perspectives and actual geography. This study centers on panoramic maps of Mount Wutai and Mount Putuo, examining both vertical and horizontal layouts, to offer a preliminary understanding of this genre. This study argues that: (1) Unlike urban maps, panoramic maps emphasize significant monasteries and landscape features, incorporating local legends and historical narratives, thus possessing strong narrative qualities. (2) These images likely functioned as pilgrimage souvenirs. Diverging from practical roadmaps, their primary goal was not strict realism but rather to convey the site’s sacredness and associated information through landscape painting conventions, allowing viewers to perceive its sacredness. (3) The woodblock print medium facilitated affordable reproduction, accelerating the circulation of the sacred site’s significance among the populace and aiding in its promotion. This research contends that the panoramic maps primarily function as folk landscape paintings reflecting the sacred site, capable only of approximating the relative positions of features. The widespread adoption of late-period woodblock printing enabled the low-cost reproduction and dissemination of the sacredness inherent in these Buddhist landscapes, constructing idealized spatial representations shaped by religious belief and geomantic principles. Full article

Rome, historically regarded as a monumental center of Catholic Christendom, now stands as a multi-layered environment shaped by diverse religious communities whose overlapping architectures, rites, and narratives expand the city’s cultural memory. This article employs Warburg’s Mnemosyne methodology to investigate how symbolic motifs, architectural forms, and intangible practices—from Eastern Orthodox iconography to the Great Mosque of Rome’s transnational design—migrate, adapt, and reconfigure within Rome’s urban fabric. Drawing on interdisciplinary approaches from cultural memory studies, religious studies, and urban geography, it reveals how minority communities—Jewish, Muslim, Orthodox Christian, Protestant, Methodist, and Scientology—act as “memory agents”, negotiating visibility and introducing new heritage layers that challenge monolithic perceptions of Rome’s identity. The analysis underscores that intangible heritage, such as chanting, prayer, and interfaith festivals, is equally central to understanding how collective memory is produced and transmitted. Tensions arise when key stakeholders do not validate these emerging cultural forms or question their “authenticity”, reflecting the contested nature of heritage-making. Ultimately, Rome’s religious plurality, shaped by migration and historical transformations, emerges as a dynamic memoryscape. By recognizing the vital role of minority faiths in heritage-making, this study contributes to broader debates on cultural pluralism, super-diversity, and the evolving definitions of religious and cultural heritage in contemporary global cities. Full article

Religious places represent one of the most significant categories of protected heritage. In Italy, however, places of worship belonging to minority communities often remain inconspicuous and are not legally recognized as part of the nation’s cultural heritage. Consequently, the histories of these communities face challenges in securing a space within the collective memory. This contribution, through a spatial approach and an interdisciplinary methodology, highlights the richness of the hidden heritage—both tangible and intangible—of the Greek Orthodox Church of the Nativity of St. John the Baptist in Turin. In particular, this research explores the role of the Greek language, which constitutes a significant element of intangible heritage for the community. Since the 1960s, regular celebrations in the Byzantine rite and the Greek language have been held in the Piedmontese capital. These biritual practices emerged in response to the demands of numerous Greek university students and families who revitalized the Orthodox presence in the territory during those years. In 2000, the Catholic Archdiocese granted the Greek Orthodox community the use of a church in the city’s historic center. This church is interpreted as a shared religious space, having undergone a transformation of identity over time: its Orthodox identity remains architecturally invisible, as the community continues to worship in a former Catholic church. Full article

Through an interdisciplinary study of the work of Jesuit Athanasius Kircher (1602–1680), the authors investigate the relationship between the cultural policies of the Roman Curia, the Jesuit order, religious diversity, and the aesthetic–spatial configuration of Rome during the early modern age. This paper shares in-depth observations of the recovery of ancient culture and its reworking in a post-reformist Christian age through architectural and spatial elements adopted to endorse the continuity of the ancient past and the Catholic reformistic universalistic aspirations. In this context, Kircher worked to decipher hieroglyphics on obelisks of the Imperial age but from Egyptian times. These defined a specific topography of space as a visual convergence of points: an urban geography of sacral and historical–political value and a connection with the memories of the Roman Empire and the most ancient religions of the ancient times. Full article

Religious settlements can reflect regional culture and social development, preserve the continuity of spatial structures over time, sustain social networks, and perpetuate traditions. Buddhist settlements, as a particular type of religious settlement, reflect the social development and daily lives of monks and common people. This study used literature research, field investigations, and GISs to construct a framework of the landscape of religious settlements based on the theory of the historic landscape approach. Buddhist grottoes from the Sixteen Kingdoms Period to the Qing Dynasty (304–1912) in the Hexi Corridor of Gansu Province were selected as a case study, and the patterns of religious settlements were identified. According to the analysis, it was found that religious settlements tended to have large religious buildings at their centre, with small buildings and attachments scattered around. They were close to central cities, with a complete transportation network, and they had relatively stable belief spaces. There were clear boundaries between believers and non-believers in the settlements. Four patterns of religious settlements were also identified according to the relationships between geography, social properties, and cultural connotations. These findings diachronically offer a new perspective on the understanding of religious settlements and steps for improving the inheritance of religious culture. Full article

The Deccan in the first half of the second millennium is marked by political and religious ferment. The Cōḻas, Gaṅgas, Rāṣṭrakūṭas, and Cāḷukyas are contesting its mundane territory, while the Śaivas, Jainas, and Vaiṣṇavas are contesting its spiritual geography. Unlike the interactions of the earthly rulers which spill real blood, the bloodshed of the spiritual gurus is merely metaphorical. But, the animosity driving their interactions is no less intense, for survival is at stake for them just as it is for their secular counterparts. In this essay, I explore the Jaina point of view in sectarian contestations between the twelfth and the fourteenth centuries through the texts of three Kannada authors: Dharmāṁṛtam of Nayasēna (1112CE), Samayaparīkṣe of Brahmaśiva (c.1200CE), and Dharmaparīkṣe of Vṛttavilāsa (c.1360CE). My objective is to identify the sectarian ‘other’ that these authors address, dispute with and vilify, and to explore the changing nature of this sectarian ‘other’ and the shifting attitudes of these authors towards their opponents. Full article

While tolerance is recognised as important, especially to diverse societies, understanding tolerance poses complexities, both theoretically and in practical application. Tolerance is relevant in different social contexts, yet these pose distinct challenges to measurement. Thus, understanding the measurement of tolerance is important. This study provides a systematic review of tolerance scales, with the procedure based on the PRISMA statement. The initial collection of over 1600 papers through the systematic review process yielded a set of 11 papers. These papers trace the development of tolerance scales to encompass distinct social contexts over time, including political, cultural, ethnic and racial, racial and religious, gender and sexual, and social. Correspondingly, the approaches reflect particular challenges relevant to these domains for understanding and measuring tolerance. In contrast, some recent contributions aim to develop broader, less context-specific means to assess tolerance. Notwithstanding the breadth of articles included, this systematic review yielded articles that covered only selected Western-centric geographies: this indicates the opportunity for further research to access and integrate non-English-language articles to broaden the geographical and cultural perspectives on tolerance. Full article

The suicide rates in Guyana, Suriname and Trinidad and Tobago are among the highest in the Americas, containing significant Indo-Caribbean populations that are suggested to be most vulnerable to suicide. This systematic review analyzes the existing literature and identifies knowledge gaps in risk and protective factors against suicide in these countries. The literature search conducted followed PRISMA guidelines using the PubMed and APA PsycInfo databases. The PRISMA flow diagram illustrated that eight scholarly papers were eligible for inclusion. Included literature examined stratified data focused on the aforementioned countries, as well as their Indo-Caribbean adolescent populations. Excluded literature did not mention suicidality, adolescents, Indo-Caribbeans, or the focal countries or was focused on the Jonestown mass murder–suicide event. The studies encompassed 6581 individuals. Identified risk factors include social stigma regarding suicide, mental health resource scarcity, and difficult socioeconomic conditions. The identified protective factors for youth include religious/spiritual practices and group activities. Limitations include database quantity, risk of publication bias, and the small sample for each study. A prevailing social stigma regarding suicide was identified. Greater research is needed relating to effects of suicide legislation, bereavement experiences, sociocultural contexts, geography, migration patterns, and culturally compatible interventions to aid future suicide prevention efforts. The protocol was registered with PROSPERO (CRD42023417494). Full article

During a 2-year period, the depictions of religious figures and their interactions with secular individuals in urban daily life became an integral feature of Turkish soap operas that gained popularity in the world after the 1990s. While previous studies have explored the portrayal of various actors in them in terms of age, gender, socio-economic status, and historical perspectives, there is a lack of analysis regarding the interaction between secular and religious urban representations. This research aims to investigate the differences in everyday cosmopolitan perspectives in terms of spatiality and temporality between the two groups. To examine this, the soap opera Kızılcık Şerbeti (One Love) was analysed. Research has shown that when two groups develop their identities in opposition to one another, it leads to the emergence of different temporal and spatial dimensions within the same urban setting. While it seems unfeasible to reconcile the daily routines of both groups in the same place, age, gender, education, and class make negotiation possible in shared spaces. This draws attention to the intersectional approach rather than the binary positions of identities in the placemaking process. The main contribution of this research is to integrate religion, which has been forgotten in human geography, into geographical and sociological discussions by focusing on an intersectional approach in an urban context. Full article

Visits to the palace of the sea god are a recurring theme in premodern Japanese narratives, and comparing these stories across time periods reveals shifting perceptions of the supernatural world. The earliest sources for narratives of travel to the palace of the sea god in Japan date from the eighth century, most notably in the stories of Luck of the Mountain and Urashima Tarō. In these stories, the descriptions of the sea god’s palace, the relationship of the sea god to the natural world, and even the location of the palace were tied to eighth-century understandings of kingship, weather, and geography. Later adaptations of these stories incorporate features of Buddhist geography, Chinese architecture, Buddhist narrative motifs, and even an alternative vision of supernatural time. These alterations occurred because the eighth-century narratives required adaptation to fit a new political, social, and religious reality. This comparison demonstrates that our vision of the supernatural world is inextricably tied to our understanding of the natural. When our fundamental grasp of the nature of reality changes, our imagination of the supernatural transforms in turn. Full article

The ferry from Havana to Regla, Cuba, transports visitors from today’s cruise ship docks across a brief stretch of water in about 20 min. Despite its brevity, this watery passage symbolically foregrounds the Marian devotion on the southern rim of the grand harbor. In this way, water conjoins African diasporic histories of enslavement, labor, survival, resistance, daily life, and religiosity within Havana Bay, into which two urban geographies project. Regla historically served as a municipality for dockworkers and shipwrights and became an enclave for identity creation, civil association, and religious worship for people of African descent. The church and sanctuary of Nuestra Señora de Regla (“Our Lady of Regla”) has nurtured this connection as it houses effigies of the venerated Virgin, adorned in blue. The Virgin of Regla represents one of two, along with El Cobre, of the most important Marian devotions on the island of Cuba and is the focus of insular and diasporic pilgrimage. In Regla, the Virgin’s nautical iconography decorates the sanctuary and historically connects her to the working populations who sustained this devotion as they serviced Havana Harbor with their labor. Adjacent to the church is a waterfront park that looks out on the water and the city of Havana beyond. Bordered on one side by a low wall, the park incorporates a large ceiba tree, ceiba pentandra, also known as the silk cotton or kapok tree, a tropical species with a large trunk and spreading tree canopy native to Mexico and Central America, the Caribbean, northern South America, and West Africa (with a similar variety found in South and Southeast Asia). This article considers landscape as a methodology for examining the interplay of this tree and the adjacent church as interwoven and mutually reinforcing sites of devotion for the worship of the Virgin Mary and the oricha Yemayá in Regla, Cuba, with a view toward a broader set of local and global spaces. Full article

After Buddhism spread to the Zhejiang, it underwent sinicization, giving rise to Chinese Buddhist architecture and forming a secularized character. The spatial-temporal distribution of historical Buddhist architecture in Zhejiang is strongly representative of Buddhist architecture. From the perspective of religious cultural geography, this study takes 11 prefecture-level cities of Zhejiang as the basic research units, and employs the spatial-analysis method of ArcGIS to analyze the spatial-temporal evolution characteristics of representative historical Buddhist architectural samples, and to explore the factors affecting their distribution. The research results indicate that the spatial distribution of representative historical Buddhist architectural samples in the Zhejiang is extensive, with a distinct single-core clustering characteristic. The mean-center movement of the representative historical Buddhist architectural samples in Zhejiang during different historical periods manifests in four distinct directional phases, overall moving from north to south. Natural, transportation, political, technological, economic, and religious cultural transmission factors collectively influence the spatial-temporal distribution of Buddhist architecture in Zhejiang. Especially the secularization of Buddhism and the syncretism of Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism have been the primary drivers in the spatial-temporal distribution evolution of Buddhist architecture. Full article