Search Results (391)

This study examines how religious socialization unfolds within a multi-religious academic campus, focusing on Palestinian–Muslim female students studying in a Jewish-majority institution in Israel. While academic spaces are often framed as secular and neutral, this research investigates how religion continues to shape identity, belonging, and everyday interactions in such contexts. Drawing on an interpretive qualitative approach, the study is based on in-depth interviews with 28 Palestinian–Muslim female graduate students. The findings reveal that the campus functions as a post-secular space characterized by three interconnected dynamics: (1) institutional arrangements that privilege majority religious norms while marginalizing minority practices; (2) the reproduction of power relations and symbolic boundaries between Jewish and Muslim students; and (3) subtle yet significant processes of identity transformation emerging through interreligious encounters. The study shows that religious socialization extends beyond family and community, taking shape within institutional contexts that require ongoing negotiation of visibility, legitimacy, and belonging. It further highlights forms of agency expressed through strategic adaptation, selective participation, and everyday resistance under conditions of constraint. These findings contribute to post-secular theory by demonstrating how religion is reconfigured rather than diminished in contemporary academic institutions, and position higher education as a critical site for understanding religion, gender, and power in divided societies. Full article

This exploratory study examines the heterogeneous spatial evolution of cities in a fragmented non-metropolitan region of Southern Brazil and develops an original functional-symbolic typological framework that integrates functional performance and symbolic production in the classification of cities. Grounded in the theoretical contributions of Lefebvre, Santos, and Corrêa, the framework was designed by the authors to simultaneously incorporate economic, territorial, cultural, and identity-related dimensions that are typically analysed separately in conventional urban typologies. The research adopts a qualitative and inductive approach to analyse secondary data from municipalities in the state of Santa Catarina. Rather than treating urbanisation as a homogeneous process, the study conceptualises urban typologies as analytical devices capable of revealing differentiated urban trajectories, uneven capacities of territorial articulation, and distinct modes of governance in non-metropolitan contexts. The findings show that cities with similar demographic scales perform diverse social, cultural, and economic roles shaped by historically and symbolically produced spatial relations. Five urban typologies were identified: Multifunctional Metropolises, Industrial Regional Capitals, Agroindustrial Cities, Cultural Tourist Cities, and Local Centres of Basic Function. The results demonstrate that urban centrality in non-metropolitan regions is not determined solely by economic performance or demographic scale, but also by symbolic attributes such as cultural heritage, territorial identities, festivals, and religious functions. By integrating material and symbolic dimensions within a single analytical structure, the proposed framework advances the understanding of fragmented urban systems, contributes to contemporary debates on non-metropolitan urbanisation and territorial governance, and offers a transferable approach for the analysis of urban diversity beyond the Brazilian context. The findings also provide practical implications for regional planning and public policy by highlighting the role of symbolic production in shaping territorial organisation and regional influence. Full article

This article examines the use of reproduced music during a large-scale summer blót organised by Ása-samfundet in Sweden. Based on ethnographic observation, it traces the unfolding of the ceremony and identifies when music is introduced and the roles it performs within the ritual process. Rather than treating music as a vehicle of symbolic meaning or religious identity, the analysis conceptualises it as part of ritual infrastructure. From this perspective, music functions as a material and sensory resource that structures ritual time, supports continuity between ritual actions, and contributes to the organisation of a spatially dispersed gathering. Focusing on the use of music by the Nordic project Wardruna, the article argues that the ritual significance of reproduced music lies less in the transmission of specific meanings than in its practical role within the unfolding of the ceremony. Particular attention is paid to how music accompanies transitions, bridges temporal gaps between ritual actions, and provides a continuous sonic environment in situations where participants are distributed across a large ritual space. By shifting attention from representation to mediation, the article contributes to discussions of materiality, atmosphere, and the infrastructural dimensions of contemporary ritual practice. Full article

This article reconsiders Joseph Levenson’s Confucian China and Its Modern Fate: A Trilogy (hereafter Trilogy) as a modern site for the classification of Confucianism within, against, and alongside the category of religion. Rather than revisiting the question of whether Confucianism “is” a religion, we ask how Levenson’s account makes Confucianism legible through a double movement of de-religionization and partial religionization. On the one hand, Levenson presents Confucianism as an ethical, political, and civilizational order rather than a religion in the doctrinal or ecclesiastical sense; on the other hand, his analysis repeatedly invokes forms of sacralized authority, symbolic centrality, and moral transcendence that complicate any simple secularization of the Confucian tradition. Through a close reading of Levenson’s conceptual vocabulary and historical framing, this article argues that his interpretation does not merely deny Confucianism religious status; it reveals the instability of the modern classificatory boundary between moral philosophy, civil religion, and religious formation. By treating Levenson not simply as an interpreter of Confucian China but also as a producer of modern categories, the article contributes to current debates on rujia (Confucian “school”, 儒家) and rujiao (Confucian “religion”, 儒教) and reflects more broadly on what becomes visible, and what is distorted, when Confucianism is examined through the conceptual toolkit of religious studies. Full article

Across human history, water has sustained communities while also shaping religious imagination as a symbol of life, danger, purification, and renewal. This review examines how water acquires religious meaning through symbolic associations, ritual uses, theological interpretations, sacred landscapes, and material water infrastructures across more than five millennia, drawing on examples from ancient civilizations, long-standing Asian traditions, Indigenous religions of the Americas and the Caribbean, and the three major Abrahamic religions. The study explores how rivers, springs, rain, floods, wells, sacred basins, and ritual waters have been understood as signs of creation, purification, fertility, healing, divine presence, destruction, and renewal, while also remaining part of everyday practices of settlement, agriculture, health, and communal life. The comparative analysis highlights recurring patterns and cultural differences. In some traditions, water appears as a primordial substance from which life emerges; in others, it functions as a medium of moral cleansing, ritual preparation, communal prayer, or sacred geography. The study argues that the religious meaning of water is best understood through the interaction of four closely related dimensions: symbolic interpretation, ritual practice, sacred or culturally charged landscapes, and material water infrastructures. By bringing these dimensions together, the article uses the concept of hydraulic heritage to connect religious water symbolism with sacred basins, wells, springs, hammams, monastic water systems, irrigation rituals, and other inherited water-related landscapes and practices. These connections offer a culturally grounded perspective for contemporary discussions on environmental ethics, water protection, and societies’ responsibility toward natural resources. Full article

In the 1930s and 1940s, Kumbum Monastery (Tibetan: sku’ bum byams pa gling) emerged as a significant spatial node in visual culture during the period of war and modern nation-building in the Republic of China (1912–1949). Through photography, painting, and film, a diverse range of visual media depicted the monastery’s architectural layout, inscribed plaques and steles, Cham dance (Tibetan: འཆམ་, Wylie: ’cham) rituals, lamaic prayers, and scenes of temple fairs and marketplaces. These visual representations not only documented historical detail but also constructed a composite space in which sacredness, transcendence, and secularity intersected. Due to its unique geographical location, religious doctrines, historical narratives, and political entanglements, Kumbum functioned as both a spiritual center and a politically charged symbol. Within this visual discourse, cham rituals and collective prayers were imbued with wartime ideological meanings, aligning religious transcendence with the national aspiration for resistance and victory. The inscribed plaques by state officials visually asserted political authority over sacred religious spaces, while the depiction of temple fairs foregrounded the entanglement of religious practices with everyday secular life, becoming key arenas for ethnic integration and political mobilization. Artists and photographers actively engaged with and reproduced both the symbolic and the quotidian landscapes of the monastery. These visual materials contributed to the broader project of narrating the Republic’s frontier and constructing the nation’s image. By examining how both monastic actors and external observers visually constructed Kumbum Monastery’s political and spiritual space, this study illuminates the complex interplay between religion and state power, and shows how visual media articulated ideological meanings and negotiated spatial relationships as collective responses to the site within the conditions of modernity. Full article

This study examines the positioning of biblical narratives within international relations scholarship, with particular emphasis on their function as cultural resources shaping identity, geopolitical discourse, and soft power dynamics. Although religion has gained increasing recognition within international relations, the extent to which scriptural narratives are systematically integrated into analytical frameworks remains insufficiently defined. To address this issue, the study employs a mixed-methods research design that combines a systematic literature review with bibliometric analysis. Bibliographic data were retrieved from the Scopus and Web of Science databases through a structured query linking biblical terminology to diplomacy, geopolitics, and religion–politics interactions, and were analyzed using the Bibliometrix package in R. The analysis draws on two datasets comprising 135 publications from Scopus and 88 from Web of Science, spanning 1989 to 2026. The findings indicate that scholarship examining biblical narratives in international relations is moderately developed and interdisciplinary, yet remains fragmented, with geopolitical themes predominating. Biblical narratives are consistently present but are primarily embedded within broader analytical categories such as identity, discourse, and legitimacy, rather than being treated as central variables. The results further suggest that religious content is often incorporated in indirect or implicit forms, reflecting a broader tendency to approach religion as a contextual rather than a constitutive element. Overall, the findings indicate that biblical narratives function primarily as interpretive and symbolic frameworks in international relations, while their analytical potential remains only partially developed, underscoring the need for more systematic integration of cultural and religious analysis in the study of global politics. Full article

This study examines how contemporary religious architecture mediates sacred meaning through the interaction of symbolic form, embodied practice, and sensory-spatial conditions, using the Namaste Dagoba at Famen Temple as a case study. Integrating architectural semiotics with exploratory empirical research, the study employs questionnaires and semi-structured interviews, supplemented by architectural field notes, to investigate how visitors perceive and interpret the space. An exploratory structural equation modeling (SEM) framework is used to examine possible relationships among Symbolism and Aesthetic Experience (SAE), Embodied Spatial-Ritual Perception (ESRP), and Perceived Sacred Meaning (PSM). The findings indicate that while symbolic and aesthetic perception provides an initial interpretive basis, perceived sacred meaning appears to be strongly associated with reported embodied spatial experience. Spatial configuration, ritual pathways, mandala-based geometry, and gradients of spatial intensity are interpreted as design conditions that may shape visitors’ reported perception, movement experience, and sense of sacred meaning. The observed mediating role of ESRP suggests that architecture may operate as an experiential interface rather than only as a static symbolic system. By integrating semiotic theory with exploratory questionnaire and interview evidence, the study proposes a tentative embodied and processual model of architectural meaning-making. Rather than suggesting a rupture from historical Buddhist spatial traditions, the study identifies one contemporary design strategy in which inherited cosmological symbolism, ritual movement, threshold experience, and sensory atmosphere are recomposed through a monumental modern architectural vocabulary. Full article

This article argues that lotus and dharma wheel motifs in the Dunhuang Mogao Caves function not merely as decorative symbols but as active visual apparatuses that generate embodied religious experience through a mechanism we term “totemic mediation.” Drawing on Lévi-Strauss’s structuralist reading of totemism, Descola’s ontological framework, Gell’s theory of art as agency, Meyer’s “sensational form,” and Varela’s neurophenomenology, we define totemic mediation as a triadic mechanism encompassing material–spatial arrangement, ontological transformation of experiential states, and value structure generation. We analyze motifs from Mogao Caves 285, 329, and 361 using a five-step analytic framework: formal–visual description, reconstructed embodied viewing, doctrinal identification, mediation mechanism analysis, and evaluative assessment. The analysis demonstrates that the lotus mediates ontologically along a spatial axis, building a vertical channel between the worldly and the divine through ceiling configurations and upward gazes, while the dharma wheel mediates teleologically across the temporal axis, neutralizing linear temporality through rotational dynamics. Together, these motifs constitute “visual prajñā”—a nonconceptual, embodied cognitive effect that bypasses discursive reasoning to enable direct apprehension of śūnyatā (emptiness). This article offers a replicable analytic framework for examining how religious images operate simultaneously as visual apparatuses and ontological mediators. Full article

This article develops a symbolic hermeneutic framework for interpreting contemporary socio-educational phenomena within the horizon of decolonial thought and Liberation Theology. It begins from the assumption that symbols are not merely decorative forms of representation but fundamental structures of meaning that shape both individual experience and collective life, especially through their educational effects. From this perspective, the article examines how the symbols circulating in social communication reveal the ideological underpinnings of imagination, authority, exclusion, and resistance. The essay then places this symbolic analysis in dialog with decolonial theory, arguing that the enduring epistemological legacy of colonialism continues to organize hegemonic forms of knowledge, subjectivity, and power. Particular attention is devoted to the concept of the frontier, first understood as a modern device of exclusion and then reinterpreted as a space of epistemic resistance, ethical encounter, and democratic confrontation among differences. The discussion further engages key authors of Liberation Theology and the philosophy of liberation—especially Gustavo Gutiérrez, Leonardo Boff, Enrique Dussel, and Paulo Freire—in order to show how religious discourse and pedagogical practice intersect in processes of emancipation. Methodologically, the study adopts a qualitative, interpretative approach grounded in philosophical hermeneutics and critical conceptual analysis. It reconstructs and compares major theoretical positions rather than presenting empirical data. The article argues that the integration of symbolic hermeneutics, decolonial thought, and liberationist theology offers an original framework for rethinking education as a transformative practice grounded in ethical responsibility toward the Other. By bringing the concepts of frontier, sentipensamiento, communality, and pluriverse into a single analytical constellation, the paper contributes to current debates in religious studies, critical pedagogy, and epistemic justice. In the context of contemporary global crises—migration, ecological devastation, social fragmentation, and the weakening of democratic participation—it proposes a renewed role for religion as a critical and generative force capable of opening new educational spaces for dialogue, liberation, and the reconfiguration of knowledge. Full article

The First Balkan War was not merely a military defeat but also a crisis of knowledge production. Although there is a vast body of academic literature in Turkey focusing on the causes, consequences, and military failures of the war, the discursive dimension of Western correspondents’ narratives has not yet been sufficiently analyzed. This research examines correspondent narratives within an integrated religious-civilizational framework that combines Edward Said’s concept of “Orientalism,” Stuart Hall’s concept of “Representation,” and Maria Todorova’s concept of “Balkanism.” Employing Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) based on Norman Fairclough’s three-dimensional model, the article investigates how reporter texts—often accepted as “transparent” primary sources in Turkish historiography—function as symbolic instruments of construction. By analyzing recurring representations of Turks as “fatalistic,” “pre-modern,” and “alien to European values,” the study reveals how these narratives legitimize a civilization hierarchy by exploiting the “Cross and Crescent” dichotomy. By revealing how these boundary-producing discourses transform military events into evidence of barbarism, the article challenges the claim of neutrality in archival records and contributes to the literature in this regard. By distinguishing between Orientalist representations of the Ottoman Turks and Balkanist representations of the Balkan nations, this study contributes to a more nuanced understanding of Western discursive hierarchies during the geopolitical crises of the early 20th century. Full article

Emperor Qianlong’s poem San-qing Cha, translated into French in the 18th century by the Jesuit missionary Jean Joseph Marie Amiot, represents a key case study in early Sino-Western literary exchanges. Existing scholarship has mapped the poem’s transmission trajectory, yet critical gaps remain concerning the religious foundations of Amiot’s translation strategies, the socio-political context of its British reception, and the specific mechanisms driving its literary metamorphosis. Adopting the systemic descriptive translation studies framework proposed by José Lambert and Hendrik van Gorp, this article follows the poem’s journey from France to Britain and delineates three successive phases of cross-cultural reshaping: religious reframing, symbolic appropriation in British garden-design debates, and reconfiguration as a vehicle for political satire. The study argues that transcultural meaning is always constructed by the receiving context, and that Jesuit translation practices and European literary appropriations together shaped the complex, reciprocal landscape of early Sino-Western civilizational dialog. Full article

This article investigates Black American Islam as a semiotically mediated New Religious Movement (NRM), hybrid in nature and emerging from conditions of racialized governance, state surveillance, and social marginalization. Focused on the intersection of NRMs and political environments, the work engages in the reconstruction of a historical and conceptual lineage between Black Muslim movements and their mediated negotiation by Hip Hop artists. Grounded in Hall’s model of encoding/decoding and Hebdige’s subcultural theory, the transition of Islam-inspired semiotic markers from esoteric subcultural opacity to explicit orthodox adherence is demonstrated using historical analysis and close reading of symbolic expression in lyrics. The findings support a consideration of religious illegibility as aesthetic negotiation and strategy for political survival in circumstances of state scrutiny, with the subsequent consolidation of orthodox interpretations in Hip Hop signifying a recalibration of religious legibility in the securitized climate of a post-9/11 world. The contribution asserts that Black American Islam exemplifies NRMs’ instrumentalization of doctrinal elasticity and semiotic mediation in challenging socio-political surroundings, and its impact on negotiations of citizenship, political opposition, and religious identity. Full article

This article examines the ethnopragmatic significance of religiously based personal names among the Agwagune people of Biase in Cross River State, Nigeria. Insights from a socio-onomastic framework are used to account for the situational, socioreligious and sociocultural contexts of Agwagune naming practices that reinforce the people’s belief systems and worldview. Using participant observation and semi-structured interviews, data were generated during a nine-month fieldwork session involving 30 participants who were knowledgeable in the traditional religious socio-onomastic tradition. Our findings show that Agwagune people draw from their symbolic linguistic resources to bestow personal names that become messaging instruments that express traditional religious affiliations, sociocultural practices and indigenous belief systems. The personal names bear ethnopragmatic relevance that manifests in the veneration of deities and traditional worship; significations in rituals and religious festivals; mysteries of death, reincarnation and commemoration; traditional familial hierarchies; and the sociocultural connection between the people and their physical and spiritual universe. Aside from contributing to the global discourses on socio-onomastics from the perspectives of a micro-minority ethnolinguistic group, the study is also relevant because it serves as documentary material for an endangered and transitioning socio-onomastic practice that characterizes the people’s cosmology, belief systems and lived experiences that are gradually being replaced by Christian orientations. Full article

During China’s social transformation, the spiritual life of young people exhibits a dual tendency toward secularisation and consumerization. While traditional institutional religion continues to wane, a consumption-based religiosity has surfaced, marking a shift from collective, class-based subcultural expressions to post-subcultural practices centred on individual affect, meaning bricolage, and fluid identities. Through a comparative analysis of historical Real Person Fiction and Yonghe Temple bracelets, this study reveals how contemporary youth transform historical memory and religious symbols into flexible cultural resources. Crucially, this transformation is not a wholesale rupture with tradition but rather a selective appropriation and recontextualization of religious concepts inherited through family upbringing and folk customs. Their practices thus embody a dialectic of discontinuity and continuity: what is discontinued is institutional allegiance to prescribed rituals; what continues is the deep-seated impulse to seek meaning through symbolic practices. The research finds that young people construct temporary scene-based tribes through emotional identification and symbolic consumption, using fluidity and multiplicity to counter anxieties in daily life. Compared to traditional communities, such tribes offer individuals meanings that are more personalised and immediate, reflecting the lifestyles individuals wish to cultivate. Within a context of high uncertainty, they convey fragmented responses to the predicaments of modernity through the reinterpretation and re-narration of historical and sacred symbols. Full article