[csaa-forum] IAG conference cfp- performances of religiosity

[Amelia Johns]

Dear Friends

We welcome abstracts. Apologies for cross-postings.

Cfp Paper Session at the 2014 Joint conference of the Institute of Australian Geographers (IAG) and the New Zealand Geographical Society, June 30th – July 2nd, University of Melbourne.
Sponsored by Urban Geography Study Group
Format: Standard paper session
Organisers: Michele Lobo and Amelia Johns (Deakin University, Melbourne, Australia)

PERFORMANCES OF RELIGIOSITY IN URBAN SPACES: ANXIETIES, TENSIONS AND POSSIBILITIES
Emerging research suggests that beliefs and embodied spiritual practices rooted in specific religions are transforming urban spaces and cultures in a manner which has wide-ranging outcomes for socio-spatial relations, political engagement, feelings of belonging and ways of living in the city (Mahmood 2005; Turner 2008; Kong 2010; Cloke and Beaumont 2013; Saunders 2013). To the extent that it might be said that urban culture is being appropriated into religious and spiritual practice and vice versa, it is worth considering how this interplay is recasting urban space and encounters between strangers. Importantly, these encounters produce both shared and contested meanings of urban space, particularly as urban life has often been imagined as a site where “secular visions of modernity are enacted” (Becci, Burchardt & Casanova 2012). Some commentators have envisioned the return of religion and spirituality to the public sphere as a force which unsettles secular orderings of identities and spaces in the city, opening up ‘postsecular’ visions of urban life as well as producing everyday anxieties and tensions. In light of these ‘unsettling’ performances, new research that makes the religious, ethical and material ‘visible from a revealing new angle’ (Sloterdijk 2013: 5) is necessary if we are to get past binaries of the sacred and profane.
We welcome papers that draw on diverse theoretical and methodological perspectives that explore not only the anxieties and tensions, but also the possibilities that performances of religiosity in public spaces provide in understanding transformative social change. We invite papers that address but are not limited to the following questions
-          How does the emotional and affective dimension of religious rituals and faith-based community practices impact on feelings of belonging and political engagement in urban space among those who differ by age, gender, generation and ethnicity?
-          How can we understand sacred and profane spaces through affects and emotions?
-          What role do sacred texts/interfaith dialogue play in exploring ways of living with difference?
-          What role do places of worship and material artefacts play in understanding belonging and intercultural relations?
-          What role does cyberspace play in faith-based community activism?
-          How can innovative methodologies including participatory action research, visual techniques and creative art practices contribute to exploring religiosity?
-          How can insights from Indigenous spiritual practices and connections to country broaden our understandings of how we might live with religious difference in urban settings?

Please submit paper abstracts of no more than 300 words by 31st March 2014 to Michele Lobo  (Michele.Lobo at deakin.edu.au<mailto:Michele.Lobo at deakin.edu.au>) or Amelia Johns (Amelia.Johns at deakin.edu.au<mailto:Amelia.Johns at deakin.edu.au>)

REFERENCES
Becci, I., Burchardt, M. and J Casanova eds. (2013). Topographies of faith: religion in urban spaces. Boston: Brill.
Cloke, P and Beaumont, J (2013). “Geographies of postsecular rapprochement in the city.”
Progress in Human Geography 37(1): 27-51

Kong, L. (2010). "Global Shifts, Theoretical Shifts: Changing Geographies of Religion." Progress in Human Geography 34(6): 775-776.

Mahmood, S. (2005). Politics of piety: the Islamic revival and the feminist subject. Princeton, N.J., Princeton University Press, American Council of Learned Societies

Saunders, R.A. (2013). Pagan places: Towards a religiogeography of neopaganism. Progress in Human Geography 37(6): 786–810.

Sloterdijk, P (2013) You Must Change Your Life: On Anthropotechnics. Cambridge: Polity Press.

Turner, B. S. (2008). Acts of Piety: The Political and the Religious, or a Tale of Two Cities. Acts of citizenship. E. F. Isin and G. M. Nielsen. London; New York, Zed Books.

Kind Regards

Amelia

Amelia Johns
Research Fellow
Centre for Citizenship and Globalisation, Faculty of Arts & Education

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Deakin University
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amelia.johns at deakin.edu.au<mailto:amelia.johns at deakin.edu.au>
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