Living religious practices

The practice of religion in the daily lives of migrant minorities goes beyond formal rituals in homes and temples, to include quotidian practices informed by religious beliefs, norms and values. The self-conscious adoption of new spiritual disciplines and participation in boundary-crossing practices, including interfaith and multicultural events, is also important, with all practices operating across different scales, from individual to global. Drawing on examples from South Africa, Malaysia and the UK, four processes are identified. Religious practices enable migrants to travel, arrive and settle. They contribute to the formation of persons and identities, and to the bonding of congregations and communities. When religious practices are directed to public audiences, they constitute tactical initiatives for increased visibility, claims for recognition and the temporary sacralization of public space. And some practitioners go further, crossing boundaries to move beyond established social divisions and conventional cultural categories

Walls and other unremarkable boundaries in South London:impenetrable infrastructure or portals of time, space and cultural difference?

Seemingly impenetrable, urban walls, fences and other hard surfaces of the city do not seem likely contenders for social and cultural innovation and interaction. Generally, they remain unnoticed and unremarked upon. Yet broken, traversed, entered or excavated, they become visible and open to narration and imaginative (re)construction. These inconspicuous man-made structures, crucial for the management of urban life, for ensuring the efficient flow of people and traffic, and for securing public and private property, have counter-cultural potential. As boundaries for keeping people and objects out or in and for separating human activity on the surface from what is below ground, they may permit access to previously hidden times and places, and may allow new encounters to take place. Drawing on data from a research project on “Iconic Religion”, I eschew London’s iconic sites for the forgotten infrastructure in their shadows, and ask what new social relations and cultural imaginaries are generated by the wall separating a church from a market, a construction site behind a mosque, and a gate to a disused graveyard on land owned by Transport for London

The study of religion in the UK in its institutional context

How has the study of religion in the UK been shaped by its institutional contexts? Consideration is given to the Christian and secular foundations of universities and higher education colleges, the relationship of theology and religious studies, and the impact of institutional structures and drivers associated with teaching and research. The formation of ‘TRS’ as an instrumental and contested subject area is discussed, as is the changing curriculum. Research on religion is examined in relation to new institutional pressures and opportunities: the assessment of university research and the public funding of research. The importance of the impact agenda and capacity building are illustrated

The study of religion in the UK in its institutional context

How has the study of religion in the UK been shaped by its institutional contexts? Consideration is given to the Christian and secular foundations of universities and higher education colleges, the relationship of theology and religious studies, and the impact of institutional structures and drivers associated with teaching and research. The formation of ‘TRS’ as an instrumental and contested subject area is discussed, as is the changing curriculum. Research on religion is examined in relation to new institutional pressures and opportunities: the assessment of university research and the public funding of research. The importance of the impact agenda and capacity building are illustrated

Religious Studies and its Relationship with Theology: A Spatial Analysis

Academic disciplines can be understood as tribes with their own territories (Becher 1989) which are protected from outsiders and invested with power and meaning for those within. The language which scholars use to delineate and distinguish them from one another is replete with spatial metaphor and the language of war and struggle. References to inside/outside, inclusion/exclusion, to boundaries, incursions, incorporation, integration and embrace are frequently made, particularly when scholars write about their own discipline in relation to others. In this article I offer a spatial analysis of discourse about the discipline of religious studies and its relationship to theology. I note the importance in such discourse of the container schema (Lakoff and Johnson 1999) for depicting possible disciplinary relationships and various perspectives on ‘religion’ as an object of study. A spatial approach offers a clear visual depiction of the views of selected scholars of religion on the relationship of religious studies to theology, whilst also revealing some of the power strategies at work in disciplinary construction. Keywords: Religious studies, Theology, spatial language, academic discipline

Tips for connecting your research with the media

During the Religion and Diversity Project’s 2015 annual team meeting, team members and local journalists came together for a panel on presenting research results to the media. Following the lively discussion, on the basis of our experience of researching and working with the media, we were asked to identify key points for communicating research in the press, on radio and television. Here are our top five tips for media engagement, contextualized by our experiences and professional backgrounds

Fascist Aspirants:Fascist Forge and Ideological Learning in the Extreme Right Online Milieu

Learning in extremist settings is often treated as operational, with little regard to how aspiring participants in extremist settings engage with complex and abstract ideological material. This paper examines learning in the context of the amorphous network of digital channels that compose the extreme-right online milieu. Through an in-depth qualitative analysis, we explore how well the prevailing model of extremist ideological learning (in ‘communities of practice’) accounts for the behaviour of aspiring participants of Fascist Forge, a now-defunct extreme-right web forum. The findings suggest that some of the social aspects of communities of practice have been replicated in the online setting of Fascist Forge. However, for a combination of technical and ideological reasons, the more directed and nurturing aspects of learning have not. Several issues are raised about the role of ideological learning in online communities, notably the open accessibility of extremist material, the lack of ideological control leading to potential mutation and innovation by self-learners, and the role of digital learning in the preparation, shaping and recruitment of individuals for real world organising and activism

How do religious and other ideological minorities respond to uncertainties?

There are many competing and complementary applications of ideas of uncertainty and in this chapter we outline these as well as showing how the key themes arising across the chapters interlink and provide a picture of the impacts of uncertainty on fringe ideological movements. The chapter compares and contrasts themes from the chapters focusing on religious groups with those on secular groups, demonstrating both the similarities in issues and responses as well as what can be seen to be unique about religious responses to uncertainty. It also highlights how uncertainty can be variously conceived, both in the theoretical study and experience of these groups, in the shape of external threats, such as legal pressures, and internal change, such as theological innovation, or the death of a founder. While each of the chapters that follow will stand on their own merits, this chapter both guides the reader through how they contribute to a cohesive whole, while also serving as an introductory guide to the problem of uncertainty as an everyday experience for individuals and groups, with a particular focus on minority religions

Three dimensions of religious place-making in diaspora

In this article, we explore comparatively how migrant minorities draw from their religious resources to carve out spaces of livelihood in three global cities (Kajang-Kuala Lumpur, Johannesburg and London). We also examine the spatial regimes through which the state and its apparatuses seek to manage the migrants’ presence and (in)visibility within these urban spaces. In particular, we focus on three of the most salient dimensions of migrants’ religious place-making: embodied performance, the spatial management of difference and belonging, and multiple embedding across networked spaces. Although these three dimensions intersect in dynamic, often tensile ways to constitute the fabric of the life world of migrant minorities, we separated them for heuristic purposes, to highlight the richness and texture of religious place-making