Creating Religious Spaces in Cape Town, Barcelona and Montreal: Perspectives From Cultural Theory on the Re-Figuration of Spaces and Cross-Cultural Comparison

Abstract

Engaging with recent social science debates on urbanism, space, and religion, in this article I explore how religious change and the re-figuration of spaces are mutually shaped in cities located on three different continents: Cape Town, Barcelona, and Montreal. I start from the premise that social actors' spatial strategies and existing spatial regimes with regard to urban religion are mediated by the ways in which state and non-state actors draw on and mobilize publicly circulating notions of religious diversity and secularity. My argument is that there are, at the current conjuncture of global religious change, three main processes affecting the re-figuration of spaces: 1. the eventization, 2. the infrastructuration, and 3. the heritagization of religion. While they carry global significance, these processes play out differently in the three cities I analyzed. By identifying these shared developments, I challenge the notion that links between urbanism and religion in the Global South and the Global North are different beyond comparison. Instead, I argue that comparative methodologies in studies on urban religion are indispensable in order to reveal both global structural forces and cultural differences. The article is based on my ethnographic fieldwork carried out in each of the three cities.