Interreligious Events in the Public Space: Performing Togetherness in Times of Religious Pluralism

Abstract

This chapter analyzes the spread and global diffusion of interreligious public events that are intended to commemorate traumatic memories, to mourn the victims of violence or disasters, and to perform public celebrations. This chapter takes a double approach to the subject. First, and from a political science perspective, it examines how interreligious rituals are being globally diffused, who their carriers are, and what factors explain their rapid diffusion in diverse local contexts, especially in Europe. Second, by assuming an ethnographic perspective, this chapter explores the microsociology of interreligious public events with the aim of understanding how the idea of the interreligious movement becomes crystalized and materialized in specific settings. This second part is based on the analysis of a specific empirical case—which is the organization and celebration of an interreligious mourning ritual for the victims of the terrorist attack that occurred in Barcelona in August 2017.