Irene Becci

Religious super-diversity and spatial strategies in two European cities

The background to this article is the debate on cities as post-secular and super-diverse. The authors question that the concept of post-secular cities usefully sums up the complex processes currently characterizing religion in contemporary European cities. They propose that different historical memories are layered upon one another and they demonstrate how religious diversity and cities mutually shape one another. Based on empirical illustrations from research in Potsdam and Turin, the authors argue that cities affect religion by casting religious communities and their forms of sociality within particular spatial regimes and contributing to the territorialization of religious categories. Moreover, they state that religious groups shape cities by leaving durable architectural imprints on them. In particular, the article develops the notion of formations of religious super-diversity, which involves forms of religious belonging and identity that historically emerged through religious dissent and innovation, and shows that urban space is the iconic arena in which religious super-diversity becomes visible through the ways in which religious spatial strategies interact with cities’ spatial regimes. The authors identify three types of spatial strategies – place keeping, making and seeking – each of which expresses and responds to communities’ relationship to urban space in different ways. The typology is meant to serve as a tool to read complex processes taking into consideration both historical paths and contemporary religious formations.

Gendered Religion in Prison? Comparing Imprisoned Men and Women's Expressed Religiosity in Switzerland

Because of its secluded character the prison world is the object of distorted perceptions and a vivid imagery, which applies as well and probably, even to a very high degree to both gender and religion. Based on empirical data collected in two Swiss prisons, this article concentrates on two main topics: firstly, the authors describe the ways in which religiosity is expressed and practiced in prison by male and female inmates. Secondly, they comment on the social functions that inmates attribute to religion in prison. If men and women understand and practice religion in a similar manner, on the contrary, it appears that they attribute differentiated function to religion. After sketching out their methodological approach and briefly present their data, the authors connect their findings to the idea that if the institution determines to a large extent the differences in religiosity, the institution itself is organized according to a gendered logic and thereby also promotes a gendered relation to religion.

Topographies of Faith

Based on ethnographic explorations in cities across the globe, Topographies of Faith offers a unique and compelling analysis of religious dynamics in metropolitan centers. It creatively draws on perspectives from urban studies to explore the spatiality of religion in modern cities.

Entre pluralisation et régulation du champ religieux: premiers pas vers une approche en termes de médiations pour la Suisse

Regularities identified by the author in the Swiss socio-religious sphere suggest that the “pluralization thesis” cannot fully explain the contemporary complexity of this sphere. The author discusses the implications of an alternative approach to the pluralization thesis, that is, the theory of the regulation of religion. After giving a brief presentation of four broad types of regulation theories, the author proposes a theoretical framework drawing from all four types, but differing from them by the emphasis it puts on the reintegration of the actor in the sociological analysis of religion. She thus introduces the concept of “mediating institutions”, which offers a way out of the theoretical dichotomy of pluralization versus regulation. As an example, she traces the recent evolution of church-state relationships by exploring the current discussions concerning the introduction of cultural teaching on religion into the Swiss school education system.

Languages of Change in Prison: Thoughts About the Homologies Between Secular Rehabilitation, Religious Conversion, and Spiritual Quest

In European countries, rehabilitation is one of the objectives of the criminal code since the end of the World War II. Accordingly, imprisonment is organized in its core towards the aim of rehabilitation, although this aim is placed under the higher principle of security. Formally, the structure of imprisonment is a system of stages which is oriented towards less and less imprisonment. The topic of change is hence inherently linked to the prison institution itself; it is a structural pattern of it. This text analyses a set of narratives alluding to the change coming from empirical studies carried out in various prisons in Italy, Germany, and Switzerland since 2003. The most frequent narratives one finds when working on the notion of change in prison are secular. Religious change is an exception but one that has a surprising coherence. A third type can be called spiritual. In this text, these three types are discussed, illustrated, and theorized. The reflections point to the existing links between the core idea of rehabilitation and religion.

European Research on Religious Diversity as a Factor in the Rehabilitation of Prisoners: An Introduction

Debates about the aims and social functions of the current prison systems in Europe have emerged cyclically in political arenas and the mass media. The range of opinions is extremely wide, from the criticism of prisons as inhuman and even engendering criminality and the request to abolish them, to the opposite: the claim that prisons are velveted shelters for criminals and need to be harshened. Social scientific research confirms that prisons and their aims of containment and rehabilitation are highly contested fields. Recently, the contestations have become increasingly related to religion and religious diversity. This chapter systematizes the results in a comparative perspective by clarifying the locations where religious diversity is present and distinguishing them analytically. It finally introduces the logic of the structure of the book.

Gefängnisseelsorge in der sich wandelnden ostdeutschen Gesellschaft : eine Analyse der kulturellen, theologischen und sozialen Spannungen

Zusammenfassung Nach dem Zusammenbruch des kommunistischen Regimes in Ostdeutschland wurde die Beziehung zwischen Staat und Kirche neu geregelt. Die Konsequenz war ebenfalls eine Redefinition der Beziehung von Kirche und Gesellschaft. In diesem Artikel konzentrieren sich die Autoren beispielhaft auf einen Aspekt im Zusammenhang dieses Wandels: die Gefängnisseelsorge in ostdeutschen Gefängnissen. Dabei schlagen sie einen Vergleich zur Einführung des Religionsunterrichts an staatlichen Schulen vor. Sie beschreiben die spezifischen Bedingungen der gegenwärtigen gesellschaftlichen und rechtlichen Grundlagen der Gefängnisseelsorge in Ostdeutschland, portraitieren fünf Gefängnisseelsorger und analysieren Interviews, die mit ihnen gemacht wurden. Sie fokussieren auf drei Arten von Spannungen, die als charakteristisch für den ostdeutschen Kontext angesehen werden können und mit denen die Gefängnisseelsorger und –seelsorgerinnen einen Umgang finden müssen: ihre konfessionelle Identität, die in staatliche Strukturen eingebettet ist, die Hilfe in einer hochsäkularisierten Gesellschaft anbieten; ihr Rückgriff aus in der DDR gemachte Erfahrungen, als sie mit dem neuen Staat kooperieren mussten; und schließlich die Neujustierung der Beziehung von Gefängnis und der Gesellschaft außerhalb der Gefängnismauern. Abstract After the breakdown of the Communist regime in Eastern Germany, a new relationship between state and church was established. The consequence was an overall redefinition of the relationship between church and society as well. In this article, the authors look at one aspect of the changes that occurred in this context, pastoral care in Eastern German prisons, suggesting a comparison to the introduction of religious education in state schools. They describe the specificity of the current social and legal conditions of prison chaplaincy in Eastern Germany, portray five prison chaplains, and analyze the interviews conducted with them. They focus on three types of tensions specific to the Eastern German context that these chaplains must find a way to handle: their confessional identity which is embedded in state structures that provide care in a highly secular society, the use they make of their experiences during the GDR when having to cooperate with the new state, and finally the readjusted relationship between prison and society outside prison walls.

Zones grises. Diversité religieuse et pouvoir en institution

This article proposes an interpretational strategy allowing us to study religious plurality in a variety of institutions based on the case of penal institutions. The matrix is a synthesis of various recommendations shared by many researchers working on religion in public institutions. To get beyond an approach limiting itself to an institutional, or even organisational, definition of the religious and its representatives and to take the importance of the power issues permeating it in this context into account, the author looks at three aspects: focusing on the religion of various people present in the institution; paying attention to the material and spatial arrangements; taking the ‘symbolic’ dimension of the institution studied into account; from a methodological point of view, making room for an ethnographic approach. Such an approach allows us to grasp the religious in the institution’s ‘grey areas’. This concept is defined and illustrated by the Swiss case.

Religious Involvements in a Post-Socialist Urban Space in Berlin

This chapter focuses on the perspectives of the actors involved and shall therefore draw on the notion of space. The urban space located in one of the eastern districts of Berlin. Reflections here based on an ethnographic account of the ways in which religious actors integrate themselves into an urban place, with its specific problems and social inequalities. The analysis of the Baptist congregations involvement in a Berlin urban space shows that there can be different ways for a religious community to relate to the secular urban environment. Certainly, while Baptists are relatively successful in coping with their secular urban environment by adopting the tactics of closeness and locality, other religious agents, such as the Lutheran church, act on a more institutional level. Keywords:baptists; Berlin; church; post-socialist urban space; Religious; urban