Kim Knott

Religious and ethnic identity among young Muslim women in Bradford

Abstract This article explores the relationship between aspects of religious and ethnic identity for a group of young Muslim women from a school in Bradford. Previous work has tended to give a thematic account of such young womens attitudes to home, education, work, religion, marriage and relationships, and has often concluded that they are either ‘betwixt and between’ or the synthesisers of two distinct cultures. This article discusses then calls into question previous models by adopting a perceptual map which enables young womens testimonies to be analysed in terms of religious and ethnic orientation rather than the two cultures of home and school. As well as a general account of four religio‐ethnic orientations, the experiences of four young women are described. The authors do not see this approach as static, but as expressing the young womens negotiations of religious and ethnic factors at a particular point in time, their place on the perceptual map changing with time as their values and attitudes...

From locality to location and back again: A spatial journey in the study of religion

Abstract In this article, in the context of a retrospective examination of my own research journey from locality to location and back again, I argue for the importance and value of studying religion in local perspective, and reconceptualize ‘locality’ from the perspective of a spatial methodology, in recognition of the critiques made of earlier usage and the demands placed on the term in the context of globalization. Using the example of an urban high street, I put a spatially-informed approach to the study of religion in locality to work. I suggest that such an approach counterbalances and challenges the once dominant perspective in Religious Studies that focused on World Religions and saw the places in which they occurred as little more than mere context. A locality-based approach seeks to reconnect religion with other social and cultural fields and to recognise the impact of local particularity on the religious life of an area.

Media portrayals of religion and the secular sacred : representation and change

Is it true that Christianity is being marginalised by the secular media, at the expense of Islam? Are the mass media Islamophobic? Is atheism on the rise in media coverage? Media Portrayals of Religion and the Secular Sacred explores such questions and argues that television and newspapers remain key sources of popular information about religion. They are particularly significant at a time when religious participation in Europe is declining yet the public visibility and influence of religions seems to be increasing. Based on extensive research conducted on British mainstream media coverage of religion, the book is set in the context of wider debates about the sociology of religion and media representation. This book opens by laying out the key issues in global perspective. Using research conducted in the 1980s and 2008-10, the authors examine British media coverage and representation of religion and contemporary secular beliefs and values, and consider what has changed in the last 25 years. Exploring the portrayal of Christianity and public life, Islam and religious diversity, atheism and secularism, and popular beliefs and practices, several media events are also examined in detail: the Papal visit to the UK in 2010 and the ban of the controversial Dutch MP, Geert Wilders, in 2009. Questions arise about the media image of Christianity, how atheist and secularist demands on freedom of speech and equality are treated, and whether the media is anti-Islamic. Religion is shown to be deeply embedded in the language and images of the media, and present in all types of media coverage from news and documentaries to entertainment, sports reporting and advertising. A final chapter engages British findings with wider global debates about religion and media.

Specialness and the sacred: Ann Taves, Religious Experience Reconsidered

Abstract Ann Taves proposes an encompassing framework of ‘specialness’ in which both simple and complex ascriptions of things deemed significant — whether religious, spiritual, magical or ideological — may be contained. Her preference for ‘specialness’ over other terms is clearly argued, but does not adequately take into consideration recent, comparable research on the ‘sacred’, in particular the work of Anttonen. Whilst acknowledging the flawed nature of ‘sacred’ as a scholarly resource, I note that it may not be easily set aside. Unlike ‘special’, ‘sacred’ has deep and wide‐ranging cultural resonances that not only attract and repel scholars in equal measure, but remain at the heart of popular and theological usage for signalling those things, places, values and issues that are non‐negotiable, forbidden, or of deep and abiding significance

Iconic Religion in Urban Space

Abstract In order to understand current dynamics of religious diversity, a focus on the tangible presence of religion and the co-existence of new and longstanding religious buildings, sites and artifacts in urban spaces is a fruitful starting point. Launching the notion of iconic religion, this introduction seeks to contribute to developing a scholarly framework for the nexus of religion and the city from a spatial, material, aesthetic and semiotic angle. Situated in the interface between matter and religious meaning, religious icons are not simply carriers of meaning, but make it present.

ISSUES IN THE STUDY OF RELIGIONS AND LOCALITY

This paper is a tentative attempt to explore some of the theoretical and empirical aspects of studying religions in the context of their local surroundings and conditions. Frequently we read, or write, studies of a religion or several religions as it or they manifest in a particular geographical area. In such studies, while a description may be given of the locality, its character, demography, social and eco nomic life, it is rare for these factors to be understood as engaging with, informing and being informed by the religious group, its beliefs, practices and self-understanding. How is a particular, local religion formed by its context, and how does it grow and change as its context changes? How does it express itself through this context? But this is not just a question of the effect of local demographic, social, economic and political factors at work upon religion. Religions, and the institutions and individuals that constitute them, do not arise passively from their local circumstances. They recruit and are built by local people with their own particular interests; they meet local needs. What, then, are the local forms and styles of these religious bodies, and how and why have they come about? How do local religions engage with one another and with other local agencies and institutions, meet local needs and produce locally informed networks? To what extent do religions perceive their locales as sacred or their people specially blessed or empowered? Do local religious bodies look outward to external national or global centers of activity and authority, or within to their own sources and resources? How do the local, national and global interact, and with what consequences? And how, as students and scholars, are we to study these local forms? What methods should we use, and what ideas should we bear in mind in seeking to make sense of what we observe? Once we have understood particular local religious groups and different religious expressions, how might we set about making informed comparisons between religions in different localities?

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.

Religion: Family and Kinship

This article considers how religion, family, and kinship intersect with one another. Family and kinship are closely related concepts which together incorporate a number of issues, including marriage, reproduction, family roles and relationships, descent and alliance, inheritance and taboo. Families have always existed in order to create and strengthen bonds between groups and to provide a suitable location for reproduction and nurture. They have been of many types. Kinship refers to systems of both descent and alliance, and to both biological and social relationships. Religion refers to the sum of beliefs and practices, ideas and attitudes, movements and institutions, symbols and experiences by which individuals and groups give meaning and order to their world, often with reference to a supernatural being or power. In the article, consideration is given to how religion has been involved in the social organization of kinship and the family, how issues surrounding both have affected religious beliefs, attitudes, and practices, and how they have served the interests of religions. A range of different religions, family types, and kinship arrangements have been referred to, and contemporary debates about the relevance and ethics of the family, to which religious voices have contributed, have been discussed.