Religion and the Global City: Introduction (Bloomsbury Studies in Religion, Space and Place)

"This is the first book to explore how religious movements and actors shape and are shaped by aspects of global city dynamics. Theoretically grounded and empirically informed, Religion and the Global City advances discussions in the field of urban religion, and establishes future research directions. David Garbin and Anna Strhan bring together a wealth of ethnographically rich and vivid case studies in a diversity of urban settings, in both Global North and Global South contexts. These case studies are drawn from both 'classical' global cities such as London and Paris, and also from large cosmopolitan metropolises - such as Bangalore, Rio de Janeiro, Lagos, Singapore and Hong Kong which all constitute, in their own terms, powerful sites within the informational, cultural and moral networked economies of contemporary globalization. The chapters explore some of the most pressing issues of our times: globalization and the role of global neo-liberal regimes; urban change and in particular the dramatic urbanization of Global South countries; and religious politics and religious revivalism associated, for instance, with transnational Islam or global Pentecostal/Charismatic Christianity."--Bloomsbury Publishing. Title Page 4 Copyright Page 5 Table of Contents 6 List of Contributors 8 Acknowledgements 10 Introduction: Locating Religion and the Global City 12 Religion, space and the city 15 Approaching the ‘global city’ 18 Outline of the volume 21 Part One: Power, Visibility and the Politics of Space 36 Chapter 1 On the Road: Pentecostal Pathways through the Mega-City 38 Managing the streets in the religious district of Brás, São Paulo 42 The RCCG: Lagos and ‘London-Lagos’ 48 Pentecostal pathways and geo-spiritualities 55 Chapter 2 Urban Planning and Secular Atheism in Shanghai, Beijing and Singapore 58 Introduction 58 Religion and the secular in China 59 Shanghai 61 Beijing 63 Confucianism 65 Deterritorialization 67 Singapore 68 Conclusion 70 Chapter 3 Occupying the Global City: Spatial Politics and Spiritual Warfare among African Pentecostals in Hong Kong 73 Occupy Hong Kong 73 Talking the global city 75 Walking the global city 80 Conclusion 86 Chapter 4 Pentecostal Productions of Locality: Urban Risks and Spiritual Protection in Cape Town 89 Introduction 89 Space and urban insecurity in Cape Town 90 Pentecostalism in space 92 Spatial regimes and moral geographies 95 Siting Pentecostal practices in urban space 96 Conclusions 104 Part Two: Religious Media, Publics and Global Cultural Flows 106 Chapter 5 ‘The Future as News’: Astrology and Mediated Religion in Global Bangalore 108 Bangalore, the ‘third-world technopolis’ 111 ‘Religious angle’ and the television newsroom 114 ‘Nimma bhaviṣa’: Future as news 121 Conclusion 126 Chapter 6 Theorizing Mediatization and Religious Agency in European Global Cities 127 Introduction: Transnational religious networks, de-secularization and mediatization 127 Neoliberalism and the restructuring of local Governance 129 Religious agency and discourses of multiculturalism 130 Lefebvre’s theorization of space 133 Seeing the city through Instagram: Aestheticization, segmentation and stratification 136 Social media affordances: The organization of (inter)religious solidarities and the proliferation of counter-narratives 139 Conclusion: Rethinking Lefebvre’s triad for hybridized urban spaces 142 Chapter 7 Godlessness in the Global City 146 Non-religious presences in the global city 148 Spatial trajectories: ‘Glocal’ non-religion 154 Hidden and excluded non-religiosities in the global city 158 Conclusion 160 Post-script: The fate of the secular city 162 Acknowledgements 163 Part Three: Centralities, Peripheries and Religious Reterritorialization 164 Chapter 8 Marching for Jesus in Paris: Religious Territorialization, Public Space and the Appropriation of Centrality in a Fragmented City 166 The Protestant minority and evangelical expansion 167 Demonstrating in Paris 169 The March for Jesus and the global ‘recapture’ of urban territory 172 Marching for Jesus in Paris 175 ‘This is not an African march!’ 178 From Charisma to the ‘normalization’ of the marches 181 Conclusion 183 Chapter 9 Transnational Religion, Multiculturalism and Global Suburbs: A Case Study from Vancouver 184 Introduction 184 Transforming the suburban landscape 185 ‘Highway to Heaven’: The emergence of a multicultural, transnational religious landscape 187 Thrangu Tibetan Monastery 192 Lingyen Mountain Temple 195 Conclusion 198 Chapter 10 Place and the (Un-)making of Religious Peripheries: Weddings among Kenyan Pentecostals in London 200 (Migrant) Kenyans on the periphery 203 Centring: The making of persons and community 205 De-centring: The un-making of place(s) 208 Conclusion: Re-centring 211 Part Four: Global Migration, Everyday Multiculturalism and Religious Place-Making 214 Chapter 11 At Home in the Multicultural City: Islam and Religious Place-Making in Stuttgart, Germany 216 Home-making and urban place-making 220 The Salam Mosque complex 222 The mosque and community centre 224 At home: Being comfortable 225 At home: Receiving friends 226 At home: Engaging the world 227 At home: Receiving formal guests 228 Gender, home and community 229 At home in the city 231 Chapter 12 Religion as ‘Urban White Noise’ – Material Practices of Everyday Religion at the ‘Unquiet Frontiers’ of the Hyper-diverse City 233 Introduction 233 Urban post-secularity: The new terrain of religious urban white noise 236 Two case studies of ‘urban white noise’ 241 Exploring the ripple effect – hard to measure but undeniably present 248 Conclusion 250 Chapter 13 Between Wandering and Staying Put: Piety and Urban Mobility among Young Somali Women in Multicultural London 251 Introduction 251 From east to west and back 253 Mosque hopping around London 255 Overlooking the East End 260 Conclusion 264 Chapter 14 Religion, Migration and the ‘Worlding’ of Urban Daily Life: Local and Transnational Pentecostalism in Rio de Janeiro 266 The transformation of the religious in Rio de Janeiro 268 From Kinshasa to Rio 270 Localization and interlacing between the revival churches and the favela 271 Music and everyday culture: The adaptability of the revival movement 274 The church as a transitory space 278 Conclusion: Religious ‘worlding’ in the city 280 Notes 282 Introduction 282 Chapter 1 283 Chapter 2 285 Chapter 3 285 Chapter 5 285 Chapter 6 287 Chapter 7 287 Chapter 8 288 Chapter 9 290 Chapter 10 290 Chapter 11 291 Chapter 12 292 Chapter 13 293 Chapter 14 293 Bibliography 294 Index 325 This is the first book to explore how religious movements and actors shape and are shaped by aspects of global city dynamics. Theoretically grounded and empirically informed, the book advances discussions in the field of urban religion, and establishes future research directions. The editors bring together a wealth of ethnographically rich and vivid case studies in a diversity of urban settings, in both Global North and Global South contexts. These case studies are drawn from both 'classical' global cities such as New York, London and Paris, and also from large cosmopolitan metropolises - such as Bangalore, Rio de Janeiro, Lagos, Tel Aviv and Hong Kong - which all constitute, in their own terms, powerful sites within the informational, cultural and moral networked economies of contemporary globalization. The chapters explore some of the most pressing issues of our times: globalization and the role of global neo-liberal regimes; urban change and in particular the dramatic urbanization of Global South countries; and religious politics and religious revivalism associated, for instance, with transnational Islam or global Pentecostal/Charismatic Christianity