Religion and Dialogue in the City (original) (raw)
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Religious Diversity and Interreligious Dialogue, 2020
Despite the high political expectations regarding interreligious relations in contemporary societies, empirically grounded research in this field is still scarce. This chapter aims to help fill this gap by examining the growing relevance of interreligious initiatives in the local governance of religious diversity. My main argument is that the momentum of the interreligious movement in Europe cannot be understood without considering the role local governments have been playing. Indeed, the interplay between municipal authorities’ ‘needs’ and perceptions, local context religious transformations, and the structural conditions shaping local politics, have created a milieu which is highly receptive to the role of interreligious actors. To some extent, an ‘elective affinity’ has developed between local governments and interreligious actors in the last few decades in many European cities. The chapter is divided in three sections. The first discusses theoretical approaches for understanding the rise of interreligious initiatives at the urban level. The second aims to explain the emergence of an elective affinity (in the Weberian sense) between interreligious initiatives and local governments in many European contexts, and the third critically examines the case of the Municipal Assembly of Religions in the Catalan city of Lleida, which has been highlighted as achieving good practice by the United Nations agency UN-Habitat. The purpose of this analysis is to illustrate the complexity and ambiguities involved in the promotion of interreligious initiatives as ready-made formulas within the local governance of religious diversity. The chapter is based on an empirical fieldwork carried out in Catalonia between 2012 and 2017.
this paper compares two different interreligious guidelines that have been developed and published in Switzerland. following a brief overview of the religious landscape of Switzerland, this paper will outline and discuss the two guidelines in an attempt to answer the question of what the purpose of such interreligious guidelines could be. the conclusion will accordingly raise some questions for further reflection and give a general comment on these interreligious guidelines, including their benefits and challenges.
Conceptualising the role of cities in the governance of religious diversity in Europe
Current Sociology, 2017
The sociological literature has devoted less attention to cities than to nation-states as contexts for the regulation of religion and religious diversity in Europe. Drawing on ideas from the literature on migration, urban studies, geography and the sociology of religion, as well as empirical material from fieldwork conducted in three medium-size cities in France, the author conceptualises the governance of religious diversity in cities as complex assemblages where (1) the political interests and claims of various unequally socially positioned actors over (2) a number of domains and objects of the public expression of religiosity are (3) subjected to a variety of municipal interventions, which are (4) shaped by the interplay of supranational legal frameworks, national legislation, policies, institutional arrangements and local contextual factors. The result of these regulation processes are particular (and often contested) normative definitions of ‘accepted’ or ‘legitimate’ public ex...
International Journal of Public Theology, 2010
In an age in which religion is a burning issue in the geo-political sphere, the need for peoples of different religions to engage in inter-faith dialogue may seem clear; what is less clear is whether there is legitimacy for and an imperative to members of individual faith communities to engage with the religious other on the exclusive grounds of their individual faith. This article thus seeks to advocate that theology done in the service of individual faiths needs, as a priority, to engage in legitimizing and necessitating dialogue with the religious other as the religious other. The article considers the grounds on which exclusivist religious people can undertake inter-faith dialogue. In looking to the need to attend to particularity and the genuine otherness of the religious other, the article advocates that faiths should begin to understand what is internal to their traditions that makes inter-faith dialogue a necessity for intense and particular religious self-identity. Members of faith communities need to be legitimated on terms internal to their community and by leaders of their community to engage in dialogue with the other: they need to know not only how to engage with the other but also why they engage with the other. In considering the particular tradition of Christianity, the article attends to these themes by seeking hints from Scripture and Christ that a Christian should engage with the religious other in order to be more intensely Christian.
Governing religious diversity in cities: critical perspectives
Religion, State and Society, 2019
This collection addresses the question of how cities govern and regulate religious diversity. Its main goals are: 1) to take stock of current research regarding the municipal governance of religious diversity; 2) to put forward new concepts and empirical analyses to enhance this field of study; and 3) to identify potential lines for future enquiry that help move the field forward. The contributions cover a wide variety of topics, such as the roles of laws, state contracts, and urbanism in governing religious diversity, comparisons of diverging governance trajectories in various cities within one country, and the controversies surrounding the celebration of religious events in urban spaces. The contributions also identify factors that influence governance processes at the urban level and their consequences for the practice of religion. The collection covers studies of cities in various European countries as well as in Canada.
Local ‘formulas of peace’: Religious diversity and state-interfaith governance in Germany
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Religious pluralization in line with participatory policy approaches has led to a new field of cooperative governance of religious diversity. This article explores the collaboration between state and (inter-) religious actors in two metropolitan regions in Germany, namely Hamburg and Rhine-Ruhr. Drawing upon qualitative fieldwork, this article provides a systematic analysis of discursive and structural measures of state-interfaith governance in the two regions. It clearly shows that state-interfaith governance gains in importance and is practiced in various forms depending on the contextual setting. Based on this, comparative case analysis shows that state-interfaith governance in Germany is characterized by (1) a prominent role of the established churches; (2) a potential of accommodating religious diversity which is, however, restricted by a narrow orientation of the world-religion model and the predominant focus on Islam; and (3) takes place in a complex multi level setting which...
Governing religious and value diversity in European urban spaces
Zeitschrift für Erziehungswissenschaft, 2007
This paper places religious and value diversity in education in the context of (a) the relation of religion to the state; (b) the relation of the contemporary European state to modernity and secularisation; and (c) the relation of religious education to specific communities and community practices. It raises these issues drawing on recent educational and non-educational research relating to several European countries. Secularist ways of construing issues of religious diversity have existed alongside concern with the increasing multicultural nature of society. Education, both state-supported and nonstate-supported, of ethnic/religious minorities is of crucial importance. The categorisation of religious belief as an essentially private matter raises the question of the content of religious instruction in schools. It can also have an impact on the different ways in which greater democratic participation for ethnic minority groups is achieved.
Ethnopolitics, 2023
This article examines the ways in which ethnic and cultural diversity is concretely managed in the city of Marseille, a metropolitan area located in France, a country that academic literature defines as assimilationist. Based on a series of 26 semi-structured interviews and on the analysis of municipal archives, it reveals that ethnic, cultural and religious organizations are essential actors in local political life in Marseille. On one hand, in order to manage their culturally heterogeneous city, municipal officials rely on alliances with community leaders to maintain legitimacy among the local population. On the other hand, community leaders demand symbolic gestures of cultural recognition from the mayor in exchange for their political support. This paper, inspired by conceptual tools developed by Pierre Bourdieu, builds an innovative theoretical framework for analysis of the 'social field of multiculturalism.' In the process, it sheds light on strategies of negotiation and competition among different local actors in the daily management of diversity.