Infrastructuring Religion: Materiality and Meaning in Ordinary Urbanism

This article draws on the infrastructural turn in urban studies to explore the profane materialities that enable particular forms of urban religion. Assuming that cities are configurations of spaces, actors and materialities characterized by dominant modes of belonging, hegemonic definitions of publ...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Space and culture 2023-05, Vol.26 (2), p.180-191
Main Author: Burchardt, Marian
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Bureaucratization
Concepts
Hegemony
Machinery
Public spaces
Religion
Urban areas
Urbanism
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Summary:This article draws on the infrastructural turn in urban studies to explore the profane materialities that enable particular forms of urban religion. Assuming that cities are configurations of spaces, actors and materialities characterized by dominant modes of belonging, hegemonic definitions of public space, and hierarchical orderings of spatial uses, infrastructures are a central element of cities’ material bases. Based on ethnographic research in Cape Town, I develop the notion of “infrastructuring religion” as a new modality of the spatialization of religion. Practices of infrastructuring draw religious life into the profane realm of ordinary urbanism in which religious meanings run up against machines of bureaucratization, divergent investments in scarce space, and criminal economies. I argue that infrastructuring is an important addition to architecture and place-making as the hitherto dominant concepts for the analysis of urban religion.
ISSN:1206-3312
1552-8308
DOI:10.1177/12063312221130248