Navigation
 
You are here: Home PentecoStudies Online Back Issues (2002–2009) 2008 (Vol. 7) No. 1 (Spring) Sebastian Schüler: Unmapped Territories
Document Actions

Sebastian Schüler: Unmapped Territories

Transnationalism is located in the Pentecostal imaginary, rather than in de facto processes of migration. The purpose of this article is to re-conceptualize the formation of transnational religious networks and the concept of the third space by introducing the notion of the ‘imagined migrant’. Through this, the emergence of transnational religious networks such as prayer chains can be described as grounded in everyday religious practice and discourse.

downloadpdf

PentecoStudies, vol. 7, no. 1, 2008, p. 46–62

Sebastian Schüler, Unmapped Territories

ISSN 1871-777691

Unmapped Territories: Discursive Networks and the Making of Transnational Religious Landscapes in Global Pentecostalism

Sebastian Schüler
University of Münster

The concept of transnational religious networks has been investigated mainly in the field of migration studies. But religious transnationalism in general and Pentecostal transnationalism in particular go beyond migration networks. They are embedded in everyday religious practices, including the use of virtual networks and the power of imaginary global communities. Transnationalism is located in the Pentecostal imaginary, rather than in de facto processes of migration. Religious imaginaries can be seen as fundamental conditions for the production of sacred spaces. The purpose of this article, therefore, is to re-conceptualize the formation of transnational religious networks and the concept of the third space by introducing the notion of the ‘imagined migrant’. Through this, the emergence of transnational religious networks such as prayer chains can be described as grounded in everyday religious practice and discourse.

Introduction

In his epoch making book Map is not Territory, Jonathan Z. Smith (1978) investigated the multilayered question of religion and place. In the academic study of religion, relations between religion and space/place have received new attention lately (Knott, 2005) and the concept of ‘territory’ has been introduced as critical term for religious studies (Gill, 1998). Recent investigations have addressed different research areas like ‘sacred’ geography or topography, the religious production of space, post-colonial critiques,i and religions in global and transnational processes. These research areas have been approached from different angles and have gained new interdisciplinary perspectives. Annette Wilke has, for example, beautifully shown the relations between ‘sacred’ geography and numeric-geometric aesthetics of pilgrim routes in the festival cycle of the ‘Nine Durgas’ in Banaras (Wilke, 2006). Research about religion and space, therefore, seems to be an interdisciplinary issue of importance.

Globalized religions and religious movements, such as Pentecostalism, raise issues for the religious representation of space and investigations of transnationalism. The concept of globalization and transnationalism describes multilayered processes where ‘micro’ and ‘macro’ approaches in social science seem to become more and more indistinct. The process of globalization produces spaces in between them. Elizabeth McAlister has described the term globalization in the following manner:

A term now both celebrated and decried, it describes a series of changes that are at once economic, technological, political, and cultural, and involve both multinational forces and local actors in various arenas. For those studying contemporary religions, key issues are the role of religion in the increased velocity of populations’ movement through space, in technological change, including electronic communication across space, and in transnationalism between places. (McAlister, 2005: 249)

Global religions transcend national boundaries. The process of globalization and the construction of transnational religious networks sometimes seem to happen in places without location, in spaces in between. Social religious life must take place somewhere and in principle it can take place almost everywhere. Rhys Williams therefore perfectly points out:

[M]ost of social life is emplaced. It happens somewhere, and the somewhere should seem to matter. And when social life does not happen anywhere in particular—usually as the result of some technological mediation—that is a subject for investigation in its own right. (Williams, 2005: 239)

Due to technological innovations, transnational religious networks occur in virtual space as well as in real life. Sometimes it seems hard to distinguish between local acts and transnational or global operations, because everyday religious life is situated between or emplaced in virtual, factual, and imaginary spaces at the same time. Thus, in Pentecostalism everyday religious practice can be seen as ‘glocal’ acts that link religious agents to an imagined global community.ii Or as Peggy Levitt said: ‘Migrant and non-migrant who follow particular saints, deities, or religious teachers also form imagined global communities of connections’ (Levitt & Jaworsky, 2007: 142). The imaginativeiii power of religious representations strongly correlates with the production of space and the perception of religious landscapes among religious agents. In global Pentecostalism, for instance, an imagined global community is represented in the mental image of a global family of God which also serves as a transnational concept of belonging. Imagined global communities – so it seems – actually take place in a ‘third space’ where religious agents become globally connected. For this reason, the investigation of transnational religious networks in global Pentecostalism should take into account specific religious representations of space by means of everyday religious practice. In this article I will attempt to show that the representation of religion and space are strongly merged domains in religious imaginaries and therefore essential preconditions for transnational religious networks.

Transnational religious networks

Translocal and transnationaliv religious networksv are deeply embedded and embodied in everyday religious actions. Religions provide their agents with symbols, practices, representations, and narratives that allow them to move in imagined global communities and ‘sacred landscapes’vi independently from national and cultural borders. Transnational religious networks can be seen as loose and fluid networks in which religious agents negotiate their identities and, in doing so, creatively modify them.

Religious agents use fluid networks to find new ways and places for everyday religious life. In this way they are part of the process of new institutionalization. The process of globalization of religions and the transnationalization of religious and social networks offers religious individuals and groups the opportunity to become more flexible and mobile in their religious practices and forms of religious collectivization. Thereby technical innovations and virtual networks increasingly show their effects (Meyer & Moors, 2006).

In the study of religions, so it seems, transnational religious networks have been discussed mostly under the aspect of migrationvii (Vertovec, 2000). In migration studies questions about home country and receiving society can possibly show an important framework for religious networks. Migration networks therefore can be seen as routes or vectors along which religious networks occur. Unfortunately, from this perspective independent religious networks have remained unnoticed. Nevertheless, religious networks build their own configuration of transnationalism.viii Thus I do not want to lay stress on existing migration networks as a pre-condition for transnational religious networks, but address the more genuine religious networks that appear as glocal and transnational connections of everyday religious actions and which build a growing web of informal networks between religious agents.

Research about transnationalism in cultural studies is often based on migration networks and describes the weaving of cultural identities and belongings between nation states, different cultures, images and worldviews and deals with the issues of assimilation and the construction of hybrid identities. In many cases migration networks and religious networks are closely related and even strengthen one another. Unfortunately, on the one hand, cultural studies about transnationalism have often ignored religious topics or treated them as a mere side-effect. On the other hand, research about transnational religious networks has often been framed only in relation to migrant churches or communities. In migrant communities, however, one can also find transnational religious networks that point beyond classical migrant connections between home and receiving society and thereby are embedded in a web of different transnational religious networks. Taking this seriously, the genuine character of religious networks gets even more relevant, because they help to unhinge the religious agent out of migrant networks and make the person understand himself or herself as a global citizen or metropolitan. Members of migrant and non-migrant Pentecostal communities move in highly transnational religious networks and this is the case sometimes even without becoming physically mobile. This kind of transnationalization of religious networks takes place through participation in global discursive networks and a global sense of belonging to a community of discourse.

Spatial Issues in Pentecostal Studies

Research about the processes of transnationalism is still underrepresented in Pentecostal studies. Thus the perspective of Pentecostal transnationalism has been mostly on migration networks between home and receiving societies. Furthermore, research about Pentecostalism has concentrated on specific local contexts, especially concerning questions about local exchange, migration, assimilation, poverty, gender, politics and education. Sometimes global connections have been neglected especially at the individual level. But religious agents negotiate their everyday religious lives between the global and the local as forms of transnational discourses. Religious agents become mobile by connecting the local, glocal and global; Pentecostal studies has to take note of this religious flexibility. This should not indicate a disruption between ‘micro’ and ‘macro’ sociology. But sometimes research is not a matter of forward and backward movements; rather the researcher has to turn in his/her own axis to get a full picture of his/her (also virtually) ‘moving targets’ (Welz, 1998).

Global emplacement takes place on the level of the individual in everyday religious practice. But how is this everyday religious life linked to global Pentecostalism? What kind of transnational religious networks are entangled in everyday religious actions? And how or where does the construction of sacred landscapes and religious space actually take place?

Following Arjun Appadurai, Elizabeth McAlister has argued that ‘it is also helpful to think of “religioscapes” as the subjective religious maps—and attendant theologies—of immigrant, or diasporic, or transnational communities who are also in global flow and flux’ (McAlister, 2005: 251). In her research she addressed the tensions of evangelical spiritual warfare against ‘Vodou’ cults in Haiti. In her example, McAlister shows precisely how Pentecostal groups negotiate ‘sacred’ territories and how they become manufactured in spatial discourses. So she says: ‘Contemporary Pentecostal discourse maps space into unambiguous theological geographies: territories are either Christian, or they are demonic’ (McAlister 2005: 252). On the basis of this distinction an additional concept is also entertained by McAlister, namely: the ‘10/40 window’. The phrase 10/40 window became a prominent concept in evangelical Christian discourse. It maps a territory from 10 degree to 40 degree north latitude, a rectangular ‘window’ between Northern Africa and Eastern Asia where the Christian population is quite small and evangelization is deemed to be required.

These examples of defining the religious landscape show the power of the religious imaginary that maps and attributes meaning to both real and imagined spaces. Imagined spaces can become especially powerful transnational religious landscapes. By emphasizing the ‘imaginary’, transnational religious landscapes or networks can be characterized as places without location or as ‘unmapped territories’. They are nevertheless unmapped territories that attract spatial attention and therefore provide new spaces for religious networking. They can be highly imaginary but yet provide a strong spatial sense of belonging. And they are embedded in everyday religious practice and discourse. Thus it is a useful exercise to attempt to take into account the religious representation of places without location for the investigation of transnational religious networks in global Pentecostalism.

Places without Location and the Construction of the Third Space

Processes of religious transnationalization relate both to global qualities of the religious movement in question and to the real rooms of action of religious individuals. A mere reconstruction of transnational religious networks on the basis of migration networks remains insufficient and misrepresents the independent dynamics of religious networks in a global setting. Instead of starting from migration networks I propose an approach from the concept of the ‘third space’.

Following Henri Lefebvre in his The Production of Space,ix it was the postcolonial theorist Homi Bhabha who provided the metaphor of the ‘third space’ (Rutherford, 1990). The term is situated in postcolonial discourses that aimed to break with all forms of eurocentric perspectives and therefore has become a central issue of controversial debates.x

From his perspective Bhabha tried to deal with antagonisms of modernity like subversion, transgression, and hybridity (1994). In the deconstruction of the modern nation state and the attribution of cultural identity, he locates these concepts of difference in a ‘space in between’. This third space opens up new room for the negotiation of cultural symbols and the construction of hybrid identities. Bhabha has been criticized for his postessentialism approach, because according to the idea that all cultures are supposed to be hybrid, there seems to be no use of terms such as hybridity or third space anymore (Young, 1995; Loomba, 1998; Hardt & Negri, 2001). Still these terms became a huge success especially in poststructuralist cultural studies. The concept of the third space has been picked up in migration studies for the description of new configurations of cultural identities between home and receiving society. According to Stuart Hall (1997) modernity has been reshaping the construction of cultural identity, away from fixed concepts of culture towards more fluid processes of practised hybridity. Cultural hybridity is therefore not a matter of hybrid identity but of identification; it is not a product of its single components but the emergence of a new quality. Besides the controversial debates about the term ‘hybridity’, the concept of the third space opens up new possibilities for localizing identities that are constituted not only by processes of assimilation or bi-national affiliation. Third space identities decouple cultural attributions and create new spaces for identification and everyday action. Therefore, third spaces can be seen as discursive and transnational networks, where imaginary attributions and religious settings with a strong sense of belonging are situated.

This shows that the third space, when taken into account for transnational religious issues can be seen as a holistic tool where religious identification cannot be reduced to cultural socialisation and geographical bonded locality. Pentecostals, for instance, often deal with locally induced everyday spiritual challenges in forms of moral and gender issues, poverty, or spiritual warfare that all relate to theologically relevant principles. It is therefore the quality of the third space as a place of an imagined global community that counts for the emergence of transnational religious networks as a ‘sacred’ place without location. It is a religious landscape where Pentecostals take room as a global family.

I will use the concept of the third space as a central descriptive element for religious networks. Therefore, it does not only account for social displacement but also for social and religious emplacement or collectivization. Transnational religious networks sometimes displace religious everyday life and social contexts but at the same time they open up new discursive spaces, new informal, virtual, and imagined locations or rooms that count as new places of religious collectivization. In this way, transnational religious networks also emplace everyday religious life in a new global context. While Pentecostal Christians create a third space through shared values and a common sense of belonging, imaginary global networks and dense rooms of action emerge.

Likewise in real migration networks, where the representation of home societies often becomes idealised and oversubscribed, Pentecostal landscapes function as a third space for an imagined global community of discourse and connection. Religious agents in Pentecostal communities often represent themselves as members of a global godly family, as citizens of the Heavenly Kingdom. The imagined global community of Spirit-baptized Christians creates a third space that functions as an idealised space of migration, ‘a new world and a new mode of creation’,xi where the religious agent becomes an imagined migrant.xii As imagined migrants, religious agents represent themselves ‘in the world but not of the world’ (after John 17.16) and therefore already as members of a religious community within God’s kingdom. God’s kingdom is represented as the home country whereas the religious agent lives in Diaspora in the world where he or she has the mission to evangelize and thereby extend the Kingdom of God. As imagined migrant of an imagined global community, the role of the nation state becomes even more unimportant and discursive networks form a new transnational sense of belonging. Through this the third space becomes a reality of collective representations or a ‘collective fact,’ as Emile Durkheimxiii called it. The notion of the imagined migrant does not incorporate so much the idea of conversion to Pentecostal or evangelical churches, but more a sense of belonging or a corporate identity as part of a globally interconnected family and as part of transnational religious networks and discursive fields. Thus the membership to a special Pentecostal congregation or denomination plays a secular role. It is a globally shared sense of belonging, a collectively represented and socially constructed reality that is based on certain core ideas in Pentecostalism like an emerging Heavenly Kingdom, spiritual gifts, or the identification as a Spirit-baptized Christian. Surely religious agents who can be characterized as imagined migrants with a transnational sense of belonging also can be ‘real’ ethnic or political migrants. Religious Pentecostal networks, however, direct migration beyond networks in creating a third space as a new space of action. Similarly, Peter Mandaville describes the reconceptualization of the Islamic umma in relation to modern Muslim politics (Mandaville, 2001).

The third space also represents a discursive space where transnational networks are created through the participation of religious agents in communication networks. This is not the creation of a global village (McLuhan & Powers, 1992), however, in which religious differences become levelled and equalized. But it is more an imagined global community of discourse despite internal differences. Emphasizing global Pentecostal movements as part of a global community therefore should not obscure the fact of its diversity. The lack of a central institutional organisation might be covered by its unifying commitments and sense of belonging to a global community of Spirit-baptized Christians. The self-understanding as a Spirit-baptized Christian turns into a global trade mark that becomes transnationalized through discursive networks. The third space serves as a reference point for religious everyday practices. As an imaginative place of affiliation it becomes a predisposition for real transnational networks of discourse and practice. At the same time transnational religious networks become themselves third spaces where religious agents can attach a sense of belonging. This way transnational Pentecostal networks can be described as fluid networks of discourse and practice which are creatively configured in a third space that again can be described as an unmapped territory of an imagined global community. Empirical investigations therefore can try to map this ever shifting territory in describing these fluid networks of discourse. It is important to note that transnational networks occur in the intertwined relation between everyday religious practice and a sense of belonging to a global community of practice and discourse.

Religious networks are based on everyday practices of individuals who more or less frequently consult more or less tightened connections and networks. Through the frequent use of already existing networks or even the creative formation of new ones, religious agents participate in the process of institutionalisation. First networks are usually informal connections of communication that become successively institutionalized into more formal networks through everyday practice. The informal and fluid character of religious networks can be shown in different stages of institutional processes. Thus a distinction between a wider and closer notion of transnationalism can be helpful, as Ludger Pries proposes:

In a very wide understanding of transnationalism it relates to feelings of affiliation, cultural common properties, communication linkages, labour relations, and everyday living practices as well as their correlation to social regulations and arrangements that exceed nation state boundaries. Whereas a closer setting of transnationalism describes only more stable, massive, and structured, or institutionalized relations that exist in a pluri-local way beyond national borders.xiv (Pries, 2002: 3)

The frequent use of transnational networks like virtual platforms, the consumption of Christian popular literature like the novel series ‘Left Behind’,xv or the participation in Christian conferences, missionary operations, or prayer chains for instance presuppose more formal networks but at the same time modify them and give space for creating new ones. The most dense concentration and formalisation of networks are found in institutions and organisations like international churches and congregations that are somehow similar to multinational companies locating themselves globally and acting locally. The gradual concentration of networks as a criterion for different levels of institutionalization starts from everyday religious practice of individuals and presumes the fluidity of transnational networks that are constituted within a space of flow.

Discursive networks and the making of religious landscapes in prayer chains

To give a brief example for the making of religious landscapes in transnational Pentecostal networks, I would like to discuss the phenomenon of prayer chains, especially the emergence of the ‘24-7 Prayer’ network. Prayer chains like 24-7 Prayer aim to connect people through a never ending and incessant prayer in which many can participate at the same time for a certain period of time.

The network started in 1999 in Chichester in the south of England, west of London. It was the pastor, author and church founder Pete Greig who had the idea to pray to God continuously. Let us start with a self-description of the network found on the international web page of 24-7 Prayer:

24-7prayer started by accident in September 1999, with a bunch of young people in England who got the crazy idea of trying to pray non-stop for a month. God turned up and they couldn't stop til Christmas! From there the prayer meeting has spread into many nations, denominations and age-groups. Hundreds of non-stop prayer meetings now link up here on the web to form a unique chain of prayer.xvi

But the idea was not new! There are numerous predecessors in history like the Moravian Brethren, a pietistic movement which goes back to Nikolaus Ludwig Graf von Zinzendorf (1700-1760). Zinzendorf had the idea of a prayer vigil that should last at least a hundred years when they started on the 27th August in 1727. A reference to this can be found on the German 24-7 Prayer homepage.xvii A similar prayer chain was initiated by the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel that was founded by the American evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson at the beginning of the 20th century (Sutton, 2007: 61).

Nowadays, the internet serves as a virtual reference point for discursive networks. The international as well as some local web pages function as virtual interfaces to organize prayer groups all over the world. These networks are self-sustaining in the sense that there is no central commission to control or coordinate prayer groups. Web pages serve more as information platforms where people get information about other prayer groups and so-called active prayer rooms. In the meantime, there are more than 3,000 prayer rooms in about 65 countries that participate in the networks. On average there are about 20-30 prayer groups in about 10 countries praying simultaneously. Prayer rooms usually open for one week (sometimes longer) and people can come and join in praying as often and long as they want. But local groups also make sure that prayer is carried out non-stop, 24 hours a day, and 7 days a week.

The German web page even provides a prayer chain calendar, the so-called ‘prayer-room-chain’ makes a visual connection from week to week. Every chain link represents a week of prayer that can be clicked on and then shows which group in Germany registered for a certain week to pray.

This way the process of networking becomes a central campaign and a mode of identification with Christian spirituality. Another example is the German web page of 24-7 Prayer where the principle of fluid networking evolves on the basis of a shared vision:

What is 24-7 PRAYER? Well, you might better ask »Who« we are. For 24-7 PRAYER is not a stiff organisation, but a colourful, global movement of committed people. We are Christians from different churches and communities. We are connected among one another and with friendly organisations and congregations. We are bounded together by our common vision and values.xviii

The fluid character of religious networks becomes emphasised by the idea that it is persons who become connected and not institutions. The network itself is represented as a global network. Its orientation is represented as supradenominational and inclusive in the first place but at the same time it has Pentecostal ‘values’ xix that consolidate the members’ status. These ‘values’ can be seen as religious ‘goods’ that become embodied in the prayer chain. Conversely, it is embodied religious goods that generate religious networks through exchange and communication. Prayer therefore becomes a spiritual networking practice that connects people globally via transnational networks. That way, prayer itself becomes transnationalized. But also these praying people turn into transnational religious agents or ‘Global Prayer’ (Hüwelmeier, 2004: 162), who represent the collective identification of global Pentecostalism.

In this brief example we also can understand the gradual concentration of transnational networks. The network is again represented as a more fluid network than a stiff organisation. It can be characterized as a network from below. In less than ten years 24-7 Prayer has spread world wide and evolved to a multilevel organized network. Therefore it is both a fluid process of networking which gets reshaped by the people and a solid movement with a permanent internet presence where people can donate or even buy 24-7 Prayer labelled products like T-Shirts, or stickers.xx This way 24-7 Prayer became a transnational brand and thereby a marker within a religious landscape.

24-7 Prayer cannot be seen as one single network but more like an accumulation of networks on global, transnational, and local levels. One central aim of 24-7 Prayer is to open new local networks that organize prayer chains on a national level. This way every nation becomes a so-called ‘Base’ and every local network is urged to establish itself with the status of a non-profit-organisation. The international web page indicates a strategy: ‘When a nation opens a 24-7 “Base”, one of their tasks is to get 24-7 registered as a charity (not-for-profit organisation) in that country. The International and UK Bases are registered as charity.’xxi This process of condensation transfers more loose networks into more static forms of organisations. Still the fluid and creative character of the networks sustains the participants. Through their participation religious agents freely ‘move’ in transnational networks and creatively construct and modify them from below. Transnational religious networks are often not top-down ruled organisations, but bottom-up approached discursive fields that open up a third space for creative everyday practice. The third space serves as a constitutive precondition where shared values create an imagined global community.

Additionally, through this committed embedding into an imagined global community, a re-localization of everyday religious practice into a local context takes place. Transnationally connected religious communities not only exceed social and cultural contexts (Juergensmeyer, 2003: 8), but at the same time can also give new local attention since they are represented in the national sub-networks of 24-7 Prayer. This leads to a continuously double localization of everyday religious practice. On the one hand they are part of a heavenly family situated in a third space, on the other hand they are imagined migrants in the role of national citizens or real migrants who keep in contact for evangelization through prayer and mission. It is therefore not an infrequent observation that flags with the national emblem are swung in Sunday services or that sermons and prayer address the evangelization and liberation of an actual country. In this way a sense of belonging to an imagined global community becomes the very place of action. Pentecostals represent themselves as already part of the Heavenly Kingdom from where they interact with the ‘world.’ Thus everyday religious practice takes place in a local and global context of religious representations and continuously creates and reshapes transnational religious landscapes.

Conclusion

In this study, I intended to show the relations between the construction of transnational religious networks and the representation of place/space in global Pentecostalism. Religious landscapes become relevant to everyday religious life, that is they are often linked to and entangled with fluid transnational religious networks. Pentecostals, therefore, can be characterized as imagined migrants who emplace themselves in a ‘third space’ of an imagined global community. From such a place without location Pentecostals approach everyday religious practices and creatively connect new transnational networks. Religious prayer chains like 24-7 Prayer represent such a web of networks that is located in many places such as virtual places on the internet, in real prayer rooms in different countries, and as an imagined global community in a ‘third space.’ But it is the latter one that appears as an ‘unmapped territory’ and that serves as a vital precondition for transnational Pentecostal networking.

I have raised perhaps more questions in this brief contribution than providing a clear set of answers. Instead of following a conventional picture of transnationalism I tried to put more emphasis on the power of religious imaginaries. Considering that research on transnationalism so far has focused mainly on the role of the nation and processes of migration, future research could take into account a certain religious sense of space/place. The notion of the ‘imagined migrant’ is just one attempt to re-conceptualize the view of transnationalism. Although transnationalism is an important topic in Pentecostal studies, future research could stress the role of the imaginary in a wider set of everyday religious practice and discourse such as identity and alterity, narratives, ritual practice, virtual representations, the use of media, world-making, or policies. For all these issues the notion of the imaginary can provide an intriguing perspective on the powerful construction and negotiation of social realities in a globalizing world. I hope this article has offered a lively contribution to this research field.

Notes

i (van der Veer, 2001); Sam Gill correctly noticed: ‘The academic study of religion has yet to free itself from its roots in a colonial territorial ideology.’ (Gill, 1998: 301)

ii The term imagined community has been mainly introduced by Anderson (1983).

iii The notion of the imaginary is not meant to be psychological or pathological but as a useful metaphor for the social construction of reality.

iv See (Hannerz 1996).

v Hannerz sums up: “I have attempted to argue here, (…) that the network remains useful as a root metaphor when we try to think (…) about some of the heterogeneous sets of often long-distance relationships which organize culture in the world now...” (Hannerz 1992: 51)

vi (Lane 2001), (Kippenberg/Stuckrad 2003), (Dickhardt & Dorofeeva-Lichtmann 2003).

vii (Levitt 2001), (Levitt 2007a/b), (Hüwelmeyer 2004), (van der Veer 2001).

viii An interesting question would be whether religious networks are starting points for migration networks.

ix The French original was published in 1974 under the title La production de l´espace (Paris: Anthropos). The English translation followed in 1991. See also: Henri Lefebvre (2000).

x A central critical query against Bhabha´s critique against eurocentrism was that he himself based his ideas only on theories provided by western scholars.

xi (Smith, 1978: 309).

xii The phrase ‘imagined migrant’ will be used as a descriptive and hypothetical tool. Whether it can be transferred to other religious contexts remains to be tested.

xiii Emile Durkheim Les règles de la méthode sociologique. Félix Alcan, Paris 1895. For the English translation see (Durkheim 1982).

xiv Translated by S.Schüler.

xv (LaHaye & Jenkins, 1995); See also (Urban, 2006).

xvi http://www.24-7prayer.com/cm/resources/1 (accessed 12.October 2007).

xx For religious consumption habits see: (Baker & Park, 2007).

xxi http://www.24-7prayer.com/cm/resources/12 (accessed 12.October 2007).



References

Anderson, Benedict (1983) Imagined Communities. Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London, New York: Verso Books.

Baker, Joseph & Jerry Z. Park (2007) ‘What would Jesus Buy: American Consumption of Religious and Spiritual Material Goods.’ Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 46(4), pp. 501–517.

Bhabha, Homi K. (1994) The location of culture. London, New York: Routledge.

Dickhardt, M. & V. Dorofeeva-Lichtmann (eds.) (2003) Creating and Representing Sacred Spaces. Göttingen: Peust & Gutschmidt.

Gill, Sam (1998) ‘Territory.’ In: Mark C. Taylor (ed.), Critical Terms for Religious Studies. Chicago & London: The University of Chicago Press, pp. 298–313.

Hall, Stuart (1997) (ed.) Representation. Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices. London: Sage Publications Ltd.

Hannerz, Ulf (1992) ‘The global ecumene as a network of networks.’ In: Adam Kuper (ed.), Conceptualizing Society. London: Routledge.

___________ (1996) Transnational Connections: Culture, People, Places. London: Routledge.

Hardt, Michael & Antonio Negri (2001) Empire. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Hüwelmeier, Gertrud (2004) ‘Global Players – Global Prayers. Gender und Migration in transnationalen religiösen Räumen.’ Zeitschrift für Volkskunde, 100. Jahrgang.

Juergensmeyer, Mark (2003) ‘Thinking Globally About Religion.’ In: Mark Juergensmeier (ed.), Global Religions. An Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Kippenberg, Hans G. & Kocku von Stuckrad (2003) Einführung in die Religionswissenschaft. München: C.H. Beck Verlag.

Knott, Kim (2005) The Location of Religion: A Spatial Analysis. London: Equinox.

LaHaye, Tim & Jerry Jenkins (1995) Left Behind: A Novel of the Earth´s Last Days. Carol Stream: Tyndale House Publishers.

Wheaton. Lane, B. C. (2001) Landscapes of the sacred: Geography and narrative in American spirituality. Expanded ed. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

Lefebvre, Henri (2000/1991) The Production of Space. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers Ltd.

Levitt, Peggy (2001) Transnational villagers. Berkeley: University of California Press.

__________ (2007a) ‘Redefining the Boundaries of Belonging: The Transnationalization of Religious Life.’ In: Nancy T. Ammerman (ed.), Everyday Religion. Observing Modern Religious Lives. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

__________ (2007b) God Needs No Passport: Immigrants and the Changing American Religious Landscape. New York: The New Press.

Levitt, Peggy & B. Nadya Jaworsky (2007) ‘Transnational Migration Studies: Past Developments and Future Trends.’ Annual Review of Sociology, Vol. 33, pp. 129–156.

Loomba, Ania (1998) Colonialism/Postcolonialism. London, New York: Routledge.

Mandaville, Peter (2001) Transnational Muslim Politics. Reimagining the Umma. London/New York: Routledge.

McAlister, Elizabeth (2005) ‘Globalization and the Religious Production of Space.’ Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 44(3), pp. 249–255 .

McLuhan, Marshall & Bruce R. Powers (1992) The Global Village. Transformations in World Life and Media in the 21st Century. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Meyer, Birgit & Annelies Moors (eds.) (2006) Religion, Media, and the Public Sphere. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

Pries, Ludger (2002) ‚Transnationalisierung der sozialen Welt?’ In: Berliner Journal für Soziologie, Jg. 11/Heft 2, pp. 263–272.

Rutherford, Jonathan (1990) ‘The third space – Interview with Homi Bhabha.’ In: Jonathan Rutherford (ed.): Identity: Community, Culture, Difference. London: Lawrence & Wishart.

Smith, Jonathan Z. (1993/1978) Map is not Territory: Studies in the History of Religions. Chicago, London: University of Chicago Press.

Sutton, Matthew Avery (2007) Aimee Semple McPherson and the Resurrection of Christian America. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Urban, Hugh B. (2006) ‚America, Left Behind: Bush, the Neoconservatives, and Evangelical Christian Fiction.’ Journal of Religion & Society, Vol. 8, pp. 1–15.

van der Veer, Peter (2001) Imperial Encounters. Religion and Modernity in India and Britain. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press.

Vertovec, Steven (2000) Religion and Diaspora. Working Paper of the Transnational Communities Programme. WPTC-01-01. http://www.transcomm.ox.ac.uk/working_papers.htm

Wilke, Annette (2006) ‘The Banarsi Navadurga Cycle and its Spatial Orientation.’ In: Martin Gaenszle & Jörg Gengnagel (eds.), Visualizing Space in Banaras: images, maps, and the practice of representation. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, pp. 69–94.

Williams, Rhys H. (2005) ‘Introduction to a Forum on Religion and Place.’ Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 44(3), pp. 239–242.

Welz, Gisela (1998) ‘Moving Targets. Feldforschung unter Mobilitätsdruck.’ Zeitschrift für Volkskunde, Jahrgang 94, No.2, pp. 177–194.

Young, Robert (1995) Colonial Desire. Hybridity in Theory, Culture and Race. London, New York: Routledge.


last modified 2008-05-17 16:12