The Location of Religion: A Spatial Analysis

The secularization debate continues to dominate sociological studies of religion. It is possible to locate religion in western secular society without being drawn into debates about its rise and fall? And, if so, then how can this he done? This book offers a new approach to the study of religion in the West based on a spatial analysis of religious-secular relations. It locates religion within the social, cultural, and physical spaces of the present using a method informed by contemporary spatial theory, particularly the work of Henri Lefebvre. In the first half of the book 'space' and 'religion' are opened up to one another. In the second half of the book the spatial approach is applied to a particular case, that of the left hand. Contemporary representations of this sinister but intimate 'other'are shown to embody a variety of values, traces of different religious traditions, alternative paths to salvation and self-realisation, and shifting positions on the impure, demonic, inauspicious and sacred.