Geographies of Religion
- LAST REVIEWED: 24 July 2018
- LAST MODIFIED: 26 August 2014
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199874002-0106
- LAST REVIEWED: 24 July 2018
- LAST MODIFIED: 26 August 2014
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199874002-0106
Introduction
In the early 1990s, the topic of religion generated very little interest within geography, and there were few scholars who focused on such work. Gradually, the field has developed and is now recognized as an important subfield of social and cultural geography. Most research about religion tends to focus on the geographies of Islam and Muslim identities, although this is now starting to change as more geographers become interested in religion and are starting to explore diverse geographies of religion, including focusing on different forms of religion and belief systems, different issues of inequality and social relations associated with these, and how broader social and political changes interconnect with religious issues.
General Overviews
Significant overviews of the field include a series of papers (Kong 1990, Kong 2001, Kong 2010) that chart the emergence and development of geographies of religion as an important subfield of social and cultural geography. Stump 2008, an impressive book, explores the relationships among space, place, and religion through a range of international case studies. A special issue of Social & Cultural Geography, edited by Holloway and Valins 2002 was one of the first of its kind in geography, providing a set of papers that explore the complex geographies of religion, faith, and spirituality, and Olson and Silvey 2006, in a special issue of Environment and Planning A, explores the intersections of religion, migration, and transnationalism. Knott 2005 offers a theoretically insightful proposal for how scholars can understand the relationships between religion and place. More recently, Brace, et al. 2011 and Hopkins, et al. 2012 have edited collections focusing specifically on geographies of religion, each of which includes a series of chapters focusing on different aspects of geographies of religion and belief from different parts of the world.
Brace, Catherine, Adrian Bailey, Sean Carter, David Harvey, and Nicola Thomas, eds. Emerging Geographies of Belief. Newcastle upon Tyne, UK: Cambridge Scholars, 2011.
NNNThis significant collection offers a rich series of international reflections on emerging debates about geographies of religion, faith, and spirituality
Holloway, Julian, and Oliver Valins. “Editorial: Placing Religion and Spirituality in Geography.” Social & Cultural Geography 3.1 (2002): 5–9.
DOI: 10.1080/14649360120114107
NNNThis introduction from a special issue provides a useful summary of geographies of religion and spirituality and contextualizes the papers that follow it.
Hopkins, Peter, Lily Kong, and Elizabeth Olson, eds. Religion and Place: Landscape, Politics and Piety. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer, 2012.
NNNThis collection provides a rich set of theoretical and empirical insights into the relationships among landscape, politics, and piety to explore a range of issues of relevance to geographies of religion.
Knott, Kim. The Location of Religion: A Spatial Analysis. London: Equinox, 2005.
NNNThis significant monograph offers a compelling set of theoretical insights into the relationships between location and religion in order to propose a spatial analysis for the study of relationships between religion and space.
Kong, Lily. “Geography and Religion: Trends and Prospects.” Progress in Human Geography 14.3 (1990): 355–371.
DOI: 10.1177/030913259001400302
NNNThis paper was one of the first in human geography to map out the development of geographies of religion and to suggest ways forward for future research.
Kong, Lily. “Mapping ‘New’ Geographies of Religion: Politics and Poetics in Modernity.” Progress in Human Geography 25.2 (2001): 211–233.
DOI: 10.1191/030913201678580485
NNNReviewing geographical research about religion from the 1990s, this article notes the focus on the politics and poetics of religious place, identity, and community before setting out “new” geographies of religion focusing on diverse issues, including different sites of religious practice and different sensuous geographies of different population groups.
Kong, Lily. “Global Shifts, Theoretical Shifts: Changing Geographies of Religion.” Progress in Human Geography 34.6 (2010): 755–776.
NNNThis article charts the ongoing development of geographies of religion, suggesting new areas for research, including postsecularization and global shifts such as those associated with aging, urbanization, and mobilities.
Olson, Elizabeth, and Rachel Silvey. “Transnational Geographies: Rescaling Development, Migration, and Religion.” In Theme Issue: Transnational Geographies: Rescaling Development, Migration, and Religion. Environment and Planning A 38.5 (2006): 805–808.
DOI: 10.1068/a37212
NNNThis introduction to a special issue maps out the relationships among development, migration, and religion in helping question discourses of transnationality and to explore what transnational geographies might look like.
Stump, Roger W. The Geography of Religion: Faith, Place, and Space. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2008.
NNNThis impressive book provides a detailed overview of the interactions among religion, space, and place and is illustrated with numerous international case studies and references.
Users without a subscription are not able to see the full content on this page. Please subscribe or login.
How to Subscribe
Oxford Bibliographies Online is available by subscription and perpetual access to institutions. For more information or to contact an Oxford Sales Representative click here.
Article
- Abortion, Geographies of
- Accessing and Visualizing Archived Weather and Climate Dat...
- Activity Space
- Actor Network Theory (ANT)
- Age, Geographies of
- Agent-based Modeling
- Agricultural Geography
- Agricultural Meteorology/Climatology
- Animal Geographies
- Anthropocene and Geography, The
- Anthropogenic Climate Change
- Applied Geography
- Arctic Climatology
- Arctic, The
- Art and Geography
- Assemblage
- Assessment in Geography Education
- Atmospheric Composition and Structure
- Automobility
- Aviation Meteorology
- Beer, Geography of
- Behavioral and Cognitive Geography
- Belonging
- Belt and Road Initiative
- Biodiversity Conservation
- Biodiversity Gradients
- Biogeography
- Biogeomorphology and Zoogeomorphology
- Biometric Technologies
- Biopedoturbation
- Body, Geographies of the
- Borders and Boundaries
- Brownfields
- Carbon Cycle
- Carceral Geographies
- Cartography
- Cartography, History of
- Cartography, Mapping, and War
- Chicago School
- Children and Childhood, Geographies of
- Citizenship
- Climate Literacy and Education
- Climatology
- Communication
- Community Mapping
- Commuting
- Comparative Urbanism
- Complexity
- Conservation Biogeography
- Consumption, Geographies of
- Crime Analysis, GIS and
- Crime, Geography of
- Critical GIS
- Critical Military Geographies
- Cultural Ecology and Human Ecology
- Cultural Geography
- Cultural Landscape
- CyberGIS
- Cyberspace, Geography of
- Desertification
- Developing World
- Development, Regional
- Development Theory
- Disability, Geography of
- Disease, Geography of
- Drones, Geography of
- Drought
- Drugs, Geography of
- Economic Geography
- Economic Historical Geography
- Edge Cities and Urban Sprawl
- Education (K-12), Geography
- El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO)
- Elderly, Geography and the
- Electoral Geography
- Empire, Geography and
- Energy, Geographies of
- Energy, Renewable
- Energy Resources and Use
- Environment and Development
- Environmental Electronic Sensing Systems
- Environmental Justice
- Ethics, Geographers and
- Ethics, Geography and
- Ethnicity
- Ethnography
- Ethnonationalism
- Everyday Life, Geography and
- Extreme Heat
- Family, Geographies of the
- Feminist Geography
- Fieldwork
- Film, Geography and
- Finance, Geography of
- Financial Geographies of Debt and Crisis
- Fluvial Geomorphology
- Folk Culture and Geography
- Future, Geographies of the
- Gender and Geography
- Gentrification
- Geographic Information Science
- Geographic Methods: Archival Research
- Geographic Methods: Discourse Analysis
- Geographic Methods: Interviews
- Geographic Methods: Life Writing Analysis
- Geographic Methods: Visual Analysis
- Geographic Thought (US)
- Geographic Vulnerability to Climate Change
- Geographies of Affect
- Geographies of Diplomacy
- Geographies of Education
- Geographies of Resilience
- Geography and Class
- Geography, Gramsci and
- Geography, Legal
- Geography of Biofuels
- Geography of Food
- Geography of Hunger and Famine
- Geography of Industrialization
- Geography of Public Policy
- Geography of Resources
- Geopolitics
- Geopolitics, Energy and
- Geospatial Artificial Intelligence (GeoAI)
- GIS and Computational Social Sciences
- GIS and Health
- GIS and Remote Sensing Applications in Geomorphology
- GIS and Virtual Reality
- GIS applications in Human Geography
- GIS, Historical
- GIS, History of
- GIS, Space-Time
- Glacial and Periglacial Geomorphology
- Glaciers, Geography of
- Globalization
- Health Care, Geography of
- Hegemony and Geographic Knowledge
- Historical Geography
- Historical Mobilities
- Histories of Protest and Social Movements
- History, Environmental
- Homelessness
- Human Dynamics, GIScience of
- Human Geographies of Outer Space
- Human Trafficking
- Humanistic Geography
- Human-Landscape Interactions
- Humor, Geographies of
- Hurricanes
- Hydroclimatology and Climate Variability
- Hydrology
- Identity and Place
- "Imagining a Better Future through Place": Geographies of ...
- Immigration and Immigrants
- Indigenous Peoples and the Global Indigenous Movement
- Informal Economy
- Innovation, Geography of
- Intelligence, Geographical
- Islands, Human Geography and
- Justice, Geography of
- Knowledge Economy: Spatial Approaches
- Knowledge, Geography of
- Labor, Geography of
- Land Use and Cover Change
- Land-Atmosphere Interactions
- Landscape Interpretation
- Literature, Geography and
- Location Theory
- Marine Biogeography
- Marine Conservation and Fisheries Management
- Media Geography
- Medical Geography
- Migration
- Migration, International Student
- Military Geographies and the Environment
- Military Geographies of Popular Culture
- Military Geographies of Urban Space and War
- Military Geography
- Moonsoons, Geography of
- Mountain Geography
- Mountain Meteorology
- Music, Sound, and Auditory Culture, Geographies of
- Nations and Nationalism
- Natural Hazards and Risk
- Nature-Society Theory
- Neogeography
- New Urbanism
- Nightlife
- Non-representational Theory
- Nuclear War, Geographies of
- Nutrition Transition, The
- Oceans
- Orientalism and Geography
- Participatory Action Research
- Peace, Geographies of
- Pedagogical Content Knowledge in Geography Education
- Perspectives in Geography Internships
- Phenology and Climate
- Photographic and Video Methods in Geography
- Physical Geography
- Place
- Polar Geography
- Policy Mobilities
- Political Ecology
- Political Geography
- Political Geology
- Popular Culture, Geography and
- Population Geography
- Ports and Maritime Trade
- Postcolonialism
- Postmodernism and Poststructuralism
- Pragmatism, Geographies of
- Producer Services
- Psychogeography
- Public Participation GIS, Participatory GIS, and Participa...
- Qualitative GIS
- Qualitative Methods
- Quantitative Methods in Human Geography
- Questionnaires
- Race and Racism
- Refugees, Geography of
- Religion, Geographies of
- Retail Trade, Geography of
- Rural Geography
- Science and Technology Studies (STS) in Geography
- Sea-Level Research, Quaternary
- Security and Securitization, Geographies of
- Segregation, Ethnic and Racial
- Service Industries, Geography of
- Settlement Geography
- Sexuality, Geography of
- Slope Processes
- Social Justice
- Soils, Diversity of
- Sonic Methods in Geography
- Spatial Analysis
- Spatial Autocorrelation
- Sports, Geography of
- Sustainability Science
- Sustainable Agriculture
- Synoptic Climatology
- Technological Change, Geography of
- Telecommunications
- Teleconnections, Atmospheric
- Terrestrial Snow, Measurement of
- Territory and Territoriality
- Terrorism, Geography of
- The Climate Security Nexus
- The Voluntary Sector and Geography
- Time, Geographies of
- Time Geography
- Time-Space Compression
- Tourism Geography
- Transnational Corporations
- Unoccupied Aircraft Systems
- Urban Geography
- Urban Heritage
- Urban Historical Geography
- Urban Meteorology and Climatology
- Urban Planning and Geography
- Urban Political Ecology
- Visualizations
- Vulnerability, Risk, and Hazards
- Vulnerability to Climate Change
- Water
- Weather and Climate Damage Studies
- Wetlands
- Whiteness, Geographies of
- Wine, Geography of
- World Cities
- Young People's Geography