Urban Religion

by

Petra Kuppinger

• LAST REVIEWED: 17 April 2023
• LAST MODIFIED: 15 October 2020
• DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780190922481-0030

Introduction

In the early years of urban studies (urban sociology took shape in the 1920s and consolidated in the post–World War II era; urban anthropology emerged in the 1960s), few scholars paid much attention to religion in modern/modernizing cities, especially in Europe and North America, but also elsewhere across the globe. Into the 1970s, the role of religion in cities was not a central issue in urban studies, as many researchers seemed to assume that religion, religiosities, and spiritual activities would slowly disappear in cities. Indeed, some mainstream Christian congregations in North America, and even more in Europe, struggled with dwindling numbers, which seemed to suggest a more comprehensive decline of urban religion. Some churches closed, while others quietly adjusted to smaller congregations. Many mainstream Christian communities tried to accommodate the changing times by incorporating new pop cultural elements, different media, and other features into their congregations. In the 1970s, new religious communities (often founded by immigrants) and spiritual movements (e.g., “New Age” movements) emerged. Many grew rapidly and flourished. The arrival of millions of rural to urban and transnational im/migrants to cities and diverse spiritual quests often rooted in countercultural movements of the 1960s remade urban spiritual geographies. New religious venues, emerging spiritual practices, diverse faith traditions, new congregations of global faith traditions (Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism), New Age spiritualism, and revivalist and charismatic religious movements localized in North American and European cities. Cities all over the globe witnessed diverse revivalist movements and the emergence of charismatic religious leaders and new mass religious movements. While religion had obviously never left cities, in the final decades of the 20th century, urban religion had become more visible. When diverse pious individuals and groups asked for their rights in the city, insisted on faith-based participation, and challenged the secular nature of global/globalizing cities, it became clear that individual pieties, religious communities, and faith-inspired activities continued to play relevant roles in cities. Established urban religious communities absorbed newcomers, new religiosities, and faith-based socialities. New modes of meeting, worshipping, and religious learning remade existing spiritual geographies. These transformations and the renewed visibility of religion triggered considerable scholarly interest in dynamic urban religions, spiritual activities, and geographies. By the 1990s, a growing number of scholars of various disciplinary backgrounds (sociology, anthropology, geography, religious studies) studied emerging and changing urban religious communities, individual pieties, and the localization of new/immigrant faith communities. At the dawn of the 21st century, the study of urban religions, urban religious cultures, and the role of religion and religiosities in ordinary urbanites’ lives gained momentum as scholars analyzed the transformations of globalized urban spiritual expressions, the localization of new faith-based communities, and the transformation of established congregations. Researchers started to challenge notions of the secular nature of contemporary cities and to reevaluate the role of religion in globalizing cities.

General Overviews: Readers and Anthologies

A number of readers and anthologies illustrate the empirical and theoretical scope of the study of urban religion. They also chronicle the emergence of the field and its guiding questions and resulting transformations. Warner and Wittner 1998 examines the arrival and localization of immigrant faith communities in American cities. It pays attention to processes of adaption within faith groups and communities and how these communities take over new tasks for their members and in the city at large. Orsi 1999, by now a classic in the study of urban religion, examines the continued importance of religion and religiosities in American cities. Contributors analyze very different empirical contexts and describe how diverse religiosities are lived in cities and are reflected in rituals, places of worship, and small unexpected spaces where people practice their religions or are guided by faith-based ideas. Livezey 2000 is another classic collection that examines transformations in the spiritual geography of Chicago. Stepick, et al. 2009 examines the localization and activities of immigrant and minority faith groups in Miami and shows how religious engagement often leads to further civic engagements both by faith-inspired individuals and religious communities at large. Pinxten and Dikomitis 2009 examines religion and religious transformations in the context of rapid urbanization, globalization, and immigration. Becci, et al. 2013 discusses how religions constitute dynamic urban elements and how faith-based individuals and communities produce aspects of urban cultures and spaces in globalizing cities. Becker, et al. 2014 seeks to shed light on a vast range of religious groups, contexts, and manifestations all over the world, and argues for more research and engagement with urban religion and a revised/updated theorization of urban religions. Garbin and Strhan 2017 explores the complex interactions of global flows and local presences with regard to concrete religious groups, communities, and experiences in rapidly changing global cities.

• Becci, Irene, Marian Burchardt, and José Casanova, eds. Topographies of Faith: Religion in Urban Spaces. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2013.

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  This volume examines complex interactions between urban migration, religious diversity, and transnational religion in globalizing cities. Contributors explore how religious individual identities and associational frameworks change in such urban contexts. They analyze how religion takes place in cities and produces urban localities. Empirically, chapters explore themes such as changing Alevi communities in Turkish cities or the transformation experienced by Somali Muslims in Johannesburg.

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• Becker, Jochen, Katrin Klingan, Stephan Lanz, and Kathrin Wildner. Global Prayers: Contemporary Manifestations and the Religious in the City. Zürich, Switzerland: Lars Mueller, 2014.

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  This massive 650-page volume contains more than forty essays and photo essays about a vast range of aspects of religion, religious practices, religious spaces, and material cultures in cities. The book aims to “repopulate urban theory with religion.” Authors explore sectarian spatialities in Beirut, funerary scenes and practices in Kinshasa, material items of mass-produced faith in the Hindu tradition, and the construction of a Pentecostal city in Nigeria.

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• Garbin, David, and Anna Strhan, eds. Religion and the Global City. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2017.

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  Chapters in this volume bring together debates about urban religion with broader discussions about globalization and especially global cities. Chapters engage issues of how mobilities affect faith communities, and explore themes of place-making, politics of (in)visibility, and the role of religious media in contemporary cities. Concrete chapters discuss, for example, weddings among Kenyan Pentecostals in London, urban planning and secularism in Shanghai, and the role of newspaper for urban religiosities in Bangalore.

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• Livezey, Lowell, ed. Public Religion and Urban Transformation: Faith in the City. New York: New York University Press, 2000.

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  Livezey and his contributors draw a detailed image of Chicago’s diverse religious geography. They examine how well-established and more recent communities serve their members, provide social services, and offer opportunities for civic engagement. Chapters introduce and analyze Christian (majority, minority, and immigrant churches), Jewish, Hindu, and Muslim communities, and how their roles, contributions, and ways of cooperating with each other have been changing, along with how they are parts of or reflect larger urban transformations.

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• Orsi, Robert, ed. Gods in the City: Religion and the American Urban Landscape. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1999.

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  This volume is a foundational text in the study of urban religion. Chapters tackle and debunk notions of the waning role of religion in contemporary cities. Authors illustrate how religion and religiosities are integral elements of global cities, as immigrants bring new religions/religiosities or remake existing religions or faith communities. Chapters examine issues like the construction of a Hindu temple in Washington, DC, practices of Haitian Vodou in New York City, and the waning years of synagogue in the Bronx.

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• Pinxten, Rik, and Lisa Dikomitis. When God Comes to Town: Religious Traditions in Urban Contexts. Oxford: Berghahn, 2009.

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  This volume examines religion in the context of contemporary rapid urbanization. Chapters examine concrete changes experienced by religious communities in different cities. They discuss issues such as immigration and religion, reflect on the success of charismatic and Pentecostal communities in cities, and analyze the changing role of the Catholic Church in Polish cities.

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• Stepick, Alex, Terry Rey, and Sarah Mahler, eds. Churches and Charity in the Immigrant City: Religion, Immigration, and Civic Engagement in Miami. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2009.

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  Stepick, Rey, Mahler, and their contributors examine the complex religious landscape of immigrant and minority communities and groups in Miami. They describe how these communities constitute home spaces for their congregants, but also serve as very important links to urban society at large. Chapters illustrate the link between religion and civic engagement among faith-inspired individuals and groups, and between faith communities and broader neighborhood activities and politics.

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• Warner, R. Stephen, and Judith Wittner, eds. Gatherings in Diaspora: Religious Communities and the New Immigration. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1998.

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  This now classic volume includes a broad variety of chapters that chronicle and examine the religious localization, community, and place-making of diverse ethnic and religious communities in cities in the United States. Chapters explore processes of adaptation of Iranian Jews in Los Angeles, the negotiation of gender relations in a Keralite church, processes of church-building among Rastafarian in New York City, and the localization of Hindu communities in Los Angeles.

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Classic Monographs on Urban Religion

In the early studies of urban lives and communities, religion did not figure large. Places of worship and faith traditions might be mentioned, but they rarely played a central role. Religion might take place in the city, but it was not a crucial variable to take into consideration when analyzing urban communities and, even more so, larger urban transformations. Wirth 1998 chronicles the rapidly changing lives of Jewish immigrants and residents in Chicago in the early 20th century. While Wirth’s primary focus is on immigrants’ lives and changing immigrant neighborhoods, work, and markets, he does provide relevant observations about the role of religion and the changing identities of Jews in the immigrant city. Departing from the patterns and emphases of earlier studies, Orsi 1985 centrally explores the role of (Italian) Catholicism and popular religious practices in the making and remaking of neighborhood culture in East Harlem, New York, over many decades from the late 19th to the mid-20th century. Orsi insists that “lived religion” is a vital element in the making of ordinary urban lives, lifeworlds, and neighborhood cultures. Tweed 1997 chronicles the localization of a Cuban Catholic community in Miami, illustrating how having its own space allowed the community visibility and civic participation. Simultaneously, the congregation negotiated its role in the larger transnational ethno-religious Cuban community. Srinivas 2001 explores the participation of marginalized groups in Bangalore in performative Hindu rituals as these urbanites both claim continuity in the city and insert their voices and actions into contemporary urban processes and transformations. Werbner 2002 examines the everyday cultural and religious practices of Pakistani immigrants as they create communities, modes of participation, and individual lives in Manchester, England.

• Orsi, Robert. The Madonna of 115th Street: Faith and Community in Italian Harlem, 1880–1950. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1985.

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  In this pathbreaking study, Robert Orsi argues that “lived religion,” especially that of lower-class and immigrant constituencies, can be a crucial element in the making of urban quarters. Along with ethnicity, religion is often a central feature in the articulation of individual urban identities and communal cultures. Orsi insists on the cultural shaping power of faith-based practices as they mediate neighborhood cultures.

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• Srinivas, Smriti. Landscapes of Urban Memory: The Sacred and the Civic in India’s High Tech City. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2001.

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  Srinivas examines the religious performative complex in the high-tech boom city of Bangalore. She illustrates how disenfranchised groups frequent shrines, participate in rituals and perform various religious practices to claim spaces and visibility in the city. In the process, these individuals and groups connect to the city’s history and claim an active part of the city’s present.

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• Tweed, Thomas. Our Lady of the Exile: Diasporic Religion at a Cuban Catholic Shrine in Miami. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997.

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  This monograph (re-)establishes the centrality of (immigrant) religiosities and lived religion in cities. Tweed points to the central importance of place-making for immigrant faith communities and explains how houses of worship localize immigrant communities and create spatialities that link immigrants to each other, back to countries of origin, and to new urban environments.

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• Werbner, Pnina. Imagined Diasporas among Manchester Muslims: The Public Performance of Pakistani Transnational Identity. Oxford: James Currey, 2002.

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  Werbner examines the complex lives of Pakistanis in Manchester. She discusses their daily lives and negotiations between cultural and religious practices of the homeland and the pressures and tension of the urban public sphere. She illustrates the multilayered struggles of individuals, associations, and communities between traditional practices, personal pieties, and religious extremism.

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• Wirth, Louis. The Ghetto. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, 1998.

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  Wirth explores the history of the concept of “ghetto” and introduces historical Jewish ghettos. He analyzes the Jewish community and ghetto of early industrial Chicago’s Near West Side. Wirth provides an ethnographic account of Maxwell Street, the central commercial venue of the community. He draws a vibrant image of a rapidly changing community as upwardly mobile residents leave for wealthier quarters in emerging suburbs. While the Jewish community is central to this book, faith-related aspects take a backseat. Originally published 1928.

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Theoretical Works

Few classical urban studies paid much attention to religions and their dynamic roles in cities. Religions, religiosities, and their creative role in urban change were rarely theorized in earlier decades. When the study of urban religions started to take hold in several disciplines in the late 1980s and early 1990s, scholars needed to develop relevant analytical tools, frameworks, and concepts. A first step was to insist on the integral role of religion and spirituality in globalizing cities. Kong 1990 is an agenda-setting article that explores how geography and religious studies could produce research at the intersection of the two disciplines. The author calls for a “geography of religion” that probes into the dynamics and continued (spatial) relevance of urban religions. Kong 1993 observes that in broader critical debates in cultural geography, participants carefully engaged concepts such as gender, race, and class, but paid little attention to religion. Kong insists that religion and religious spaces play important roles, especially in religiously diverse cities such as Singapore. She argues that the spiritual is often brushed aside in the dominant sphere of urban politics and economics. Knott 2005 reflects on the spatiality of religion in secular cities and spaces and develops theoretical and methodological tools for the study of religious spatialities. Tweed 2006 theorizes spatial aspects of religions. He insists on the role of religion in people’s place-making and mobilities. Tweed emphasizes that religion helps people to make and maneuver spaces. In Kong 2010, published twenty years after the author’s reflections about geography and religion, she once more examines trends in the study of urban religion and emphasizes the continued relevance of urban religions. AlSayyad and Massoumi 2010 explores and theorizes the role and position of fundamentalist, orthodox, or conservative religious groups and movements in the (re)making of spaces in rapidly globalizing cities. Molendijk, et al. 2010 engages and theorizes the concept of the postsecular and concrete contexts of postsecular cities. The authors discuss the relevance of (new and old) faith-based actors, activities, groups, and communities in 21st-century cities. Beaumont and Baker 2011 analyzes the resurgence of religion, faith communities, and faith-inspired actors in global cities. The authors insist that religions cannot be relegated to the private sphere, but are integral parts of 21st-century public spheres. Cloke and Beaumont 2012 advocates for the re-theorization of urban religion in the face of the increasing visibility of religion and faith-based activities and in light of many successful examples of faith-based and secular cooperations in the struggle for urban social justice and welfare. Dwyer, et al. 2013 examines the role of new/immigrant faith communities in London suburbs. It argues for a renewed theorization of the creative role of suburbs, as well as the role of (new) religions in suburbs, that departs from the rather static view of suburbs as the sites of homogenous middle-class modernity and secularism.

• AlSayyad, Nezar, and Mejgan Massoumi, eds. The Fundamentalist City? Religiosity and the Remaking of Urban Space. Abingdon, UK, and New York: Routledge, 2010.

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  This volume explores relationships between urbanism and fundamentalist groups, politics, and cultures. Fundamentalist, charismatic, or orthodox religious movements have emerged that offer alternative and resistance to globalization’s powerful and hegemonic forces. Chapters explore and theorize such movements and their role in cities and the making of urban spaces. Authors address landscapes of Hindutva in Delhi, the urban social engagement of conservative white evangelicals in the United States, and the role of Hezbollah in the making of urban spaces in Beirut.

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• Beaumont, Justin, and Christopher Baker, eds. Postsecular Cities: Space, Theory and Practice. London: Continuum, 2011.

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  This volume revisits the role of religion in modern/global cities. Chapters argue that since the arrival of large groups of immigrants to global cities, the image of the modern secular city needs serious reconsideration. Contributors illustrate that lines between the “secular” and the “religious” have long been blurred as diverse faith groups and faith-inspired actors have been active urban participants. Authors theorize the resurgence of religion in the public and faith-based individual and communal contributions to contemporary urban society and culture.

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• Cloke, Paul, and Justin Beaumont. “Geographies of Postsecular Rapprochement in the City.” Progress in Human Geography 37.1 (2012): 27–51.

  DOI: 10.1177/0309132512440208Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

  This article examines and theorizes moments/contexts of what the authors call “postsecular rapprochement,” when faith-based organizations cooperate with secular groups in the larger field of urban care, welfare, and justice. Whether soup kitchens or environmental projects, there are many incidents of cooperation across the religious/secular line that illustrate the theoretical flaws of this increasingly artificial line and point to the need of theoretical attention to the role/definition of religion and the secular in cities.

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• Dwyer, Claire, David Gilbert, and Bindi Shah. “Faith and Suburbia: Secularisation, Modernity and the Changing Geographies of Religion in London’s Suburbs.” Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 38.3 (2013): 403–419.

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  This article revisits the role of religion in suburban contexts. Often hailed as sites of modernity, secularism, and white middle-class homogeneity, suburbs are often overlooked in debates about contemporary urban and, especially, immigrant religions. The authors argue for a renewed analysis and theorization of the creative role of suburbs and, more concretely, how new faith communities have settled and remade different suburban spaces.

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

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  Knott reflects on the appropriate theoretical and methodological tools and approaches for the study of religion in the context of the secular West. She theorizes the spatial relation of religions in increasingly secular contexts and the role and nature of faith-based or faith-inspired spaces. She explores the location of religion in the secular spatiality of Western modernity.

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• Kong, Lily. “Geography and Religion: Trends and Prospects.” Progress in Human Geography 14.3 (1990): 355–371.

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  This article provides an overview of work in religious studies and geography about the spatiality of religion. Kong discusses relevant work in both disciplines and outlines future work and challenges for geographers of religion. She notes that many questions at the intersection of geography/space and religion remain unexplored. This article is an agenda-setting piece for a geography of religion rooted in the larger field of the “new” cultural geography.

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• Kong, Lily. “Global Shifts, Theoretical Shifts: Changing Geographies of Religion.” Progress in Human Geography 34.6 (2010): 755–776.

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  Twenty years after the publication of her classic 1990 piece about geography and religion, Kong discusses the growing body of work about the spatiality of religion. Paying attention to relevant shifts such as rapid urbanization or increased mobility, Kong examines the continuing importance of religion in the 21st century and further encourages the analysis of spatial dimensions of religions and religious experiences.

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• Kong, Lily. “Negotiating Conceptions of ‘Sacred Space’: A Case Study from Singapore.” Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 18 (1993):342–358.

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  In the context of the re-theorization of cultural geography, Kong addresses the oversight of religion in such debates. Discussing concrete contexts of religious buildings in multireligious Singapore, she addresses issues of the oppositional meaning of such edifices for believers’ versus the city’s perspective. Kong theorizes multilayered differences between individual experiences of religious spaces (as sacred and hence special spaces) and hegemonic secular discourses (as functional spaces).

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• Molendijk, Arie, Justin Beaumont, and Christoph Jedan, eds. Exploring the Postsecular: The Religious, the Political and the Urban. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2010.

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  This volume explores and theorizes the concept of the postsecular and, more concretely, questions of postsecular cities. Authors examine the resurgence of faith, belief, and spirituality in cities and how (public) religion and politics interact in cities and create new faith-based spaces, practices, and realms of interaction. Contributors identify the roles and contributions of faith-based actors and groups in cities and theorize how these voices can be included in postsecular urban public spheres.

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• Tweed, Thomas. Dwelling and Crossing: A Theory of Religion. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006.

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  Tweed reflects on lived religion and how it helps/accommodates individuals and communities’ processes of inhabiting the world. As the title indicates, the book examines the making and nature of (religious) spaces and mobilities. Tweed situates religions in the physical and spatial world. Religions can inspire people to make and remake spaces and guide spatial practices and perceptions. Religions support or engender the making of spaces (of worship and others) and help people situate and orient themselves in the world.

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Consolidating the Field of Urban Religious and Urban Religious Cultural Studies

Starting in the 1990s, and often situated in the larger context of debates about rural to urban migration, immigration, and globalization, more and more researchers turned to the question of religion in the city. Religion was no longer just a chapter or a rather isolated subsection in a larger study of urban lives and communities, but had moved center stage in many studies and was recognized as a dynamic urban element. Scholars’ questions were not limited, for instance, to what happened inside a house of worship as isolated activities only relevant for those who were directly involved, but they instead sought to understand how faith-based activities made and remade urban cultures and spaces. Many researchers identified religion as an urban feature that not only or incidentally happened somewhere in cities, but as a relevant and formative urban element. Observers insisted that pious individuals, groups, and faith communities were vibrant parts of cityscapes that were shaped by urban dynamics as much as they shaped the latter. Works by sociologists, anthropologists, scholars of religion, and geographers examined the roles and contributions of pious individuals and their communities in different geographical and faith contexts. They analyzed the contributions of formal and informal religious social and political movements and how they remade urban cultures, politics, and spaces. These works asked questions about how people lived pious lives in cities and, importantly, how they carried their faith-inspired practices and politics into the urban public sphere, or how they reworked urban communities and politics to better reflect their beliefs and resulting pious everyday lives and practices. White 2002 discusses the insertion of religion, religious practices, and religious politics into an Istanbul neighborhood in the late 1990s. It illustrates how individuals and institutions experienced processes of Islamic mobilization that were part of an intensifying national confrontation between secularists (Kemalists) and Islamists. Guest 2003 examines the diverse religious experiences and communities of Chinese immigrants in New York City’s Chinatown. Guest discusses these communities’ complicated links to congregations in China and their localization and resulting changes in their new community. Deeb 2006 discusses the role of the political arm of Hezbollah in the making of neighborhood culture and spaces in a Shiʿa suburb of Beirut, illustrating how resulting faith-based urban cultures and social relations are both deeply religious and modern. McRoberts 2005 examines the position, contributions, and networks of African American churches in a disenfranchised Boston neighborhood. The author illustrates how some of the churches are rather disconnected from the neighborhood, as they largely settled there because of affordable real estate prices and rents. Henkel 2007 analyzes how residents in an Istanbul neighborhood insert Muslims practices and sensitivities into neighborhood spaces and institutions and create increasingly faith-based neighborhood cultures and lifeworlds.

• Deeb, Lara. An Enchanted Modern: Gender and Public Piety in Shi‘i Lebanon. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2006.

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  Deeb examines the making of a modern faith-based culture in a Shiʿa suburb of Beirut. She describes the how local residents live visibly religious lives and attempt to create a pious community with pious institutions and everyday practices that are thoroughly modern and connected to the city at large. Deeb illustrates how pious lives, spaces, and practices are modern, constantly debated, and renegotiated, and how individual believers work to combine religious teaching with contemporary/global lifestyles.

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• Guest, Kenneth J. God in Chinatown: Religion and Survival in New York’s Evolving Immigrant Community. New York: New York University Press, 2003.

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  Guest describes diverse religious communities in New York’s Chinatown. Examining this spiritual landscape in the context of immigration, textile industries and sweatshops, and political changes in New York and China, he illustrates how religious congregations reflect complex urban, economic, and political dynamics. He analyzes the local articulation of religious communities and their transnational links and networks.

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• Henkel, Heiko. “The Location of Islam: Inhabiting Istanbul in a Muslim Way.” American Ethnologist 34.1 (2007): 57–70.

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  Henkel examines how pious individuals in Istanbul at the turn of the 21st century actively worked to create distinctly pious lifestyles and communal spaces and cultures in an Istanbul neighborhood. Residents seek to Islamize the everyday. Henkel notes that while successful in many aspects, these endeavors also remain incomplete, as lifeworlds are stubbornly heterogeneous and complexly interwoven with other social, cultural, and political dynamics.

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• McRoberts, Omar M. Streets of Glory: Church and Community in a Black Urban Neighborhood. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005.

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  McRoberts examines the high density of African American churches in a low-income Boston neighborhood. While African American churches are often hailed as centers of social cohesion, activities, and change, McRoberts illustrates that some churches are rather disconnected from the neighborhood and only have their premises there, because of affordable rents and real estate. This “religious ecology” does much less for the good of the quarter than often assumed. Churches might pick and choose their social engagement in the community and possibly spread their labor and resources elsewhere in the city.

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• White, Jenny. Islamist Mobilization in Turkey: A Study in Vernacular Politics. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2002.

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  White examines the vernacular politics of ordinary people in an Istanbul neighborhood centered on cultural and social issues that in the 1990s were increasingly expressed and organized by way of Islamic idioms and sensitivities. Based on ethnographic fieldwork in a lower-middle-class neighborhood in Istanbul, White discusses aspects of an at times rather uncentered Islamic movement that worked to increasingly Islamize urban cultural and political contexts in the wake of what later became Recep Erdoğan’s AKP Party and Islamic political system.

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Immigrant Religions in the Global City

The study of im/migrant religions takes up a considerable share in the study of contemporary urban religions, especially in the contexts of European and North American cities. With rapid globalization, growing numbers of im/migrants moved to cities across the globe. Whether they settled in cities in their own countries or moved across national borders, these new arrivals brought their religious practices to their new homes. Those who moved to new countries often found themselves in the position of religious minorities. If they were among the early arrivals of their faith tradition, they had neither places to meet or worship, nor any communal networks. They often started meeting in living rooms, workers’ dormitories, or, later, rented a small space for worship and social activities. In these limited spatialities, believers started to form more permanent (transnational) religious communities. Because of limited financial resources, but often also because of resentment from dominant/mainstream groups, many immigrant faith communities started out in empty storefronts in disenfranchised urban quarters, in old factories or warehouses on urban margins and other invisible locations. These new, yet “hidden,” congregations fulfilled important spiritual, social, cultural, and economic functions for their members. Individuals who might not have been religious in their home countries often joined these transnational/immigrant religious communities, as they provided a space to socialize, speak one’s own language, and find help from one’s co-patriots in a new city/country. Immigrant religious communities play a crucial role in the localization of immigrant communities. They also constitute the first (organized) activities and civic participation for their members in the urban public sphere. Warner and Wittner 1998 (cited under General Overviews: Readers and Anthologies) chronicles complex processes of immigrant faith communities in different cities in the United States. Ebaugh and Chafetz 2000 studies processes of adaption of immigrant faith communities and analyzes the concrete experiences of immigrant congregations in Houston, Texas. It discusses communities’ histories, membership, theologies, community structures, social services, and (changing) ethnic and religious identities. Stepick, et al. 2009 (cited under General Overviews: Readers and Anthologies) examines Miami’s rapidly transforming spiritual geography as immigrant faith communities arrive and establish themselves and become active participants in urban religious and civic spheres. David 2012 examines the role of sound in space-claiming processes of a Hindu community in London. Astor 2012 examines neighborhood dynamics as established residents in a Catalan city oppose the construction of mosques. It notes that their opposition to these new houses of worship not only reflects a vague fear of Islam and Muslims but also illustrates an unreal sense of local homogeneity. Dwyer, et al. 2016 explores the vast variety of faith communities along an urban highway outside of Vancouver. It analyzes processes of localization, community-building, cooperation, and civic participation as they unfold on this flourishing “highway to heaven.”

• Astor, Avi. “Memory, Community, and Opposition to Mosques: The Case of Badalona.” Theory and Society 41.4 (2012): 325–349.

  DOI: 10.1007/s11186-012-9169-5Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

  Astor explores the opposition to mosques in a Catalan industrial city. He illustrates how issues of Islam, immigration, and diversity are conflated while, simultaneously, internal issues among the established local population are increasingly glossed over. Astor notes that issues like fear of terrorism play a role in the opposition to mosques, but he emphasizes that ideas of keeping urban communities the ways they have always been and without the influence of immigrants play a salient role in local opposition to mosques.

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• David, Ann. “Sacralising the City: Sound, Space and Performance in Hindu Ritual Practice in London.” Culture and Religion 13.4 (2012): 449–467.

  DOI: 10.1080/14755610.2012.728141Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

  This article examines the soundscape of a Hindu procession in London. David illustrates how a Tamil Hindu community claims spaces and belonging by way of sounds in the city. She further demonstrates how an immigrant faith community sacralizes mundane/secular urban spaces by way of claiming momentary sonic dominance.

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• Dwyer, Claire, Justin Tse, and David Ley. ““Highway to Heaven”: The Creation of a Multicultural, Religious Landscape in Suburban Richmond, British Columbia.” Social and Cultural Geography 17.5 (2016): 667–693.

  DOI: 10.1080/14649365.2015.1130848Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

  This article examines what the authors call the “Highway to Heaven,” a stretch of urban highway outside Vancouver that accommodates more than twenty mostly immigrant faith communities. The result of urban planning/zoning with quite different intentions, this astounding collection of Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim, and Sikh congregations has produced an impressive array of houses of worship, unexpected co-operations, and overall a landscape that has increasingly been used to highlight the city’s multiculturalism.

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• Ebaugh, Helen Rose, and Janet Saltzman Chafetz. Religion and the New Immigrants: Continuities and Adaptations in Immigrant Congregations. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira, 2000.

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  This volume chronicles the histories and transformation of Hindu, Buddhist, Chinese Christian, or Greek Orthodox communities in the city. It contains two sections. One discusses broader issue about immigrants and their localization and adaptation/adjustment to their new homes. The second provides case studies about specific faith groups and congregations in Houston, Texas.

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Religious Place-Making

The construction and position of houses or worship or other faith-based or faith-inspired places is central for the activities of pious individuals and their communities in cities. Impressive churches, mosques, synagogues, or temples, especially if situated in central and highly visible urban spaces, bespeak the wealth, power, and cultural and political role of their communities in cities and nations. The localization of new/immigrant religion is tied to their ability to rent, buy, or build houses of worship and/or community centers. In the study of immigrant religions, the analysis of place-making dynamics constitutes a central theme. As immigrants (and their religions) enter cities, they often remain socially marginal and invisible. Narratives of arrival and early religious practices often start with living-room meetings. Once faith communities outgrow private spaces, many move to rented venues in backyard spaces or defunct workshops, empty storefronts, or old warehouses. There, immigrant faith communities make themselves at home and creatively remake these often uninviting spaces. Due to the spatial marginality of many such spaces, immigrant religious communities remain invisible for dominant society. Place-making activities are not limited to immigrant or minority communities, and members of dominant religions are similarly involved in spatializing their agendas. Waghorne 1999 chronicles the material, symbolic, and spiritual details of the construction of a Hindu temple in the suburbs of Washington, DC. Peach and Gale 2003 examines the changing spiritual geography of English cities with the arrival of Muslims, Hindus, and Sikhs and their quests for houses of worship. Bielo 2011 describes how young Evangelicals in the United States, driven by a sense of mission, move to inner cities to do the work of God in marginalized communities. The author notes that these missionaries further processes of gentrification in neighborhoods. Shah, et al. 2012 analyzes the construction of a Jain Temple in suburban London, arguing that attention needs to be paid to the arrival of immigrant religions in suburban contexts, and how they differ from inner cities. Coleman and Maier 2013 examines immigrant lives that unfold on the map of “London-Lagos” as they participate in faith networks and construct successful immigrant lives across cities and continents. Deeb and Harb 2013 examines transformations in Beirut’s Shiʿa southern suburbs. The authors illustrate that as a new generation of pious residents came of age, an Islamically framed landscape of leisure emerged, which features cafés and restaurants that cater to pious sensitivities and accommodate 21st-century consumerist lifestyles. Kuppinger 2014 examines the making of transient Muslim spaces in a German city and illustrates how some transient spaces can turn into semi-permanent or permanent Muslim spatialities. Azzara 2019 analyzes the struggle to belong and participate of a disenfranchised African American community without a permanent space in Los Angeles, showing how community members insert themselves into the urban environment with their spiritual work and help for community members and others.

• Azzara, Monique. “Grappling with the Impermanence of Place: A Black Baptist Congregation in South Los Angeles.” City & Society 31.1 (2019): 77–93.

  DOI: 10.1111/ciso.12203Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

  Azzara describes the struggles of a small African American Christian congregation to create a sense of place and belonging in the city in the absence of a permanent space. Moving frequently, the community remains invisible in the city, but nonetheless works hard by way of fellowship and doing good in their immediate environment to create a place for themselves in the city and actively improve the lives of some, especially younger, urban residents.

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• Bielo, James. “City of Man, City of God: The Re‐Urbanization of American Evangelicals.” City & Society 23.S1 (2011): 2–23.

  DOI: 10.1111/j.1548-744X.2011.01053.xSave Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

  Bielo examines the phenomenon of white Evangelicals moving back to American inner cities. Their moves are motivated by a disenchantment and criticism of suburban mega-churches and a sense of mission to bring God back to the city. With their partly religiously motivated moves to often marginalized urban quarters, these younger people participate in larger processes of gentrification. Their moves remake both cities and urban religious communities.

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• Coleman, Simon, and Katrin Maier. “Redeeming the City: Creating and Traversing ‘London-Lagos.’” Religion 43.3 (2013): 353–364.

  DOI: 10.1080/0048721X.2013.798161Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

  Coleman and Maier examine complex transnational physical and symbolic place-making and home-making processes of members of a Nigerian Pentecostal community between London and Lagos. Individual community members live and work in “London-Lagos,” where they negotiate their lives as believers, workers, immigrants, and citizens.

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• Deeb, Lara, and Mona Harb. Leisurely Islam: Negotiating Geography and Morality in Shiʿite South Beirut. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2013.

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  The ethnography chronicles moral, economic, and political dynamics in the making of a new landscape of leisure and consumption (mostly cafés and restaurant, but also an amusement park) in the Shiʿa/Hezbollah neighborhoods of southern Beirut, Lebanon. The authors analyze the intersection of religion/morality, popular cultural/youth cultures, and neoliberal economic dynamics and interests as they articulate leisure destinations for a new urban pious generation.

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• Peach, Ceri, and Richard Gale. “Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs in the New Religious Landscape of England.” Geographical Review 93.4 (2003): 469–490.

  DOI: 10.1111/j.1931-0846.2003.tb00043.xSave Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

  Peach and Gale examine the arrival, localization, and place-making activities of Muslim, Hindu, and Sikh communities in English towns and cities. They review larger population/immigration trends and discuss concrete developments of houses of worship in different cities. They address issues of planning and discuss incidents of local opposition to Muslim, Hindu, and Sikh places of worship, and how specific communities maneuvered complex processes of urban planning and politics.

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• Kuppinger, Petra. “Flexible Topographies: Muslim Spaces in a German Cityscape.” Social and Cultural Geography 15.6 (2014): 627–644.

  DOI: 10.1080/14649365.2014.882396Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

  Kuppinger examines the making and nature of transient and semi-permanent Muslim spaces in Stuttgart, Germany. She shows how individual Muslims mark or inhabit specific spaces as temporarily or more permanently Muslim, and how they act differently in these spaces according to such definitions. Over time, some such spaces become more permanent Muslim spaces and might even become integral parts of the larger cityscape. Such spaces can become ordinary parts of the urban fabric and culture.

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• Shah, Bindi, Claire Dwyer, and David Gilbert. “Landscapes of Diasporic Religious Belonging in the Edge-City: The Jain Temple at Potters Bar, Outer London.” South Asian Diaspora 4.1 (2012): 77–94.

  DOI: 10.1080/19438192.2012.634565Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

  Examining the construction of a Jain Temple in suburban London, the authors extend the analysis of urban religion to suburbia. Conflicts and experiences in the localization of this Jain community illustrate complex issues of religion, immigration, and diasporic cultures that have rarely been analyzed in suburban contexts.

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• Waghorne, Joanne Punzo. “The Hindu Gods in a Split-Level World: The Sri Siva-Vishnu Temple in Suburban Washington, DC.” In Gods of the City. Edited by Robert Orsi, 103–130. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1999.

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  Waghorne describe the physical construction and symbolic situation of a large Hindu Temple in Washington, DC. She examines the complexity of creating a home for both the Gods of India and their worshippers in a Western suburban context.

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Religion and/as Civic Participation in Cities

Religious communities are not isolated institutions. Believers take ideas and skills acquired in faith communities and apply them in the urban public sphere. Individuals and congregations often also participate and cooperate in larger social justice or cultural projects and other public activities inspired by their beliefs. For many pious individuals, and especially immigrants, their faith community forms a starting point to broader civic engagement. As new arrivals to the city (and country), many immigrants turn to religious groups and associations for a sense of home, social life, and help with housing, work, childcare, or school. In these faith communities, they learn about their new city and country and how to participate in urban (and national) public life. At community events and communal efforts and activities, immigrants learn valuable lessons about urban culture. At such events, at joined activities with other faith communities and other public occasions in the cities, immigrants become familiar with the urban public sphere and civil society. Such learning processes can translate into urban engagement beyond the confines of the individual’s faith community. Levitt 2008 illustrates how faith communities can be important sites of civic learning for immigrants. Individuals might cooperate with activists from other faith communities or other social activist groups. Elisha 2013 examines how “citywide prayers” bring together different Christian communities and claim public spaces for spiritual activism in an American city. Saint-Blancat and Cancellieri 2014 describes how Filipino immigrants in an Italian city organize an annual procession to continue practices from their home country and become visible as urban actors. Kuppinger 2015a examines the lives and participation of pious Muslims and their communities in a German city, arguing that Muslims have become integral parts of German cities and, by way of their diverse ways of participation, make and remake urban cultures and the urban public sphere. Kuppinger 2015b examines the organization and activities of a Muslim women’s sports club and argues that this club provides important opportunities for women to acquire civic skills and become relevant urban actors. DeHanas 2016 compares the construction of identities and religious, political, and civic participation of youths and young adults of Muslim Bangladeshi and Christian Jamaican backgrounds in London. Ali 2018 examines the making of Muslim American communities and identities among younger individuals in Chicago and Phoenix. The author illustrates how these young people, situated between their elders and a society that meets them with suspicion, formulate meaningful identities and seek to become active and engaged citizens and local cultural producers. Truitt 2019 illustrates how a Vietnamese Buddhist community, by way of the construction of a new temple, becomes a more visible part of New Orleans and situates itself as part of a larger map of cultural and civic spaces in the city.

• Ali, Muna. Young Muslim America: Faith, Community and Belonging. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018.

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  Ali explores aspects of the struggles for identities, community, and culture of young Muslim Americans. She examines the dynamics at work in the articulation of Muslim American identities, culture, and civic participation. Ali provides a nuanced image of her interlocutors’ lives, communities, and religious, social, or cultural activities; depicts their challenges within Muslim and larger societal contexts; and illustrates the challenging and often opposing forces that characterize young Muslims’ quests for belonging and active citizenship.

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• DeHanas, Daniel Nilsson. London Youth, Religion, and Politics: Engagement and Activism from Brixton to Brick Lane. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016.

  DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198743675.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

  DeHanas examines the everyday experiences and civic participation of second-generation Bangladeshi Muslim and Jamaican Christian youths and young adults in two London neighborhoods. He seeks to move questions of European immigrant religions away from an exclusive focus on Muslims and asks broader questions about the role (or absence) of religion in processes of “integration” and the youths’ cultural participation and civic engagement.

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• Elisha, Omri. “The Time and Place for Prayer: Evangelical Urbanism and Citywide Prayer Movements.” Religion 43.3 (2013): 312–330.

  DOI: 10.1080/0048721X.2013.798162Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

  Examining “citywide prayers,” an evangelical revivalist practice in Knoxville, Tennessee, Elisha argues that such activities transcend the more individualistic spiritual realm as they bring together individuals from different congregations, engage a variety of urban spaces, and, importantly, constitute moments and spaces of engagement with the city and urban issues. Urban streets become spaces of spiritual activism.

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• Kuppinger, Petra. Faithfully Urban: Pious Muslims in a German City. New York: Berghahn, 2015a.

  DOI: 10.2307/j.ctt9qd20vSave Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

  This ethnography examines the everyday lives and urban cultural and civic participation of Muslims in Stuttgart, Germany. Kuppinger argues that after more than half a century of presence in the city, (pious) Muslims and their communities have become integral parts of the city. They are closely woven into the urban cultural and civic fabric. Muslims participate in the urban public sphere, and are also creative social and cultural actors who make and remake urban culture and society.

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• Kuppinger, Petra. “Pools, Piety, and Participation: A Muslim Women’s Sports Club and Urban Citizenship in Germany.” Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs 15.2 (2015b): 264–279.

  DOI: 10.1080/13602004.2015.1051754Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

  Kuppinger examines the role and working of a Muslim women’s sport/swimming club in a German city. She argues that, despite public claims and accusations of Muslims’ withdrawing to their own spaces, this sports club functions as part of the larger urban public sphere. Pious women engage in the public sphere, and many learn valuable skills for further civic engagement in this club.

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• Levitt, Peggy. “Religion as a Path to Civic Engagement.” Ethnic and Racial Studies 31.4 (2008): 766–791.

  DOI: 10.1080/01419870701784489Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

  Based on research with Pakistani Muslim, Indian Hindu, Brazilian Protestant, and Irish Catholic immigrants in Boston, Levitt argues that religion and participation in religious (immigrant and other) congregations can be a valuable source for civic skills and participation. She further notes that faith communities and individual believers often cooperate with other groups and associations on a variety of social, social justice, and cultural issues.

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• Saint-Blancat, Chantal, and Adriano Cancellieri. “From Invisibility to Visibility? The Appropriation of Public Space through Religious Ritual: The Filipino Procession of Santacruzan in Padua, Italy.” Social and Cultural Geography 15.6 (2014): 645–663.

  DOI: 10.1080/14649365.2013.879494Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

  Saint-Blancat and Cancellieri describe how Filipino immigrants (mostly working-class domestics) claim their share of visibility and participation in Padua, Italy, by way of an annual Catholic procession that departs from local Catholic practices. The authors’ analysis centers on themes of accessibility, temporary appropriation, and visibility, and how the procession maneuvers pious Filipino immigrants’ claim to the city and urban participation.

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• Truitt, Allison. “Bringing Buddha to the City: Metropolitan New Orleans and Vietnamese Buddhist Communities.” City & Society 31.1 (2019): 17–33.

  DOI: 10.1111/ciso.12197Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

  Truitt examines the ongoing construction and use of a Vietnamese Buddhist worship hall in New Orleans. She focuses on the use of the hall as a life music venue for nonreligious performances. Truitt argues that such a use provides the community with the possibility of more urban visibility and broader civic and cultural participation. Truitt emphasizes that turning a place of worship into a performance venue helps the community to transcend its marginal status in the city.

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Faith-Based Urban Popular Cultures and Creativity

Religious lives, religiosities, and religious practices are not limited to houses of worship. Faith-based activities and manifestations continue to play important and often visible roles in cities, as pious individuals and groups carry their faith and faith-inspired practices into the public sphere. Many pious citizens are active participants in the making and remaking of urban cultures and spaces. Tarlo 2010 examines the cultural field of modest Muslim fashion in London. Tarlo discusses the design, commercial context, and use of such fashion. Garbin 2012 examines the role of music, or, more concretely, that of a brass band of a Congolese faith community in London. Participating in public events, these pious musicians illustrate their arrival in the city and the global nature of their church. Scheitle and Finke 2012 illustrates how different faith communities in a number of American cities participate in their urban environments, and how some of them have considerably remade and creatively influenced their neighborhoods. Ahmed and Dwyer 2017 examines often neglected faith-based art in a suburban location. The authors analyze the work of two female stained glass artists of two different 20th-century eras, including their contributions to two churches. Elisha 2017 illustrates how Latino Pentecostals use dance in a New York City parade as part of their ministry.

• Ahmed, Nazneen, and Claire Dwyer. ““Living, Changing Light”: Stained Glass Art and Gendered Creativity in the Suburban Church.” Culture and Religion 18.4 (2017): 371–387.

  DOI: 10.1080/14755610.2017.1376695Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

  Ahmed and Dwyer examine the role of faith-based urban art and reflect about discussions of urban art at large. Introducing the artwork of two female stained glass artists of two different eras in the 20th century, the authors highlight contributions of religious art, and, here especially, also the work of female artists. They emphasize the neglected role of religious art and illustrate how suburban churches can be sites of innovative art work.

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• Elisha, Omri. “Proximations of Public Religion: Worship, Spiritual Warfare, and the Ritualization of Christian Dance.” American Anthropologist 119.1 (2017): 73–85.

  DOI: 10.1111/aman.12819Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

  Elisha examines the performance of dancers of a Latino neo-Pentecostal church at the (secular) New York Dance Parade. He illustrates how this group uses dance as an aspect of its ministry. He argues that they ritualized their dance performance in an effort to set it apart from ordinary dance performances. The dancers understood their performance to have a (spiritual) purpose that distinguished it from other groups and justified their presence in an event they would not normally participate in.

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• Garbin, David. “Marching for God in the Global City: Public Space, Religion and Diasporic Identities in a Transnational African Church.” Culture and Religion 13.4 (2012): 425–447.

  DOI: 10.1080/14755610.2012.728140Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

  Garbin examines the experiences of the brass band of a transnational Congolese church in London. He illustrates how the band and its members claim spaces and participation in the city while simultaneously maintaining close ties to their home country. By positioning themselves in public venues and parades, the band members become visible parts of the city while also refining their diasporic identities as members of a transnational religious community. Music mediates these identity negotiations.

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• Scheitle, Christopher, and Roger Finke. Places of Faith: A Road Trip across America’s Religious Landscape. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2012.

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  Scheitle and Finke’s “road trip” includes visits to diverse urban (and a small number of rural) religious congregations. The authors attend religious services, meet religious leaders and ordinary believers, and, importantly, situate the respective congregations in their larger urban cultural and social contexts. The authors introduce Christian, Jewish, Muslim, and Buddhist congregations, and introduce their specific ethnic and religious contexts and cultures as part of larger cityscapes.

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• Tarlo, Emma. Visibly Muslim: Fashion, Politics, Faith. Oxford: Berg, 2010.

  DOI: 10.2752/9781847888624Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

  Tarlo analyzes faith-based fashion and fashion practices among Muslim women in London. She examines the work of Muslim fashion designers and the creative daily sartorial practices of pious Muslimas. She examines Muslim fashion design, its commercial outlets, and the wardrobes and practices of Muslim fashionistas, and illustrates how fashion, design, consumerism, and religiosity interact, as well as what it means to be a pious fashion-conscious woman in a global city.

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