Ch 22: Beyond Houses of Worship: Understanding and Exploring Alternatively Sacred Spaces
Files
Description
This chapter appears in the book, Handbook of the Geographies of Religion. Edited by Lily Kong, Orlando Woods, and Justin K.H. Tse.
Chapter abstract: This chapter investigates alternatively sacred spaces. These spaces challenge the boundaries of current definitions of “sacred space,” but at the same time, they help us to better understand notions of placemaking, sacralization, and the lived religious experience. The chapter begins with a discussion of how we might conceptualize these spaces before turning to an overview of related literature. It then presents a typology that classifies different forms of sacred spaces, making the case that geographers of religion have largely overlooked nontraditional belief systems. This chapter also offers an analysis of virtual sacred spaces during the COVID-19 pandemic, during which numerous congregations shifted from traditional services to virtual services. This shift from a traditional sacred space to an alternatively sacred space—and the varying reactions from congregants—helps shed light on the ways in which space is experienced and the role of alternatively sacred spaces in the digital domain moving forward. The chapter closes with directions for future research, exploring how the rise of religious “nones,” rather than marginalizing the role of geographers of religion, may provide fertile ground for new explorations of how we experience the world as spiritual people in modern society.
ISBN
978-3-031-64810-6
Publication Date
2025
Publisher
Springer
City
Berlin
Keywords
Sacred spaces, Placemaking, Virtual religion, Nontraditional belief systems
Disciplines
Human Geography | Other Geography | Other Religion
Recommended Citation
Finlayson, Caitlin, "Ch 22: Beyond Houses of Worship: Understanding and Exploring Alternatively Sacred Spaces" (2025). Geography Books. 4.
https://scholar.umw.edu/geography_books/4