Sacred sites can be centrally important not only for religious groups but also in regard to people’s ethnic and national identities. Various groups and people engage with sacred sites to articulate new identities and fortify older ones. The sites can have a memorial function and allow for a perception of history and for connecting the present with the past. To serve their particular purposes, hegemonic actors may mobilise the symbols, metaphors, and myths that are central to the representation of national, ethnic or religious groups. But subordinated groups may interpret sacred sites in their own particular ways and thereby challenge existing power relations and hegemonic understandings of identity.

In this workshop, we pay particular attention to the process of space- and placemaking. What kind of sites emerge from the interaction of individuals, groups, built formations, the environment and landscape? Such a focus obliges one to pay close attention to the actors involved in the production and (re)interpretation of sacred sites. How do power players make use of sacred sites for their purposes? And how do subordinate groups contribute to the transformation of these sites in an interpretive and material sense? 

Conceptually, we want to seriously engage with the interaction of people and material culture, without becoming all too anthropocentric in the procedure. We perceive the transformation of sacred sites and their present shapes as a mutual process, in which sacred sites can be considered to play an active role in the process of (re)producing communities, while they themselves are exposed to change in time through the practices and performances of their visitors. How does the tangible dimension of sacred sites, apart from their symbolic meanings, affect the place-making practices of their visitors? We pay empirical attention to things and specific case studies of sacred sites in various locations that can further our discussion of the relation between religion, materiality, identities and sacred sites and open up fresh perspectives on the subject matter.

Organizers
Dr Rabia Harmansah (University of Cologne)
Dr Jesko Schmoller (Humboldt University Berlin & Perm State University)