Marian Burchardt

Paul Bramadat

Mar Griera

Julia Martinez-Ariño

How might we best understand the relationship between the vibrant religious landscapes we see in many cities and contemporary urban social processes? Through case studies drawn from around the world, contributors explore the ways in which these processes interact in cities. This book argues that religious events – including rituals, processions, and festivals – are not only choreographies of sacred traditions, but they are also creative disruptions that reveal how urban cultural hierarchies are experienced and contested. Exposing the power dynamics behind these events, this book shows how performative uses of urban space serve to destabilize dominant genealogies and lineages around urban identities just as they lay claims to cultural supremacy or heritage. Through exploring the affective disruptions and political controversies caused by religious events, the contributors engage theoretical discussions in urban studies, the sociology of religion and the ethnography of ritual. This book is a significant contribution to understanding emerging patterns in contemporary religion and also for theories related to heritagization, eventization, and urbanization.

Public Spirituality in Contested Spaces

Urban Religious Events

David Seljak

As the leading book in its field, Religion and Ethnicity in Canada has been embraced by scholars, teachers, students, and policy makers as a breakthrough study of Canadian religio-ethnic diversity and its impact on multiculturalism. A team of established scholars looks at the relationships between religious and ethnic identity in Canada's six largest minority religious communities: Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs, Jews, Muslims and practitioners of Chinese religion. The chapters also highlight the ethnic diversity extant within these traditions in order to offer a more nuanced appreciation of the variety of lived experiences of members of these communities. Together, the contributors develop consistent themes throughout the volume, among them the changing nature of religious practice and ideas, current demographics, racism, and the role of women. Chapters related to the public policy issues of healthcare, education and multiculturalism show how new ethnic and religious diversity are challenging and changing Canadian institutions and society. Comprehensive and insightful, Religion and Ethnicity in Canada makes a unique contribution to the study of world religions in Canada.

Religion and Ethnicity in Canada

Patricia O'Connell Killen

Sarah Wilkins-Laflamme

The Cascadia bioregion – British Columbia, Washington, and Oregon – has long been at the forefront of cultural shifts occurring throughout North America, in particular regarding religious institutions, ideas, and practices. Religion at the Edge explores the rise of religious “nones,” the decline of mainstream Christian denominations, spiritual and environmental innovation, increasing religious pluralism, and the growth of smaller, more traditional faith groups. The first research-driven book to address religion, spirituality, and irreligion in the Pacific Northwest, past and present, Religion at the Edge expands our understanding of the nature, scale, and implications of socio-religious changes in North America, and the relevance of regionalism to that discussion.

Nature, Spirituality, and Secularity in the Pacific Northwest

Religion at the Edge

"In order to explain this apparent contradiction, Bramadat conducts interviews with members of the McMaster IVCF and explores their various survival strategies. He shows that the secular setting is contested turf, a context within which believers engage in a complex process of negotiation in an attempt to find a fertile place for themselves and the small number of true Christians in a rapidly changing world."--BOOK JACKET.

An Evangelical Christian Group at a Secular University

The Church on the World's Turf

In Christianity and Ethnicity in Canada, eleven scholars explore the complex relationships between religious and ethnic identity within the nine major Christian traditions in Canada.

Christianity and Ethnicity in Canada

Maryse Guay

Julie A. Bettinger

Réal Roy

Controversies and scepticism surrounding vaccinations, though not new, have increasingly come to the fore as more individuals decide not to inoculate themselves or their children for cultural, religious, or other reasons. Their personal decisions put the rights of the individual on a collision course with public and community safety. Public Health in the Age of Anxiety enhances both the public and scholarly understanding of the motivations behind vaccine hesitancy in Canada. The volume brings into conversation people working within such fields as philosophy, medicine, epidemiology, history, nursing, anthropology, public policy, and religious studies. The contributors critically analyse issues surrounding vaccine safety, the arguments against vaccines, the scale of anti-vaccination sentiment, public dissemination of medical research, and the effect of private beliefs on individual decision-making and public health. These essays model and encourage the type of productive engagement that is necessary to clarify the value of vaccines and reduce the tension between pro and anti-vaccination groups.

Paul Bramadat

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