Mapping 'new' geographies of religion: politics and poetics in modernity

This article reviews geographical research on religion in the 1990s, and hi ghlights work from neighbouring disciplines where relevant. Contrary to vie ws that the field is incoherent, I suggest that much of the literature pays attention to several key themes, particularly, the politics and poetics of religious place, identity and community. I illustrate the key issues, argu ments and conceptualizations in these areas, and suggest various ways forwa rd. These 'new' geographies emphasize different sites of religious practice beyond the 'officially sacred'; different sensuous sacred geographies; dif ferent religions in different historical and place-specific contexts; diffe rent geographical scales of analysis; different constitutions of population and their experience of and effect on religious place, identity and commun ity; different dialectics (sociospatial, public-private, politics-poetics); and different moralities.