Religion and Locality Conference

A two-day (September 8-10, 1998) international conference, “Religionand Locality,” took place at Leeds University, organized by the Departmentof Theology and Religious Studies. The conference participants addressedvarious emerging issues related to the relationship between religion andlocality, religious mapping of a locality, and the effects of globalization onlocal manifestations of religious practices, ideas, and movements.The first day of the conference was opened by a lengthy discussion in anagenda-setting session led by Kim Knott and Haddon Willmer (both ofUniversity of Leeds, UK). Knott and Willmer raised important theoreticalquestions in the study of religion and locality. They argued that localitycannot always be confined to a physically identified place, for a shared culturealso constitutes a form of locality. Addressing methodological issues,Knott and Willmer stated that anthropology, sociology, geography, history,as well as religious studies can provide insightful approaches and usefultheoretical perspectives to explore different aspects of religion and locality.Conference participants contributed to the agenda-setting session with anumber of suggestions. For example, it was suggested that the study ofconcepts such as diaspora, state, and citizenship might refme approaches tominority religions, which are often seen as monolithic and as fixing beliefsystems. It was also suggested that new religious movements, contextualand situational factors, and sacred on the cyberspace should also be takeninto consideration, as well as global and international developments, for nolocality is isolated from external encounters in the information age.Following the closure of agenda setting, Michael Pye (University ofMarburg, Germany) gave a paper, “Religious localization in Sacred andSecular Space.” Pye argued that religious focus and pathways are intertwinedwith social realities. Religious focusing takes place within a secular/general space. Drawing upon his observations on Indian, Japanese, andancient Egyptian religions, he drew attention to the influence of secular and ...