Festivals of Religions and Religious Festivals: Heritigized Heterotopias

The contemporary literature on religion in cities indicates that: (1) contrary to the traditional view of cities as secular environments, religion thrives in urban areas; (2) the expression of religion in urban public spaces is intertwined with the dynamics of “eventization,” branding, and “heritagization” of the sacred; and (3) forms of contemporary religious visibility in urban areas include public rituals, festivals, and a variety of outdoor and indoor activities. In this chapter we explore “festivals of religions,” by which we mean a specific form of displaying various religions, different from religious festivals. The chapter makes two main contributions. First, we propose a typology of contemporary festivals of religions by exploring their aims and organizational dimensions. Second, we explore how festivals of religion shape understandings of the role of religion in cities: they effectively select the religions and forms of religiosity that are put on display. In so doing, festivals contribute to defining which religions are acceptable in the public sphere. In addition to increasing the visibility of religions in the public domain and enhancing public knowledge of and sensitivity toward religious diversity, festivals of religion also promote and disseminate cultural, “secularized” (as well as “folklorized” and exotic) versions of religion and religiosity.