What Are Religious Hotspots? An Introduction

Bibliographic Data

ID9205314
AuthorsMarianne Qvortrup Fibiger (0000-0002-1177-6694, Department of the Study of Religion, University of Aarhus Aarhus Denmark, corresponding author)
Year2023
Volume70
Issue1
Pages1-16
Publication date2023-01-03
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueNumen (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0029-5973 • E-ISSN: 1568-5276
PublisherWalter de Gruyter GmbH (PUBLISHER • DE)
DOI10.1163/15685276-12341673
OpenAlexW4313551511
LanguageEN
Citations received3
References cited27

This introductory article outlines the meanings behind and the reasons for suggesting “religious hotspots” as a new analytical concept in the study of religion. The idea of suggesting this concept is not to replace others – for instance, a pilgrimage site, a religious place, a supernatural place, or a storied place – but to broaden the perspective and to emphasize the dynamic, multidimensional, and relational aspects of place, not least concerning how a religious place can be a hotspot for some and a cold one for others, but also how a place can change from being a hotspot to a cold spot and vice versa. Being a heated place, a religious hotspot can also have an unintended effect on people being there. They can either become “infected” by or “cured” of a feeling of religious or spiritual belonging. The concept is a contribution to the growing interest in space and place when analyzing religion, in recognition of how a landscape or a particular religiously legitimized site can be an important element in collective cultural, social, and political meaning-making

Environmental ethics · Epistemology · Feeling · History of religions · Hotspot (geology) · Pilgrimage · Political science · Politics · Sense of place · Social science · Sociology · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Geographies of human-animal interactions · History · Law · Philosophy · Religious studies · Religious Tourism and Spaces

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