This is the first study to bring sacred space into conversation with religious violence, helping readers to understand how religious contestations result in religious violence.

This is the first study to bring space into conversation with religious competition, conflict and violence in the contemporary world. Lily Kong and Orlando Woods argue that because space is both a medium and an outcome of religious activity, it is integral to understanding processes of religious competition, conflict and violence. The book explores how religious groups make claims to both religious and secular spaces, and examines how such claims are managed, negotiated and contested by the state and by other secular and religious agencies. It also examines how globalisation has given rise to new forms of religious competition, and how religious groups strengthen themselves through the development of social resilience, as well as contribute to resilient societies. Throughout the book, case studies from around the world are used to examine how religious competition and conflict intersect with space. The case studies include topical issues such as competing claims to the Temple Mount/Haram el-Sharif in Jerusalem, opposition to the “Ground Zero mosque” in New York City, and the regulation of religious conversion in India and Sri Lanka. By helping readers develop new perspectives on how religion works in and through space, Religion and Space: Competition, Conflict and Violence in the Contemporary World is an innovative contribution to the study of religion.

"Timely, authoritative and compelling, Religion and Space encapsulates state of the art thinking within geographies of religion. While religions world-wide are often seen in light of conflict resolution and peace-building, the book centrally conceptualizes religions from the premise of competition, conflict and violence within pluralist societies under conditions of globalization. Drawing on several insightful sources, namely the Romanian religious historian Mircea Eliade and French Marxist philosopher Henri Lefebvre, the authors show how religious and secular claims to space have been and continue to be negotiated in the post-war period of modernity. The first study to confront sacred space with religious violence, we are provided with an important reminder of how a spatial perspective on religion explains the persistence of violence as well as a vehicle for social resilience and regulation." - Justin Beaumont, Spatial Planning & Environment, University of Groningen, The Netherlands