The Fundamentalist City?: Religiosity and the remaking of urban space

by Alsayyad; Nezar

• ISBN13: 9780415779364
• ISBN10: 0415779367
• Format: Nonspecific Binding
• Copyright: 2010-08-27
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

This book outlines the emerging relationship between two important phenomena: the historic transition of the majority of the world's population from a rural to an urban existence and the robust resurgence of religion as a major force in the shaping of contemporary urbanism. The international contributors explore the intellectual and practical challenges posed by fundamentalist groups, movements, and organizations. In particular, they seek to understand how such groups are affected by the urban condition, and how they, in turn, affect the urban landscape.With the resurgence of religious and ethnic loyalties across the world, communities are returning to, reinvigorating, and giving new meaning to religions and their common practices. Islam, Christianity, Judaism, and Hinduism are particularly experiencing new influxes of commitments and traditions. Civil-society organizations and other community and religious groups have jumped in to fill the vacuum caused by the state's absence, especially in the provision of social services, infrastructure, and urban order.In many countries, radical religious groups are increasingly providing those services left unattended by state and municipal bureaucracies. The once-accepted divide between church and state or the confinement of religion to the private sphere has been vigorously challenged as these groups not only gain ground within sovereign nation-states but forge enduring and powerful transnational connections by expanding their memberships with blind or obedient recruits from beyond national borders.AlSayyad and Massoumi's book provides fascinating reading for those interested in urbanism and the occurrence of religion within the city. With thought provoking pieces from experts in sociology, anthropology, religious studies, urban planning and geography, it simply raises the question: Is a fundamentalist city possible?

Author Biography

Nezar AlSayyad is Professor of Architecture, Planning, and Urban History and Chair of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. He is also President of the International Association for the Study of Traditional Environments. He has published fourteen books including Muslim Europe or Euro-Islam (2002); Urban Informality (2004); The End of Tradition? (2005); and Cinematic Urbanism (2006). Mejgan Massoumi is an urban planner and manager at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. She obtained her degrees in Architecture and City Planning from the University of California, Berkeley. She is co-editor of Urban Diversity. Space, Culture and Inclusive Pluralism in Cities Worldwide (forthcoming).

Table of Contents

Preface	p. vii
The Contributors	p. xi
Fundamentalisms: Between City and Nation	p. 1
The Fundamentalist City?	p. 3
Why in the City? Explaining Urban Fundamentalism	p. 27
The Civility of Inegalitarian Citizenships	p. 51
Fundamentalisms and Urbanism	p. 73
American National Identity, the Rise of the Modern City, and the Birth of Protestant Fundamentalism	p. 75
Producing and Contesting the 'Communalized City': Hindutva Politics and Urban Space in Ahmedabad	p. 99
On Religiosity and Spatiality: Lessons from Hezbollah in Beirut	p. 125
Hamas in Gaza Refugee Camps: The Construction of Trapped Spaces for the Survival of Fundamentalism	p. 155
Identity, Tradition, and Fundamentalisms	p. 175
Abraham's Urban Footsteps: Political Geography and Religious Radicalism in Israel/Palestine	p. 177
Fundamentalism at the Urban Frontier: the Taliban in Peshawar	p. 209
Taking the (Inner) City for God: Ambiguities of Urban Social Engagement among Conservative White Evangelicals	p. 235
Postsecular Urbanisms: Situating Delhi within the Rhetorical Landscape of Hindutva	p. 257
Excluding and Including the 'Other' in the Global City: Religious Mission among Muslim and Catholic Migrants in London	p. 283
Index	p. 303
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.