When we read and hear about Colombo, Sri Lanka, we don’t often read and hear about religion experience. However, when we step outside on to the streets of Colombo religious experience is obvious and ubiquitous. This project reviews the... more
When we read and hear about Colombo, Sri Lanka, we don’t often read and hear about religion experience. However, when we step outside on to the streets of Colombo religious experience is obvious and ubiquitous. This project reviews the scholarly and anecdotal record and compares it to the social and spatial life of the contemporary inner-city. As well as temples, churches and mosques, the spatiality of religion extends to the street, markets and homes of the city: religious experience is more than worship and sanctioned ritual. It is felt through all the senses in Colombo. For example, the cool shade of a bo tree allowed to grow through the hot pavement; the colours and styles of dress; the aromas and flavours of the richly syncretic cuisine; small acts of kindness; and the sounds of observance: voices and instruments connecting the humans, their material realm and the cosmological world. When religious experience and innovation determine the spatial and the social to such a high degree, why is it that history does not acknowledge their presence? This blindness to ‘urban religion’ is evident in the literature on Colombo, but also in urban studies more generally. Situational analysis of the social formation, the urban environment and religious experience represents a way to move past axiomatic views of religion, cities and their relationship. This study also reflects on how a more anthropological understanding of the capital, Colombo, might offer alternative perspectives of the nation and its complex social identity in the post-conflict era.
In descriptions of their religion, Hong Kong Catholics tend to emphasize the perceived universal character of the Catholic Church. In this report I explore this emphasis by analyzing what this characteristic means for my informants. I... more
In descriptions of their religion, Hong Kong Catholics tend to emphasize the perceived universal character of the Catholic Church. In this report I explore this emphasis by analyzing what this characteristic means for my informants. I argue that the universality of Catholicism gives Hong Kong Catholics meaning in the world in which they live. As residents of the Hong Kong SAR and citizens of the PRC, “Hongkongers” are faced with an uncertain future. In this uncertain situation, they search for a stable anchor. The universal Catholic Church offers them this, by giving them a sense of belonging to a global family of God. This report thus presents a different understanding of what it means to be a Hong Kong resident in today’s world.
