Problems with Essentialism and Constructionism in Contemporary Geographical Studies of Religion

• FUJIMURA Ken'ichi

  Part-time Lecturer, College of Letters, Ritsumeikan University

抄録

In recent geographical studies of religion, essentialist and constructionist positions have coexisted, and dissension between them has grown. In addition, each approach contains inherent problems; essentialist geographers have tended to reify religion and religious spaces, and constructionist geographers have tended to insufficiently analyze how the religious spaces produced by social groups influence those groups. In this paper, I clarify trends of geographical studies of religion written by English-speaking and Japanese researchers and their problems based on such a dual perspective, and suggest a direction in order to improve them. First, I analyze theoretical trends in geographical studies of religion dividing between essentialism and constructionism, and make each problem clear. After that, I review some approaches which seek other positions in geographical studies of religion paying attention to mutual relationship between structure and agency or spaces and individuals. Finally, I suggest the way to bridge the gap between essentialist and constructionist and to improve their problems. It is, in short, exploration of both mutual relationships between spaces and social groups concerning religion, and their geographical characteristics.

収録刊行物

• 地理学評論

  地理学評論 79 (5), 251-263, 2006

  公益社団法人 日本地理学会

キーワード

• geographical studies of religion
• essentialism
• constructionism
• structure-agency debate
• religious space

詳細情報

• CRID: 1390001205204914816
• NII論文ID: 10018863018
• NII書誌ID: AA11591990
• DOI: 10.4157/grj.79.5_251
• ISSN: 21851727
• ISSN: 13479555
• 本文言語コード: en
• データソース種別:
  • JaLC
  • Crossref
  • CiNii Articles
• 抄録ライセンスフラグ: 使用不可