Choreographies of Shared Sacred Sites: Religion, Politics, and Conflict Resolution
Elazar Barkan and Karen Barkey
Abstract
This anthology explores the dynamics of shared religious sites in Turkey, the Balkans, Palestine/Israel, Cyprus and Algeria, indicating where local and national stakeholders manoeuvre between competition and cooperation, coexistence, and conflict. Contributors probe the notion of coexistence and the logic that underlies centuries of “sharing,” exploring when and why sharing gets interrupted—or not—by conflict, and the policy consequences. These chapters map the choreographies of shared sacred spaces within the framework of state-society relations, juxtaposing a site's political and religious f ... More
This anthology explores the dynamics of shared religious sites in Turkey, the Balkans, Palestine/Israel, Cyprus and Algeria, indicating where local and national stakeholders manoeuvre between competition and cooperation, coexistence, and conflict. Contributors probe the notion of coexistence and the logic that underlies centuries of “sharing,” exploring when and why sharing gets interrupted—or not—by conflict, and the policy consequences. These chapters map the choreographies of shared sacred spaces within the framework of state-society relations, juxtaposing a site's political and religious features and exploring whether sharing or contestation is primarily religious or politically motivated. Although religion and politics are intertwined phenomena, the contributors to this volume understand the category of “religion” and the “political” as devices meant to distinguish between the theological and confessional aspects of religion and the political goals of groups. The chapters clearly delineate the religious and political factors that contribute to the context and causality of conflict at these sites. They draw on history and anthropology to shed light on the often rapid switch from relative tolerance to distress and back to peace and calm.
Keywords:
shared religious sites,
Turkey,
Balkans,
Palestine,
Israel,
Cyprus,
Algeria,
sacred spaces
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2014 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780231169943 |
| Published to Columbia Scholarship Online: November 2015 |
DOI:10.7312/columbia/9780231169943.001.0001 |
