Connecting the local and the global in post-secular urban settings

Abstract

Postsecular geographies seek to examine how place is linked with identity and how religious identities in turn can be accommodated in public space. Postsecular practices in urban contexts have been researched extensively, but they do not always fully engage with a relational approach to place-making. This paper argues that through the place-making practices seen at Virgin Mary statues in Dublin city, Ireland, a relational approach to examining postsecular practices and representations provides a more productive way to understand how the secular and the religious coexist in cities. The paper uses archival and contemporary data gathered from a sample of Marian statues in Dublin city to locate the relational geographies of the religious and the secular. By focussing on the ways that the statues remain uncontested within a changing urban landscape, the paper re-examines the political significance of religious place-making practices. It concludes that if geographies of religion in the postsecular city are to have a broader relevance to geography, they need a relational approach to place-making.