Contemporary creations and re-cognitions of sacred sites

Abstract

This chapter is a kind of pilgrimage, site-hopping a variety of sacred locations. Questions to be addressed are what it is that is believed to be sacred, where the boundary to the sacred is drawn and how manipulable that boundary is. The idea of a sacred site will be employed rather broadly in order to allow readers to explore a wide range of different ways in which the concept is conceptualised and how it is contained. The journey will us take through natural landscapes to both small and large artefacts and then on to the more abstract conception of the religious community as a sacred site. As a point of reference, the chapter will take the ideas formulated by the sociologist Emile Durkheim and the anthropologist Mary Douglas.