Landscape framework and geography of religion: a terminological aspect (a case study of geographical publications in English)

Abstract

This article attempts to illustrate current approaches to the study of religious phenomena using the landscape framework. The authors identify similarities and differences in the interpretations of the most common terms used in foreign research to describe religion. The article shows that their semantic difference is mainly determined by their use as tools of either cultural geography or social anthropology. In particular, cultural geography focuses on the material objects of cultural landscapes and their geographical distribution, while social anthropology highlights specific features of people’s religious discourse and practices and analyses social processes that shape the modern world landscape. The term religious landscape can be used in the following ways, depending on how it is operationalized. First, it refers to the totality of material objects associated with religion. Secondly, it refers to the places where rituals take place. Finally, it refers to the territory in which followers of particular religious traditions live. The term religioscape implies a situation of conflict or complementary interaction between followers of different religions sharing the same space. Sacred landscape is sometimes applied as a synonym for the term religious landscape meaning a set of religious material objects. Sometimes it means a complex of natural places or objects of worship (mountains, hills, swamps, and others) that provides a general framework for various individual religious landscapes within it. The term sacroscape refers to the historically formed material manifestations of religiosity influencing both contemporary people and earth’s surface. The term spiritual landscape has several basic meanings. On the one hand, it is used as a synonym for religious landscape or sacred landscape. Secondly, it serves as a broader, generalizing term to describe all aspects of human interaction (ideas, objects, practices) with the supersensible world. Finally, the term spiritual landscape refers to spaces of not only ritual but also everyday practices.