Contenu du sommaire : Le rôle du sacré dans la fabrique des territoires

In the construction of contemporary societies and the spaces they live in, the return to the symbolic, to spiritual values and, ultimately, to the sacred, is undeniable. The sacred leaves marks on the territory and even constitutes a foundation that cements our societies, globalised and secularised, confronted with multiple crises that question the fragility of the world, even its finiteness. Those involved in spatial planning, and all human beings in their day-to-day practices, integrate non-material values into their decisions. Contingent factors (cost, availability, accessibility, etc.), largely linked to liberalism, compete with a search for harmony, environmental and social solidarity, combined to varying degrees with spiritual aspirations. The sacred, which takes many forms and is constantly being redefined, is thus a geographical agent that is all the more effective because it is not always consciously acknowledged. The eight articles in this issue offer a wide variety of approaches and draw on a whole range of original concepts, opening up new avenues of research at the unprecedented crossroads of methods between geography, anthropology, history and ethnology, as well as comparisons between similar practices and different cultural areas.

In the Bamileke region, the ŋdon is part of a transmissible social order whose purpose is to maintain a benevolent harmony between ancestors and their descendants. Despite the openness to globalization and the new religiosities that are generating considerable changes in lifestyles throughout the region, it still continues to strongly influence the relationship of populations to the divine and the sacred. Based on a documentary review, direct observations, semi-structured interviews and on the Bangangté case in the Ndé division, this study analyzes the contribution of this practice to the construction of territories. It emerges that the ŋdon constitutes in this part of Cameroon a framework for the normalization of social relations between members of the same lineage ; that it promotes through the construction of conventicle and their prohibitions the construction of a set of small sacred territories controlled by the successors, the main skull guard, that are found in almost all rural and urbans concessions. The logics and practices surrounding its development promote many socio-economic interactions between the actors present as well as spatial mobility within the national and international bamileke diaspora. All of which make this rite a real lever of sociospatial dynamics.

This paper focuses on the relationship between mobility, space and Sufism in a region of the world, the Indus Valley encompassing several provinces of Pakistan, where this form of Muslim religiosity is strongly rooted. A historical contextualisation will first enable us to understand how Sufism as a devotional movement spread with the advance of Islam in this region, along several 'pioneer fronts' (economic, urban, religious) and according to various forms of mobility (military conquest, wandering, trade). Then, through a case study of one category of Sufis in particular, that of Qalandar renunciants, one of whose representatives is rooted in a small locality in the province of Sindh, we analyse the relationship between itinerant movement and the local establishment of the cult of saints. Finally, using the conceptual tool of 'mobile space', the moving dimension of the complex ritual and spatial organisation of this locality is brought to light beyond the apparent fixity of the large sanctuary where the mortal remains of the saint rest.

Who has ever been to Haifa, in Israel, has necessarily noticed, or even visited, the Baha'i gardens ! A very official emblem of this Judeo-Arab city – the third city of Israel by its population and the home of its greatest international port –, the gardens are both a very outstanding and polysemic place. It is as much an “urban piece” progressively built over more than a century by successive excavations and earthworks of the Northern slope of the Carmel, a holy and sacred place for to the Baha'is of the world and a private green space dedicated to the city and its visitors and to “Humanity” at large. The gardens host several buildings, among which a golden-roofed superstructure where rest the remains of the Bab, the emissary prophet of the Baha'i faith. They also host the administrative buildings and the spiritual organs (The Universal House of Justice) of the Baha'is, a transnational community of five to eight million people. As such, the gardens welcome continuous flows of international pilgrims and hundreds of volunteers coming, every year, for few months and, sometimes, decades. But these gardens don't stand alone. They are one element of a group of Baha'i places outspread in the Northern Galilee, listed as World Heritage Sites since 2008 in a sacred topography which extends from Haifa to Akko, North of which Baha'Ullah, the Baha'i Prophet is buried. This sacred topography, the article argues, seems to be developing as an archipelago of de-territorialised Baha'i islands in Israeli “waters”. The article thus questions this specific, but maybe paradigmatic, way of “making” today's cities and territories, in the long run of centuries. It wishes to contribute to demonstrate the spatial and planning power of religion, looking at it from the perspective of the transnational mobilities it often, and here specifically, involves.

In some secular countries with a Christian tradition, secularisation has had a double consequence : the religious component of the sacred has been 'crystallised' and reinforced in the shrines, while a new modality of the sacred (this one non-religious) has progressively developed, applying to other objects (historical past, sport, fiction, etc.) and being able to combine, sometimes in the same space, with the original religious modality of the sacred. Since it is becoming rare in the public space, the value of the sacred is subject to a certain protection in shrines, through the process of public heritage conservation, which concerns not only places but also practices. In this way, certain places and associated practices are 'reactivated', as if it were impossible to completely subvert a place to which sacred value has been attached. In this paper, we will consider the hypothesis of a 'reawakening' of the sacred in Catholic shrines under the effects of secularisation and public heritage conservation. What are the modalities of the irruption of the sacred value in a specific space ? Is there a form of permanence of this sacred value after its irruption ? When the sacred is 'awakened', is it transformed ? The comparative study of different international Catholic shrines will provide some answers to these questions.

This paper focuses on the sacred topography in the urban area of Lima-Callao (Peru) in the contemporary era. Based on the study of three forms of geosymbols that mark the landscape of the Peruvian capital, this paper questions the role of the sacred and its use in the modes of inhabiting and organizing the urban space marked by crisis. It shows that these geosymbols not only fulfil a heritage function, but also represent an issue of urban government.

In Regla, a peripheral and port district in the process of deindustrialization of Havana, the religious fact is a structuring process of the territorial fabric and a strong identity element for the inhabitants. The sacred materializes in all public spaces and is a factor in the discrete tourism of space. The objective of this article is to show, from a long ethnographic survey, how religious practices, Afro-Cubans and Catholics, are vectors of territorialization at the neighborhood level. The sacred structures the urban landscape, both in temporary and eventful practices, such as pilgrimages (annual or daily) and in the visual and sound landscape and on the domestic and intimate scale of homes. Religious actors (head of the cabildo, priest of the Catholic Church, santeros and babalaos) play a major role in the urban fabric ; it is interesting to analyze the socio-political interactions that take place between these urban producers and the State at different scales. Afro-Cuban practices are indeed experiencing processes of patrimonialization and culturalization that contribute to their secularization, notably operated by the State. Paradoxically, these processes also reinforce certain beliefs and practices, in spaces negotiated between different actors. Questioning the territorial fabric through the prism of religion is more interesting in Cuba as it allows us to understand the complex interactions that take place, at different scales, between city dwellers and the State.

Our 10-20's bring us back the 70-80's years of feminism, witches and sacred : Starhawk, as an ecofeminist and Californian witch, embodies that travel in ages across the Atlantic. Beyond the criticisms, how can we situate and read her thought in geography, analyzing it with regard to sacred natures and their territorial implications, to nourish a paradigmatic reflection in the cultural geography of the environment ? Starhawk's original thinking articulates sacred nature, magic and horizontal empowerment. As a creator of an earth-based spirituality, she honors an immanent Goddess in every living. As an activist, her sacred is what we are willing to sacrifice for, and becomes political. During political mobilizations, streets and prison become spaces for ritualization. Permaculture designer, she watches and ritualizes her “territory-milieu of living” shared with neighbors, in a light anthropic planning, drawing an alternative territoriality. Ecofeminist witches situate themselves geographically, through an ecocentric ethic, in their “territories-milieus of living” to defend what is sacred to them : the perpetuation of life on the planet. This ecofeminist Reclaim thus seeks to reweave the links between living beings (human beings included) that had been separated, in a sacred mediation — represented by the territory itself — and a relational ontology for another art of living.

Awareness of the finiteness of the world in space and time (ecological, climatic and health crises, etc.) and the anxiety it creates in human beings, particularly in Europe, are encouraging a return to the sacred and a focus on environmental objects. When it comes to integrating the links between nature and culture, spirituality offers both a valuable compendium of experience and a toolbox for overcoming the current crisis. The strength of religion lies in the fact that it deals with the relationships between living beings, and between living beings and the universe, from the beginning to the end of time. As both cause and remedy for the ecological crisis, the sacred transforms a scientific discourse into a spiritual ethic accessible to all, with an idea of the reasons for the world (creation), solutions and a universe of possibilities ( Laudato Si). If living beings and Gaia are opening up spiritual questions about the universe, outside the realm of science in the strict sense of the term, then the sacred, and in particular the rediscovery of rural and popular cultures, offers a kind of alternative ontology to the more institutional visions of nature.