Sacred archipelagos: geographies of secularization

Abstract

The burgeoning subfield of the geography of religion has largely advanced under the assumption that secularization is marginal to understanding contemporary religion. This assumption, evinced in terms such as ‘postsecular’, suggests that the theory of secularization has little to offer geography. This paper elaborates on the current debates over secularization theory’s validity within geography and across other disciplines in an effort to salvage several key geographical insights from the most advanced work in secularization theory. It is argued here that secularization theory, far from being irrelevant, offers geographers of religion a powerful theoretical framework for analyzing and interpreting modern religion.