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The Architecture of Contemporary Religious Transmission

Project leader: Professor Roger Hewitt, Goldsmiths College, University of London (United Kingdom)

This research combined a focus on the spatial and architectural registration of religion in European cities, including the urban impacts of migrant communities, with the present and future place of religion as seen through the eyes of contemporary youth. It brought together a complementary international team with strengths in relevant substantive areas – sociology of youth, educational science, multicultural theory – as well as in methodology and social theory more widely.

With the European influx of new migrants from both traditionally “feeder” countries, such as Turkey and Pakistan, and from countries that previously had not been the source of migratory movements, the cultural and political landscape of Europe had changed significantly over the past thirty years. Amongst these changes new and newly visible religious activity also featured as an effect of this migration. In teams of researchers based in London, Hamburg and Bergen, each with a strong record of research into multicultural communities and youth, was investigated what each of three urban sites had in common as well as individual features that shed light on local processes pertinent to the central research questions.