Religious studies as Landscape studies – Perceptual Strategies and Environmental Preferences in Religion and Mythology




Perceptual Strategies and Environmental Preferences in Religion and Mythology

Veikko Anttonen

Ábraham Kovács and James L. Cox

Budapest

2014

New Trends and Recurring Issues in the Study of Religion

113

132

978-963-236-850-4



During the first decade of the 21st century, a spatio-cognitive turn has taken place in Religious Studies. Indicative of this methodological shift is the emergence of spatial categories such landscape, territory, location, topography and boundary as critical concepts in the scholarly theoretical literature. In the contribution, I have adopted a spatial approach to religion and mythology in order to explain why certain topographical features in the landscape, specific sites and places in the wilderness regions are perceived as special, charged with non-negotiable value, meaning and agency. I am arguing that religious ideas and concepts in any geographical and linguistic setting of the world have been acquired, represented and transmitted in intimate dialogue with the surrounding environment. It is hard to understand the textual worlds of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, for instance, without referring to the desert, wilderness or other uninhabited geographical terrains as the primary fields of divine dominance. Domestication, industrialization, nationalization and politicization of land have further increased the significance of specific geographical terrains as arenas for religious and ideological activism.




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