Transcript Religious Realms

Religion and Geography
IREL 204
World Geography
Defining Religion
 Substantive Definition: (what it is):

Culturally patterned interaction with culturally
postulated superhuman beings (Spiro, 1996:
96)
 Functional Definition: (what it does):
 a system of beliefs and practices by means of
which a group of people struggles with the
ultimate problems of human life’ (Yinger, 1970:7)

 Religion
is a culturally patterned
interaction between people and
culturally thought superhuman beings,
where this interaction is understood as a
system of beliefs and practices
through which a group of people
struggle with the ultimate problems of
human life.
Geography studies religion in two main forms –
 spatial – where and WHY there. In this
sense, geography looks at distribution and
patterns of different religions, and processes
of diffusion (spread) that produce those
patterns and distributions
 Human-environment interaction - In this
case, geography studies how various
religious practices and beliefs impact the
cultural landscape (human environment).
Religious Typologies: (Types)
 Four types of religious classifications:
 universal: Global; open to all; actively works to convert
members – gain more followers (usually through missionary
activity). Therefore, these religions are widely spread out in the
world.
 Examples include Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism.
 ethnic: Typically found in one specific region of the world;
Limited association; membership is by birth or other cultural
criterion; do not actively seek new members; grow by natural
increase of population rather than proselytism. Typically related
to a unique culture.
 Examples include Hinduism, Confucianism, Taoism, Shintoism,
and Judaism.

Typologies (contd)
 tribal: Specific to a particular group or tribe of
people, usually in a highly localized region. Typically
animist (celebrating spirits in living and non-living
things) pantheists (worshipping nature) , or ancestral
worship . Tend to be small-scale, isolated.
 Examples include the religions of each individual
Native American group of people, and the local
religions of people in isolated regions of Africa, South
America, Asia, and Australia (aboriginal religions).

 secular: Approximately 1/6 of the global population
does not practice a religion, is indifferent to, or rejects
religion entirely. This aspect of the world is viewed as
"secular."
Environmental Determinism
Environmental Determinism was rejected by social sciences after the 1940s, still
had many theories about how and why religions developed
Why did the world’s religions develop in a small area of South East, East Asia?
How did the environment determine this development?
Some thoughts:
• Ellen Semple (1911): Middle East had nomadic desert dwellers – tracked
movement of stars in the sky, gave a sense of order and progression; maybe
there was a ‘single hand’ guiding this order, hence the rise of monotheism in the
middle east.
• Semple (1911:41) also thought environment influenced religious views of the
afterlife: "the Eskimo's hell is a place of darkness, storm and intense cold; the
Jew's is a place of eternal fire. Buddha, born in the steaming Himalayan
piedmont, fighting the lassitudes induced by heat and humidity, pictured his
heaven as Nirvana, the cessation of all activity and individual life."
More ED:
Huntington (1951:18) believed "every religion is at least modified by
its surroundings, especially those of its birthplace".
Like Semple, Huntington thought concepts of religious worship were
determined by the environment
Examples:
• Uncertain Rains in India made the Rain God very prominent
• Egyptians worshipped the Nile River (same as India)
• Dryness of land, sheep-herding major occupation of Semitic
peoples; gave rise to religious expression of the “good Shepherd”
throughout the Bible, and as a metaphor for Christ himself later with
Christianity.
Processes of Diffusion
Religion is like any idea, innovation, or concept
that is spread among and between people (most
of the time over large distances).
Diffusion follows two principles:
• Anything that is mobile requires a carrier.
• The rate at which things move often depends on
things that make it easy or get in the way. So we have
to understand both, the carriers (promoting
diffusion) and the barriers (inhibit diffusion).
Diffusion
Two basic types of diffusion -
expansion diffusion; an idea, innovation, concept, invention
spreads by direct contact; the spread (diffusion) is expanded
when one person who knows something transmits it to another
person, and so on, etc.
• Usually the idea, concept, innovation does the moving, NOT the
people
relocation diffusion; the original group of people carrying the
knowledge MOVE – as they move, they spread this knowledge
over time and across space to new locations.
• Examples:
•Migration (classic relocation diffusion). Migrants take their beliefs, cultural
practices, worldviews WITH them as they move and travel over time and
distance to new places.
• Missionaries.
Expansion diffusion further sub-divided contagious diffusion: diffusion through a population by direct contact.
(contagious like disease spread). Contagious diffusion expands and spreads.
Remember the pond example with the concentric waves: ideas,
concepts, beliefs, etc, are usually adopted first at the point of origin, the more
distant places away from point of origin adopt after some time passes.
For religion, beliefs are transmitted and adopted through conversion in the daily
contact between believers and non-believers
hierarchical diffusion; idea, concept, innovation is adopted at the top of a
society, and are transmitted vertically (from the top of the hierarchy downward).
Think of the way kings and tribal leaders became converted to new ideas,
concepts, beliefs first, then the people in their kingdoms would follow
Contagious expansion diffusion is the most common type of diffusion for
religious beliefs. Usually this happens as people physically relocate and act as
carriers, literally carrying their ideas to new locations.
Source regions and Religion
The major world religions originated in core
regions in East and South East Asia.
First Hinduism, then Buddhism, then Judaism,
then Christianity, then Islam
Here is a helpful map about the origins of
religions from their source regions and their
spread:
http://www.mapsofwar.com/images/Religion.swf