How Is Space Culturally Transformed? Religious and Aesthetic Creativity in Walled Spaces

Abstract

In this paper, we explore the transformation of a state-regulated, highly militarized contested space, designed to guarantee security and exercise state control, into an arena of spontaneous religious creative practices. We investigate the processes of transformation that a highly militarized borderland surrounding is undergoing owing to the religious influence of two female shrines: Rachel’s tomb and Our Lady of the Wall. These two shrines, located on opposing sides of the wall, are affecting the role, physical appearance, mythologies, meaning, and experiences of being in the world of this contested space, reclaiming it for Jewish and Christian rituals. Since its establishment in 1948, Israel’s undefined borders and demand for security against terrorist attacks led to practices of territorial appropriation to expand its control over contested zones. We show how these contested spatialities, designed to serve as militarized space, are gradually being converted by grassroots agents into spontaneous spaces of religious revival and creativity. We argue that the transformation of this militarized area into places of spontaneous religious practices can be attributed to the interaction between human and material agency, ritual practices, and temporality.

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