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An Affective Atmosphere of Religiosity: Animated Places, Public Spaces, and the Politics of Attachment in Ukraine and Beyond

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Catherine Wanner
Catherine Wanner*
Affiliation:
History and Anthropology, Pennsylvania State University
*
[email protected]
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Abstract

When religious institutions engage the secular emotively and publicly, they can foster an affective atmosphere of religiosity, which potentially has motivational power, even for non-believers, because it shapes the sensorium of those who circulate in public space. When individuals appeal to “places animated with prayer” for the transformative energy that resides there through ritualized practices, they reaffirm an affective atmosphere of religiosity. In Orthodox Eastern Europe and elsewhere, a confessional tradition is allied with state borders, further normativizing this affective atmosphere and giving it pronounced political implications. When an affective atmosphere of religiosity inspires practices that are intentionally designed to prompt experiences rendered meaningful in otherworldly terms, over time such performativity can create mimetic instincts that become second nature. This is an essential step to religion becoming an expedient political resource and to the emergence of religious nationalism or a confessional state.

Keywords

affectexperienceatmospherepublic spaceurbanreligionOrthodoxyUkraineEurope
Type
Politics of Atmosphere and Ambiance
Information
Comparative Studies in Society and History , Volume 62 , Issue 1 , January 2020 , pp. 68 - 105
Copyright
Copyright © Society for the Comparative Study of Society and History 2020

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