Religion and Technology: Refiguring Place, Space, Identity and Community

• Main Author: Kong, Lily
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2001
• Subjects: religion; technology; cyberspace; place; space; community; Human Geography; Religion
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soss_research/1715; https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/context/soss_research/article/2972/viewcontent/Konglily_2001_ReligionTechnologyIdentityCommunity.pdf
• Institution: Singapore Management University

This paper reviews the literature on the religion-technology nexus, drawing up a research agenda and offering preliminary empirical insights. Firsts I stress the need to explore the new politics of space as a consequence of technological development, emphasizing questions about the role of religion in effecting a form of religious (neo)imperialism, and uneven access to techno-religious spaces. Second, I highlight the need to examine the politics of identity and community, since cyberspace is not an isotropic surface. Third, I underscore the need to engage with questions about the poetics of religious community as social relations become mediated by technology. Finally, I focus on questions about the poetics of place, particularly the technological mediation of rituals.