Religion 39 (2009) 103108

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Religion
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/religion

Introduction

Exploring the meso-levels of religious mappings: European religion in regional, urban, and local contexts
Michael Stausberg
University of Bergen, Department of Archaeology, History, Cultural Studies and Religion, Postbox 7805, N-5020 Bergen, Norway

a b s t r a c t
Keywords Religion in Europe Region and religion Local religion

This is an introductory essay to a special issue on Local and Regional Perspectives on Religion in Western Europe. The introduction seeks to contextualize this special issue in the study of religion in Europe. Based on the articles of the special issue, the article introduces two meso-levels of investigation: regional and local studies, bridging the gap between the national level (the hitherto preferred level of aggregation) and the study of single groups. 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

The religious situation of Europe has attracted the attention of scholars because of its alleged singularity. On a global scale, Europe appears to be the exceptional case (Davie, 2002). This exceptional status is often theorized in terms of the secularization narrative, the validity of which divides the scholarly community. Still defended by some (e.g., Bruce, 2002; Lehmann, 2004), it is disputed by others (e.g., Pollack, 2003), while others have suggested more differentiated scenarios that take account of different societal levels, countries, cultural contexts, historical processes, age groups, and other factors. Some even posit the return or re-emergence of religion (e.g., Polak, 2006; Riesebrodt, 2000), while others nd that secularization and sacralisation go hand in hand (Heelas and Woodhead, 2005). Single, onedirectional models may turn out not to be applicable (Greeley, 2003, p. xi). Apart from secularization, there are rivalling sociological narratives of the place of religion in the present age such as the rise of fundamentalisms, religious competition and consumption, globalization, religious reorganization, and religious individualization (Spickard, 2006). Evidently these general narratives cannot all claim validity for the particular case of Europe. The marketplace approach, for example, despite its claims to the contrary, has very little to offer by way of explaining developments in Europe; nor do fundamentalisms seem to be on the rise in Europe. There is a body of sociological writings by scholars from different countries who seem to agree to some extent on a number of characteristic traits of the contemporary religious landscape in Europe. Whether one adheres to the secularization narrative or not, it seems that there is a large degree of decline in traditional church-related religious practice, at least in Western Europe. Other reported changes on which there seems to be some degree of scholarly consensus include the decreasing control of the religious attitudes and behaviours of the population on the part of the Christian Churches, institutional deregulation, more uid as well as experimental and experiential religious identities, individualization or subjectivisation, and the emergence of spiritualities (see, among many others, Davie, 2000; Willaime, 2004; for an alternative account by an American sociologist and Catholic priest see Greeley, 2003).1 Key concepts of the analysis of the religious situation in Europe are plurality, pluralism, and pluralisation within and across religions. Besides sociologists, historians of religions have in recent years challenged established views and advanced a historical narrative pointing towards religious pluralism of religious communities and religions as well as of religious patterns in other societal systems such as science, literature, art, politics, and law.2 Apart from historical as well as ethnographic studies, current reports on the religious situation in Europe are most often based on survey data, most importantly from the World Value Survey (WVS), the European Value Survey (EVS), and the International Social Survey Program (ISSP). All these surveys naturally raise methodological questions, pointing towards severe limitations of the reliability and validity of the date (see Greeley, 2003). Moreover, the data are typically gathered country-wise. In order to construct statements about Europe, they are then collated, but signicant differences between single countries or groups of countries cannot be ignored, be it on geographical (West/ Eastern and South/Northern) or on confessional (Catholic/Protestant), economic, social, or political grounds. It has been pointed out that several parts of the world are as different from each other as each of them is from West Europe (Davie, 2002, p. 137). The differences between European countries must also be acknowledged, even if these differences appear lesser in a comparative perspective than the differences between, say, the Americans and the Europeans (Andersen et al., 2008, p. 62).
E-mail address: michael.stausberg@ahkr.uib.no See also Jenkins (2007) for an analysis of Europes religious crisis by an American theologian. Gladigow (1995) was the key publication. This program has turned into a frame of reference of several publications, especially from Germany, and is the backbone of the Journal of Religion in Europe (started in 2008). On the question of pluralism also see below.
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0048-721X/$ see front matter 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.religion.2009.01.006

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The point here is that even though Europe is a multinational entity, or construct, the nation states still operate as the main determinants of culture and research alike: data are aggregated on a national scale, and the different nations nations as different as, say, France, Germany, Spain, and Norway are the primary interpretative framework of the data.3 Compared to the single nations, Europe appears on a second level of abstractions. Accordingly, there are very few monographs that attempt to address the religious landscape of Europe as a whole (Davie, 2000; Greeley, 2003; Cipriani, in this issue; Willaime, 2004 are the exceptional cases4,5). Some publications address single (Baube rot, 1994), work ethos (Riis, 2003), family (Dobbelaere et al., 2003) values (Bre chon, 2003), and youth and cite topics such as la religion (Campiche, 1997) on a European scale (all based on the EVS). Moreover, there are publications that survey the European religious landscape by putting together essays on the religious situation in various countries (see Knippenberg, 2005, for a recent example). In order to cover new ground in the mapping of the religious landscapes of (Western) Europe, the 10 articles of the present special issue, representing case studies from seven Western European countries, focus on two sub-national levels of investigation: regional approaches (4 papers) and urban or local studies (5 papers). I refer to these two levels of analysis as meso-levels, because they are situated in between the national levels on the one hand, and ethnographic data focusing on single religious groups and communities on the other. Since these intermediary levels are relatively less explored, they raise a number of methodological issues, and most articles in this issue make it a point to explicitly address such issues. All the studies published here are based on ongoing larger research projects. All authors were asked to address their research methodologies and to summarize some of their main ndings.6 The articles presented here therefore not only shed light on the religious landscape of Europe, but also on different ways of approaching it in methodological and theoretical terms and on different spatial levels. In order to be able to situate these studies on the changing map of contemporary Europe, the opening article by the Italian sociologist Roberto Cipriani draws a general picture of the religious situation in Europe with respect to long-term historical developments, the main four religious blocks or areas of religious inuence in confessional and geographical terms (Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant Christianities as well as various forms of Islam) and their characteristic distribution and features in various countries as well as some shared determinants such as churchstate relationships, religion and politics, migration, legal frameworks, religious school education, religious pluralism and respect for religion. Cipriani provides a unique survey of religious membership structures in 49 European countries (in a very broad geographical understanding of the term European).7 While Ciprianis map covers Western and Eastern Europe (right into the Caucasus), the remaining articles are concerned with Western Europe only. The regional level Regions are territorial units sharing some features that make them appear as distinct from other, neighbouring regions.8 Regions often predated the rise of the nation states. They can be part of nation states, but can also cross the borders of states (e.g., Silesia). In European politics, the concept of the Europe of the regions was an attempt to take the importance of the regions into account in political decision making. In 1994, the European Union established a Committee of the Region, which needs to be consulted whenever new proposals are made in areas that are believed to have repercussions at regional or local levels. In European political structure, the Council of Europe (not to be confused with the Council of the European Union) has supported the establishment of transnational co-operation structures between two (or more) territories located in different European countries, called Euroregions. A recent study on cultural differences among a panel of 55 European regions (based on EVS-data) pointed to the fact that values differ not only considerably across nations, but also across regions (Beugelsdijk et al., 2006, p. 323). The variable level of economic development seems to be an important explanatory variable when explaining differences in value systems (Beugelsdijk et al., 2006, p. 323) across the regions. Regions within nation states differ in their stage and pace of economic development as well as, sometimes, in their cultural heritage (Beugelsdijk et al., 2006, p. 321). The authors argue that cultural heritage leaves a permanent imprint in processes of historical change. Note that the authors proxied cultural heritage by Protestant or Catholic traditions and different legal traditions. By way of conclusion, the authors call for in-depth analyses of several regions.9 Four papers in the present special issue explore the regional level in the study of religion in Europe.10 All four cover examples from Western Europe and all are dealing with intra-national regions.11 In her article, the Norwegian historian of religions Lisbeth Mikaelsson

3 chon (2003), whose results on one hand show that national context is a much stronger predictor than religious afliation (p. 138); For an interesting case in point, see Bre on the other hand, he warns against an oversimplication of the inuence, and even the very concept, of national cultural context (pp. 141142). 4 Greeleys (2003, p. xv) main agenda seems to deal secularization dogma a blow; he posits an essential continuity of religion in Europe and even nds that in long-term perspective change has been an improvement, not because superstition has been eliminated (it has not.), but because freedom has replaced superstition. 5 There are a number of edited volumes, the content of which is usually quite heterogeneous. 6 The papers were originally written for a workshop at the University of Bergen (cosponsored by the University of Lucerne) in June 2007, where the manuscripts were extensively discussed. The texts were then revised, partly in light of the discussions during the workshop, and partly as a result of anonymous subsequent peer-review. 7 See Table 2 in his article. 8 Regional Studies is a multi- and inter-disciplinary eld of research (see the journal Regional Studies and the Regional Studies Association). 9 Note that the authors use the Eurostat denition of regions (level 1 on the Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics [NUTS]), which is based on political/ administrative units. 10 Examples of earlier regional studies include Bonnet (1972) on Lorraine. France, in the decades following World War II produced a number of studies that helped to shed light on important regional differences in French religious observance and on the historical depth of the religious geography (Willaime, 1999, p. 345). Turning to the study of American religion, where one likewise traditionally nds clear differences between, for example, the Puritan North East and the Catholic South West, regions have been explored somewhat more systematically (but not necessarily more theoretically). An early study (Newman and Halvorson, 1984) points to the relative stability of the degree of regional concentration of religious groups during the period from 1952 to 1980; this nding was surprising in light of massive migrations that took place during the same period. The data would seem to suggest that regional culture has withstood the onslaught of dramatic and continuing population movement (Newman and Halvorson, 1984, p. 314). Even a leading textbook has a chapter on regional religion with a case study on religion in Appalachia (Albanese, 1999, pp. 324349). Albanese constructs her account of this case study around the notion of the mountain people who developed characteristic attitudes towards nature and, beyond it, the supernatural world of their religious heritage (Albanese, 1999, p. 329). The author argues that despite the multiplicity of churches, there was a basic unity in mountain religion. Like any religion, it possessed a creed,.a code,.and a cultus.[that were] the property of a community, the mountain people, who, whatever their differences, identied closely with one another (Albanese, 1999, p. 341). Albanese is therefore interested in the regional unity as a systemic religious identity on a par with other non-regional religious systems. More recently (20042006), a series of eight edited volumes on religion in different regions of the US was published by AltaMira (underwritten by the Lilly Endowment). All volumes of the series with the title Religion by Region were co-edited by series editor Mark Silk; for a partial comparative summary see Silk (2007). 11 Two of these regions (North Rhine-Westphalia and the Canary Islands) are also Eurostat regions (NUTS level 1).

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introduces the categories of region and regionalization (i.e. the processes of creation of regional identities) with regard to their possible relevance for the study of religion. Mikaelsson distinguishes between ve varieties of a religious region but wants this concept to be treated as an open category at this stage. Instead, she suggests focusing on different varieties of interconnections between religion and region including the formal rationalization of religion, the actual or presumed regional division of religion, the role of regional features like social structure in the dissemination and manifestation of religion in a certain area, and the role of religion in various regionalization processes. Mikaelsson exemplies the functions of religion for processes of regionalization and, inversely, the geographical contextualization of religious traditions by reviewing an early 20th century work by a Norwegian clergyman who had suggested dividing the religious geography of the country into three main regions, namely the Northern, Eastern, and Western parts. In fact, it seems that the Pietistic awakenings of the 19th and 20th centuries contributed to an increasing regional diversication of Norwegian state church Lutheranism. If even an apparently homogenous country such as Norway seems to have developed marked regional religious cultures, the same can be expected to be the case in other countries as well, probably with much stronger distinguishing features (starting with confessional divisions). Reviewing previous research on Norwegian cases, Mikaelsson points to different explanatory strategies and causal relations plotted by social scientists in that religious movements are sometimes taken to explain the specic character of a given region while the region in other cases is taken held to account for the origin and success of religious movements. The paper by the Norwegian sociologist of religion Pl Repstad takes a closer look at one specic region within Norway, viz. the so-called Southern Country (Srlandet) or the region of Agder in the southernmost part of Norway. As a region, Srlandet appears as a controversial modern construction by political leaders and regional planners. The two counties comprising the region are known to be part of the socalled Norwegian Bible Belt, stereotypically imagined as a stronghold of Puritanism and Pietism. Repstads article is based on an extensive project involving several separate studies, but Repstad and his team are not so much interested in a historical description of the specic character of this region in terms of its religious history; rather, they take the Agder region as a test-case for a study of religious change more generally here meaning change within Christianity. Repstad and his team have analyzed changes with regard to three dimensions, namely the dogmatic dimension (theology), the dimension of spiritual and religious practice and, last but least, the dimension of anthropology and ethics. The discussion is based on studies of a variety of aspects such as studies of religious discourse, upbringing and socialisation, youth and parents, worship styles, attitudes of clergymen and pastors, discourses on sports, and gender roles. Repstad notes a movement towards an increased signicance of emotions and community and a corresponding marginalization of the dogmatic and theological dimensions in South Country Christianity. Moreover, changes appear to have been more distinct in ethics and life-style than in dogmatic issues. Although there is little migration and only a low degree of religious plurality by European standards in Agder (and most other regions of Norway), it seems that meeting real people with different attitudes and behaviours has contributed much to these changes, where theology mainly helped to legitimate such changes. Whereas Repstad and his team are interested in religious change within Christianity, the German sociologist of religion Volkhard Krech and his (somewhat smaller) research team have in their research focused on religious diversity in Germanys most populous regional state, Nord Rhine-Westphalia. However, as Krech points out, the very attempt to measure (and not only to record) religious diversity poses a serious methodological challenge. Krechs Bochum Pluralism Project has developed a multi-dimensional model to measure religious diversity, which also, by distinguishing between independent, interceding and dependent variables, seeks to fathom the impacts of religious diversity on the religious landscape. In his paper, Krech sketches some results of a provisional application of his model to North RhineWestphalia, where the project has identied about 8500 communities and local groups related to a spectrum of 228 religious organisations or religious trends. The project found no fundamental change in terms of membership in the two major Christian confessional churches, although one can no longer talk of a formative dominance of the two major Christian churches. For analytical purposes the study focuses on one urban and one rural agglomeration. At least in Nord Rhine-Westphalia, but probably in many other regions as well, it seems that the density of religious organisations is higher in metropolitan areas than in rural areas. Moreover, there is a correlation between the population density and the density of religious organisations. However, the religious organisations operating in areas with high population density seem to bind less people. Apart from organisational density, in cities there seems to be a higher degree of religious diversity. At the same time, there are higher numbers of religiously unafliated persons. With regard to theoretical models, Krech nds no evidence for the widespread thesis which predicts that religious diversity would lead to an increase in participation in religious organisations. While North Rhine-Westphalia has a huge presence of both Roman Catholicism (42%) and Protestant federal churches (28%), the situation in Spain in general and in the Canary Islands presented by the Spanish historian of religions Francisco Diez de Velasco in his paper is different in that the religious landscape is dominated by the Roman Catholic church. The research project on multireligiosity in the Canaries, which is based on a research contract between a university and a public Foundation of the Spanish Ministry of Justice named Pluralismo y Convivencia (Pluralism and Coexistence), is motivated by the desire to provide expert knowledge about the non-Catholic minority groups that have sprung up as a result of migration and other changes. In geographical and political terms located at the southernmost frontier of Europe, the Canary Islands are an interesting case since the Islands were and still are exposed to inuences from three continents: Europe, Africa, and the Americas. Some actors in the eld clearly make an attempt to adapt their religious projects to the Canaries. Diez de Velasco sketches the religious inuences from these continents and argues that different methods are required when approaching religions, religious groups or movements originating from the different continents. Moreover, Diez de Velasco addresses the ambivalent situation of a research team that needs to establish condential relationships with tiny and sensitive religious circles while at the same time being sponsored by and liable to a government agency. This raises issues of research ethics. Contrary to the projects in Norway and Germany, the Canary Islands project has in several ways attempted to engage the concerned religious groups publicly in the working of the project. The four articles and the three collective research groups not only report on quite different religious context; they also have different research agendas and theoretical ambitions, and they face quite different methodological challenges. They testify not only to the regional diversity of religious scenarios across Western Europe, but also to the diversity of research landscapes in the study of religion in Europe. Let us now turn to the second intermediary level of analysis.

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The urban/local level Since the mid 1990s, a number of research projects reporting on the variety of religions, religious or spiritual movements, groups and activities in specic localities, mostly cities, have been started at several places, often resulting in edited volumes or websites documenting their ndings.12 Germany and the German-speaking areas of Switzerland have been especially prolic in this regard. There are now publications on the variety of religious groups in Basel (published 2000), Berlin (2003), Bonn (2003), Bremen (2003), Frankfurt am Main (1996/2003), Freiburg im Breisgau (2000), Freiburg/Switzerland (2005), Halle (2001), Hamburg (1996), Hannover (2005), Kiel (2004), rnberg (1999 [third edition]), Regensburg (2000), and Zu rich (2004). Lucerne (2006), Marburg (1993) and Marburg Biedenkopf (1995), Nu Some publications only register non-Christian groups; examples include Erlangen (1994) and Essen (1994). Other projects present their ndings on websites.13 Several projects have produced leaets, yers, and other popularizing materials. The above-mentioned projects vary in their aims and scopes, research strategies and methods, scholarly contexts and academic background of the investigators as well as in their funding and sponsoring. Apparently, apart from some personal networks, many of these projects have mushroomed independently; in any case, they were not conducted as part of a coordinated trans-local effort.14 It seems that the main concern with these projects was to make visible the factual variety of the religious landscapes, or, where it is already all visible, to provide reliable information on the various groups for the broader public, including public administration and local policy makers. Given their local agenda, these projects had primarily a local impact, and this extends to their impact on scholarship as well. In this respect, the above-listed projects are quite different from the Kendal Project conducted from 2000 to 2003 by Paul Heelas and Linda Woodhead from the University of Lancaster. Contrary to the German and Swiss projects, Heelas and Woodhead had selected Kendal (a relatively self-contained and small population 27,610 in 1999 market town not too distant from Lancaster in the north-west of England) for strategic reasons. They were not interested in Kendal as such, but in Kendal as a laboratory, a strategic location that would allow them to test the spiritual revolution claim, i.e., the narrative that traditional forms of religion, particularly Christianity, are giving way to holistic spirituality (Heelas and Woodhead, 2005, p. [x]). One of their important ndings is that the distinction between religion and spirituality and the corresponding congregational domains and holistic milieus, respectively, constitute two largely separate and distinct worlds (Heelas and Woodhead, 2005, p. 32) in Kendal. In further chapters of their book, Heelas and Woodhead move beyond Kendal, broadening the picture to the aggregate level of the nation state (Britain and the USA). Exemplifying for larger processes at work, the Kendal Project has become much wider known than the other studies both these listed above and those introduced below. One of the earliest attempts to study religion in local contexts was made in 1976 at the University of Leeds. In her contribution to the present special issue, English historian of religions Kim Knott (based in Leeds, population 445,000) reviews the early stages and subsequent trajectory of this so-called Community Religions Project. One of the later features of this project is its educational off-spin in the form of a eldwork-based course for upper-level undergraduate and masters students called The Religious Mapping of Leeds. Moreover, since 2000 the project has been involved in engaged research funded by national, regional, and local bodies. Research issues included religious literacy, community cohesion, the rehabilitation of ex-offenders, and the feasibility of a regional religious forum. Reviewing her own involvement in the Community Religions Project, Knott describes how the focus on studying religion in relation to specic localities sites considerably smaller than even a small town such as Kendal developed into exploring a spatial methodology for analyzing the location of religion (see also Knott, 2005). She examines some of the potentials of this methodology by focusing on the main road running through the neighbourhood of Chapeltown, Leeds. Finally, Knott spells out some of the possible methodological, disciplinary, political, and pedagogic implications of studying religion in local perspectives. While Knott has turned her analytical focus on specic localities, the remaining contributions have cities as their spatial point of reference. Historian of religions Marion Bowman reports on her long-term ethnographic study of Glastonbury, a small market town in southwest England (population circa 9000). Bowman, however, is interested in Glastonbury neither as a dummy to study macro-sociological processes nor as a site to test specic hypotheses. Moreover, Bowman is not only interested in religion and spirituality in Glastonbury but more so in exploring religion and spirituality in relationship to/with Glastonbury and Glastonbury in relationship to/with religion and spirituality. Contrary to towns or cities such as Kendal and Leeds, Glastonbury (sometimes referred to as a spiritual laboratory in its own right) holds intrinsic interest for historians of religions given its unique position as a pilgrimage site or spiritual centre attracting believers and seekers from various religious or spiritual backgrounds; some of them have actually settled in the town. Glastonbury is a good example of negotiated, contested, if not disputed space, which is constructed, inhabited, experienced, and used by various religious or spiritual parties. Bowman situates her work within the theoretical framework of vernacular religion and she points to the distinctive form of Christianity and to the internal pluralism of Christianity demonstrated there as well as to the variety of religious pluralism and non-aligned spirituality found at Glastonbury. Bowman reports on her studies of the spiritual economy of the town an approach related to, but characteristically distinct from rational choice forms of analysis. She describes Glastonbury as a place of parallel universes, also extending into virtual/online spaces, and she sketches the interactions and intersections between different constituents in one location. In spatial terms, Glastonbury appears as a space enveloped in a number of spaces. Interestingly, as is the case with Knott, Bowman focuses on the High Street of the town as an important spatial axis and analytical lens for the spatial dynamics unfolding in the locality. Moreover, Bowman discusses what she regards as advantages and problems with in the sort of methodology she has practiced and she points to the challenging fact that academic interest feeds into the self-perception, promotion and inuence of the town. Again like the Leeds project, Bowmans study of Glastonbury has fed back into her teaching.

12 For an American volume on religion in the urban landscapes see Orsi (1999). Apart from an exclusive American sample of urban landscapes, none of the essays in this volume attempts to survey the spectrum of religious groups and activities in a given urban setting; instead the articles follow a group A in location X approach. 13 For references and links see http://www.remid.de/projekte_lokal_orte.htm (accessed 07.07.08.). For Lucerne see Baumann (2006). 14 In 2003, a conference held at the University of Leipzig aimed at exchanging information and experiences between several of these projects.

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While Glastonbury is something like a European, if not global, capital of so-called alternative spiritualities, by now every city has its own alternative scene (or spiritual economy), and these scenes are to a large extent part of global networks just as the so-called world religions are in many respects global enterprises. In her report of The Danish Pluralism Project,15 the Danish historian of religions Marianne C. Qvortrup Fibiger describes the city of Aarhus (population: 237,300), where the Project did its pilot study, as a glocality. The Aarhus project documented 75 different religious groups besides the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Denmark, plus numerous alternative therapists. In her contribution to this special issue, Fibiger reects on some of the methodological challenges of undertaking extensive religious mapping, especially with regard to the taxon religion, and she reports on some of the strategies employed by her team including the interview guide and an overall ve-stranded classication model for religious groups (based on main sources of religious inspiration or traditional genealogy). While this model helped the project to classify the groups and to map religious diversity, the project also aimed at recording religious variety within the various groups. In her paper, Fibiger in particular sketches religious diversity among ethnic Danes and she looks at the alternative milieu characterized by individualistic spiritualities. Apart from theories of globalization, Fibigers essay is informed by sociological theories of late modernity. By way of conclusion she proposes to distinguish between two types of religion, an exclusive and an inclusive type and she believes that individual patchwork religion and spirituality is the way how religion is changing in Denmark. Where Bowman focuses on a religious centre of regional, national, and also international scale and Fibiger highlights the diversity of religions and religiosities among ethnic Danes in late modern Aarhus, the Finish sociologist of religion Tuomas Martikainen points to the implications of another key ingredient of globalization international migration. His article on the Finish city of Turku (population: 175,000) represents the latest development in another long research tradition on local religion, the Religious Field in Turku Project, active since 1973 at the Department of Comparative Religion in the University of Turku and later at the Department of Comparative Religion in the bo Akademi University. Finland and the city of Turku (Swedish: bo) have undergone, since the end of the Cold War, a remarkable development: from a place of emigration it turned into a place of immigration; by now almost 10% of the population are rst or second generation migrants. In his paper, based on extensive eldwork, Martikainen looks at the consequences of immigration for the religious eld in a city traditionally dominated by Lutheranism. A rst, methodological, difculty is to identify the religious background of the migrants. By focusing on the organisational aspect, Martikainen argues that the institutionalisation of immigrant religions is a key component of the migrants process of structural adaptation to Finish society. By looking at the activities of the migrant communities, he identies two main functions of such organisations: ritual and educational activities. Migration being a global phenomenon, Martikainen furthermore discusses the ways in which the migrant religious groups connect to the global world outside of Turku. He notes that the increased immigrant presence has led to growing religious pluralism in terms of new organisations and a signicant immigrant presence in several old congregations. However, it seems that this plurality or diversity (as I would prefer to call it) and its specic organisational domain has not yet inltrated the majority population, just as the alternative spiritual scene, on the other hand, so far seems not to have attracted many immigrants. Thus, we nd a diversity or plurality within different social worlds or milieus. While the Lutheran Church is by far the largest local religious organisation in Turku, the last case study presented in the present special issue reports on a religious landscape traditionally dominated by Catholicism. In his article on Lisbon (population 565,000 but, as with most cities, with a much larger metropolitan area), the German historian of religions Steffen Dix (now based in Lisbon) likewise points to the impact of immigration.16 Dix notes that the religious landscape of the Lisbon region has become, especially in the past few years, more and more diverse and manifold. Like some of the other projects, Dix faced the methodological problem that this religious plurality is not always publicly visible. In his paper, Dix outlines the fate of several religious traditions, groups, movements, and phenomena in the Lisbon area. From his data, Dix concludes that, for the time being, one cannot speak of a fundamental change in the religious orientation in the Portuguese native society, since the main model of religious self-identication (as non-practicing Catholics) remains basically intact, albeit declining (at least in urban Lisbon, but less so in rural Portugal). On the other hand, the sheer number of non-Catholic groups has increased during the past decade. At the same time, Dix points out that these are mainly the result of immigration and have not affected (so far) the ethnically Portuguese majority population; in that way, according to Dix, there is no apparent nexus between this rise of plurality and the decline of traditional Catholic faith. Dix furthermore notes that this new plurality has so far not led to any tensions in Portuguese society (maybe because it has not really affected the majority population?). Concluding remarks The articles in this special issue offer insights into the changing religious landscapes of Western Europe from hitherto neglected analytical levels. Apart from illustrating various strategies and approaches to analyzing the regional and urban/local meso-levels (in research as well as in teaching), the articles point to important regional and local differences in the religious landscapes that need to be taken into account when drawing future maps of religion in (Western) Europe.17 Where Europe appears to represent religious monopolies from the polemical perspective of American rational choice theories, the articles paint a very different picture. At the same time they disagree with regard to the key-term best able to conceptualize the eld. They speak of regional diversication (Mikaelsson), diversity (Dix, Krech), plurality (Dix), plurality/pluralisation (Krech), plurality/pluralism (Bowman), pluralism (Cipriani, Fibiger, Martikainen), and multireligiosity (Velasco).18 During our workshop, the question of terminology was raised, but this discussion did not result in any consensus. In his essay, referring to a programmatic statement by Diana Eck, Steffen Dix rejects the label pluralism and opts instead for plurality. In her article, Marianne Q. Fibiger distinguishes between pluralism as the institutional and structural variety of plurality, where diversity would

15 The name of this project (sponsored by the Danish Research Council) recalls The Pluralism Project at Harvard University (directed by Diana Eck), which seems to have inspired several such initiatives in Europe. 16 He also points to the need to study the process of inner pluralisation of Catholicism. 17 The level of analysis could be loosely compared to the status of local and regional dialects. In fact, dialects are often part of local and regional identities. Even if not used continuously (or even discouraged or suppressed by the nation states), dialects can be used for special purposes or at special occasions. One wonders whether local and regional religious variations in religion could be re-described as religious dialectologies. 18 Knotts spatial approach goes one step further since her analysis attempts to point at data towards seeing religion as a plural, dynamic and engaged part of a complex social environment or habitat.

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point to the individual and cognitive dimension of plurality. While this is an interesting suggestion, further conceptual work will be needed in future. How does diversity differ from plurality, and how is multireligiosity different from diversity, plurality, and pluralism? Whereas all of these descriptors call for further analysis and are to some extent value-laden, normative and political dimensions appear especially prominent when it comes to the terms multireligiosity (as a form of multiculturalism) and pluralism, in that they imply an ideological and political commitment to maintain or strengthen a situation of diversity or plurality (see Beckford, 2003, pp. 73102). Where multireligiosity (alongside a secular outlook) is the ofcial policy of the state in Singapore (see Ackermann, 1999), there are several models of how to organize or the Dutch model of pillarization; even the State Church cite religious pluralism within Western Europe. Consider the French model of la model can function as an umbrella allowing for religious pluralism. Since the existence (or not) of pluralism and the form it takes is determined by the available legal and constitutional frameworks, a discussion of regional or local pluralisms in Western Europe cannot be undertaken without referring to the national level. Where the United States are, from a European perspective, often perceived as one uniform model for religious pluralism (see, e.g., Beckford 2003, p. 101), Mark Silk has recently pointed to the existence of various models of religious pluralism in various periods of US American history and in different regions within the United States (Silk, 2007). In some cases, variety/diversity appears to be framed by geographical parameters such as differences between urban and rural environments (Nord Rhine-Westphalia and Portugal). In most cases, however, an increasing religious variety/diversity is regarded as the outcome of change. These changes can result from the impact of religious movements such as Pietism (Norway), the impact of migration (Canary Islands, Turku, Aarhus, and Lisbon),19 or the emergence of new religious or spiritual scenarios or economies (Glastonbury, Aarhus). At present, it seems that both developments occur largely independently of each other. Both developments, in turn, are part of processes of globalization. At the same time, some articles point to the usefulness of focusing on single localities such as streets (Leeds, Glastonbury). Ultimately, local, urban, regional, national, continental, transcontinental, and global processes appear connected in various ways, and further studies will certainly help to throw more light on these interconnections.

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The impact of migration is emphasized in Ciprianis survey article.