Recomposing the City: A Survey of Recent Sound Art in Belfast

This article introduces examples of recent sound art in Belfast, a city that has undergone radical transformation over the past decade and is home to a burgeoning community of sound artists. The text investigates the ways in which sonic art can redraw boundaries in a city historically marked by myriad political, socioeconomic,
religious and sectarian divisions. The article focuses on sound works that reimagine a “post-conflict” Belfast. These include site-specific sound installations in urban and public spaces, soundwalks, sculptures, locative and online works, and experimental
sonic performances that draw upon traditional Irish song and music.

Revolution and the ritual year: religious conflict and innovation in Cristero Mexico

This article analyses Catholic responses to persecution of the Church by the Mexican state during Mexico's cristero rebellion (1926–9) and seeks to make a new contribution to the revolt's religious history. Faced with the Calles regime's anticlericalism, the article argues, Mexico's episcopate developed an alternative cultic model premised on a revitalised lay religion. The article then focuses on changes and continuities in lay – clerical relations, and on the new religious powers of the faithful, now empowered to celebrate ‘white’ masses and certain sacraments by themselves. The article concludes that persecution created new spaces for lay religious participation, showing the 1910–40 Revolution to be a period of religious, as well as social, upheaval.

The religious content of ethnic identities

The religious dimensions of ethnic identities have been under-theorized. In contemporary industrial societies there is a tendency to characterize religiously demarcated groups as 'really' ethnic.This article suggests that the religious content of ethnic boundaries may be more important than might initially be assumed. A religious identification may have specific religious content and assumptions that may cause it to operate in different ways from other identities. Even if identities do not seem primarily religious per se, they may have latent religious dimensions that can become reactivated. Whilst identity conflicts and other social struggles may stimulate the return of the religious, once reactivated, the religious dimensions of identity may take on a logic of their own.Therefore, the article argues that in many contexts there is a two-way relationship between religion and ethnicity. Each can stimulate the other, rather than religion simply playing a supporting role to the ethnic centrepiece.

Turning the categories inside-out: Complex identifications and multiple interactions in religious ethnography

This paper challenges the fixed boundaries that ethnographers have often constructed between religious insiders and outsiders. Drawing on Neitz's observations, it argues that the main task of reflexive fieldwork is locating the self in relation to ambiguous and shifting boundaries. We offer a comparative analysis of the experiences of two differently socially located researchers to illustrate how religious identity emerges as a continuum, on which one's place is negotiated with one's research participants. We also examine the importance of intersecting multiple identities. Finally, the paper questions whether social identity categories are the primary way that we relate with our respondents. It explores the spiritual and emotional dimensions of research relationships and argues that these may transform, reinforce and generally interact with social identities. Comparing our experiences, we outline the consequences of these reflections for data gathering and analysis.