Thomas Burkhalter (norient) works with the transnational and multi-discipliary research project «Global Prayers» with the Sounds and Noises of «Global Prayers» in the Arab World. The research project will lead into sound installations, a book by metroZones and theme days in the House of Cultures of the World in Berlin, from 23-26 of February 2012.
Examples: Islamic World
Mr.Amin Pouya, Iran at the International Quran Competitions (First Prize) held at Calicut, India; Aug 2006:
Al-Mu allim (The Teacher) by Sami Yusuf:
A is for Allah by Yusuf Islam (Cat Stevens):
Literature
Weblinks
Arab Media Society
Carribean Passages
Sonic Traces: From the Arab World
Global Prayers: Idea
“If God died in the cities of the industrial revolution, he has risen again in the post-industrial cities of the developing world,” writes urban critic and researcher Mike Davis in his essay Planet of Slums. “Today populist Islam and Pentecostal Christianity (and in Bombay, the cult of Shivay) occupy a social space analogous to that of early twentieth-century socialism and anarchism.” The mobilization of the religious in urban spaces of mega-metropolises – in the gestalt of Islamization, Hindu-Nationalism, Pentecostalism, and Evangelicals – comes along with the ethnicization of urban conflicts. This renaissance of religious and ethnic “identities” and movements – ranking among the most important actors in organizing the urban poor today – may be described as a “cultural revolution”. The promise of secular political movements for a better life seems to have been substituted today by religious movements and their pledge of spiritual salvation.
The multidisciplinary project Global Prayers seeks to explore the new urban landscape of churches, congregations and faith-based organizations, and the associated alteration of promises of salvation. How do we explain their growing popularity not only in poverty-stricken neighborhoods but also among the urban middle classes geared to their own advancement? Do we witness primarily a world-spanning reaction to global crises, material hardship and processes of marginalization as a result of free market policies? Or, does the boom of denominations rather feed on cultural fragmentation, boosted by migration and “alienating” forms and forces of globalization, and the atomization of urban everyday life? Are ecclesiastical organizations, often positioned transnationally, filling, as Global Prayers, an emotional and political vacuum, the need for belonging, salvation and liberation left behind by other institutions and social forces? Can they be understood only as regressive forces exploiting the fears and anger of large parts of the population, or can they also be read as an expression of resistant collectivity pulverizing between the poles of accelerated modernization and poverty? And does the rise of religious organizations really replace secular urban movements, or were the latter not often linked just as much to religious logics and structures (see the liberation churches)? And finally, is the demise of traditional urban movements also a clear indication for the lapse and failure of emancipative urban forces, or are ethno-religious forms of organization merely implying a different understanding of emancipation, liberation and salvation?
These research questions will be pursued based on selected case studies and transnational connections: thick visual and textual descriptions of activities, strategies and sense-making of religious actors and communities in metropolises of the global South, like Lagos, Mumbai, Rio de Janeiro or Kinshasa will be sought, but also in Western megacities like London or Los Angeles, whose immigrant neighborhoods are currently experiencing trends of re-proselytization through movements of postcolonial migration and the establishment of new diasporas.
