Shanghai Sacred: The Religious Landscape of a Global City(Shanghai Sacred)

Shanghai, a dynamic world metropolis, is home to a multitude of religions, from Buddhism and Islam, to Christianity and Baha'ism, to Hinduism and Daoism, and many more. In this city of 24 million inhabitants, new religious groups and older faiths together claim and reclaim spiritual space. Shanghai Sacred explores the spaces, rituals, and daily practices that make up the religious landscape of the city, offering a new paradigm for the study of Chinese spirituality that reflects the global trends shaping Chinese culture and civil society. Based on years of fieldwork, incorporating both comparative and methodological perspectives, Shanghai Sacred demonstrates how religions are lived, constructed, and thus inscribed into the social imaginary of the metropolis. Evocative photographs by Liz Hingley enrich and interact with the narrative, making the book an innovative contribution to religious visual ethnography.

About the Author :
Benoit Vermander is professor of religious studies and director of the Xu-Ricci Dialogue Institute at Fudan University, Shanghai. He is the author of Corporate Social Responsibility in China: A Vision, an Assessment and a Blueprint. Photographer and anthropologist Liz Hingley was a visiting scholar at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences (2013–2016). She is currently artist-in-residence at the Human Geography Department, University College London, and an honorary research fellow in the Department of Philosophy and Theology at the University of Birmingham. Liang Zhang is research assistant in the Institute of Religious Studies at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences.

Review :
"This empirically rich and analytically engaging book shows that Shanghai is not only a cosmopolitan city where East meets West in China, or a thriving metropolis that positions itself as both the home of the revolutionary movement and the cornerstone of Chinese 'modernity,' but that it is also an important global center in terms of cultural and religious diversity." (Reading Religion) "This commendable book, based on solid fieldwork, paints a comprehensive and vivid picture about the dynamic of people's religious/spiritual lives in Shanghai . . . [and] opens a window for those who are eager to better understand the "lived" status of Chinese religions and spiritual practice." - Anning Hu, Fudan University (China Review International) "Shanghai Sacred is the only book that attempts an all-inclusive survey of religious practices in a Chinese city (and indeed any contemporary Chinese locale), and in this the book succeeds admirably. . . . This informative book will appeal to scholars in religious studies, Chinese Studies, urban studies, and 'Shanghai Studies.'" (Asian Ethnology) "This monograph-length account of Shanghai's religious landscape is a welcome addition to the expanding literature on relgious practice in the People's Republic of China." (Review of Religion and Chinese Society) "Shanghai Sacred's priveliging of a visual approach, along with its close collaborative production, meticulous investigation, and fruitful conversations have resulted in an incisive, nuanced, and multifaceted analysis of the sacred milieu of the global metropolis that is Shanghai. . . . This book is an important piece of scholarship which provides an illuminating insight into 'Shanghai sacred' and will be of interest not only to those wishing to better understand the Chinese context but those wishing to better understand the wider role and place of the sacred in a fast-changing, globalized world." (Reading Religion) "[T]he study's strength is the focus given to the multiple facets of religiosity in Shanghai's sacred urban spaces. Organised into spatial metaphors, thefive chapters carry the reader into different communities and their religious practices, from the Buddhist practice of animal release to the Hindu Festival of Lights (Diwali) and the Muslim Festival of Sacrifice (Eid al-Adha)." (China Perspectives) "Shanghai Sacred contributes to the growing literature on global cities by showing how notions of the sacred both unite and divide foreigners, native residents, and migrants from other parts of China." (American Ethnologist (AE)) "This book examines the various ways that—amid the chaos and bustle of more than 24 million people—believers in Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, and other religions have carved out their own sacred spaces where they can perform their rituals in concert with others" (Journal of East Asian Studies)