Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11861/8500
Title: Secularity and urban gentrification: An spatial analysis of downtown Buddhist temples in Shanghai
Authors: Dr. HUANG Weishan 
Issue Date: 2023
Source: Space and Culture, May 2023, Vol. 26(2), pp. 229-241.
Journal: Space and Culture 
Abstract: This essay examines the relationship between the processes of urban change and the politically and commercially constructed nature of Buddhism since 1978 in Shanghai. After examining data from 120 temples together with ethnographic research in two downtown temples, the author finds two key changes in urban Buddhism: First, political constructions cause an increasing divide between the city center and suburban areas in the religious spaces of Buddhism. The mainstreaming of Buddhism in the downtown areas has emerged with the new trend of economic and cultural gentrification that has generated different physical and social neighborhoods. Second, not confined to being iconized as tourist sites, Buddhist temples led by powerful abbots are engaged in “niche-switching” between attracting commuters and visitors and attending to temple-based devotees. With new spatial strategies, such as the development of cultural philanthropy and interprovincial pilgrimages, temple-based clergy have to negotiate their social positions in the commercial zones. The results indicate how the neighborhood has become less important once temples extend their members’ nongeographic ties.
Type: Peer Reviewed Journal Article
URI: http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11861/8500
ISSN: 1206-3312
1552-8308
DOI: 10.1177/12063312221134576
Appears in Collections:Sociology - Publication

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