A REVIEW ON FOREIGN GEOGRAPHY OF RELIGION AND ITS EVOLUTION
XUE Xi-ming1, ZHU Hong2,3
1. Faculty of Ecotourism, Southwest Forestry University, Kunming 650224, China;
2. School of Geography and Planning, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou 510275, China;
3. Geography School, South China Normal University, Guangzhou 510631, China
Abstract：Religion is closely related to geography. Both environmental determinism and religious determinism are incomprehensive, and the viewpoint of the interaction between religion and environment has gradually been accepted by most scholars. There are rich studies on types and stages of religious diffusion and of all the factors affect the religious diffusion, geographic, demographic and cultural factors are emphasized by most researchers. Evolution of religious landscape, interaction between religious landscape and other cultural ones as well as spatial behaviors of religious groups interest researchers increasingly. The research methods based on religions always distinguish with that on geography, and so does the empirical research with Religionswissenschaft. Both some quantitative models, like regression analysis, and some software technology, like GIS, have also been widely used in the research of geography of religion. In conclusion, foreign researches of geography of religion develop with some new methods and views. However, as multidisciplinary study, most of the existing researches of geography of religion are eclectic, descriptive and empirical, and theoretical ones are rare. Furthermore, the researches on geography of religion are not various enough, and an independent system of research methods has not yet been established. Kong suggests that the politics and poetics of religious place, identity and community should be paid more attention to. In fact, in addition to the traditional substantial study of the interaction between religion and environment, interdisciplinary studies on spatial structure, social structure, psychological and behavioral characteristics of religious organizations, researches on the spatial conflict between religious and secular culture, as well as on the symbolic significance of religious landscape, will continue to be expanding the field of geography of religion in the future.
薛熙明, 朱竑. 国外宗教地理研究回顾与进展[J]. 人文地理, 2010, 25(3): 109-113,89.
XUE Xi-ming, ZHU Hong. A REVIEW ON FOREIGN GEOGRAPHY OF RELIGION AND ITS EVOLUTION. HUMAN GEOGRAPHY, 2010, 25(3): 109-113,89.
