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| THE CONSTRUCTION AND IDENTITY BOUNDARIES OF FOLK BELIEF SPACE: TAKING ‘DA MA’ AND ‘XIAO MA’ AS COMPARATIVE CASES STUDIES IN XUNLIAO BAY, HUIZHOU, GUANGDONG PROVINCE |
| HUANG Xiu-bo1, LIU Jun2 |
1. School of Geography Science, South China Normal University, Guangzhou 510631, China;
2. School of Tourism Management, South China Normal University, Guangzhou 510631, China |
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Abstract Religious space is one of hot topics in Geography of religion research. Previous studies mainly focused on the sacred space of institutional religion, while little attention was paid to the folk belief space of diffused religion. Mazu Temple, as an important folk belief space, is a sacred space derived from China. Taking comparative cases studies on TheanHou Temple of Xunliao (Da Ma) and Mazu Temple of the Phoenix Island (Xiao Ma) in Xunliao Bay, Huizhou, Guangdong Province, the author attempts to explore the impacts of capitalization on the construction of Mazu belief space, and the reconstruction process of local identity boundaries. Based on field investigation, semi-structured interview and observation, this paper finds out that,the belief spaces were reconstructed following different mechanism between 'Da Ma' and 'Xiao Ma'. The construction of 'Da Ma' was mainly impacted by the combination of economic capital, political power and cultural beliefs, which gave rise to an open religious space of multiple identities. Moreover, in this paper, the author holds the idea that capital plays an important role in the production and construction of folk belief space. Without it, 'Da Ma' may not have been constructed as an open religious space, and thus 'Xiao Ma'could only maintain its original local road, being constructed as a closed religious space. Finally, more attention should be paid to discussing the role of capital on the religious sacred space in future research of geography of religion.
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2014, Vol. 29 
