Publication Type
Journal Article
Version
publishedVersion
Publication Date
9-2022
Abstract
This paper explores how Christian practices of prayer are being reconfigured through digital media in Singapore. Although digital technologies are an area of burgeoning interest amongst social and cultural geographers, the ways in which these technologies reconfigure the space-times of religious praxis and engender new affective relations or subjectivities of religion have not yet been embraced. This paper fills the lacuna by bringing existing studies on religion, technology and affect into constructive conversation with each other. By elaborating on digital prayer as an affective assemblage of religious practice, we show how digital technologies blur institutional boundaries and create new affordances for lived religious subjectivities beyond the ‘officially sacred’. Then, we consider how digital media may produce new atmospheres that shape the affective formation of religious subjects. We outline four dimensions of affect that constitute the digitally-mediated affective atmospheres, which structure how prayer is felt and performed. Altogether, this article contributes an understanding of ‘digital prayer’ as a form of religious practice that enables an integrative, if at times ambiguous and politically-charged, experience for connecting religious belief with the rhythms of everyday life.
Keywords
Lived religion, digital; technology, affect, prayer, embodiment
Discipline
Religion | Sociology of Culture
Research Areas
Humanities
Publication
Social and Cultural Geography
Volume
25
Issue
1
First Page
29
Last Page
48
ISSN
1464-9365
Identifier
10.1080/14649365.2022.2121979
Publisher
Taylor & Francis (Routledge): STM, Behavioural Science and Public Health Titles
Citation
GAO, Quan; WOODS, Orlando; KONG, Lily; and SHEE, Siew Ying.
Lived religion in a digital age: Technology, affect and the pervasive space-times of “new” religious praxis. (2022). Social and Cultural Geography. 25, (1), 29-48.
Available at: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/cis_research/16
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
