In this guest post, Dr Azadeh Mashayekhi, Dr Noura Wahby, and Dr Camila Pereira Saraiva discuss the outcomes of the seminars on religious actors and urban planning in Latin America and the Middle East, which were supported by a Seminar Series Awards grant from the USF.
Existing scholarship on Middle Eastern and Latin American urbanism suggests that religious and ideological institutions, as well as non-state actors, have often assumed or reclaimed certain state functions. These actors frequently overlap with, contradict, or complement state-led urban policies. Consequently, urban residents in these regions have navigated hybrid forms of governance, blending both state and non-state actors. In many instances, religious organisations provide essential services such as water, energy, housing, healthcare, and education, as well as developing or managing urban infrastructures. Yet, this form of welfare remains underexplored by urban theorists and is seldom recognised as integral to planning in the Global South.
The seminar series Interrogating the Role of Religious Actors in Shaping Urban Planning: Reflections from Middle Eastern and Latin American Cities aimed to contextualise and explore how religious and faith-based actors engage with planning systems and governance processes and how they influence urban development in these regions. The proposal was grounded in urban studies scholarship, which argues that religion and religious actors should be considered central to discussions about urban space rather than being viewed as incidental or peripheral (Hancock and Srinivas, 2008; Lanz and Oosterbaan, 2016). We were particularly interested in the work of planners, geographers, and urbanists who have extended debates within planning and urban studies. They show that understanding the complex interaction between religious actors and urban processes requires examining the intertwined relationships between religion, state, and market in urban development. This is especially relevant in Latin America and the Middle East, where urban governance is often influenced by non-state actors, such as militias, faith-based organisations, informal real estate brokers, and/or organised drug cartels, and international donors and civil society.
This seminar series aimed to contribute to ongoing discussions about the relationship between religion and the city, focusing on the role of religious actors in urban change and city-making practices. We framed the seminars from a political-economic perspective, emphasising the multifaceted activities of religious actors in shaping urban processes and planning.
The first two workshops, held in Brazil (UFABC Santo André Campus) and Egypt (American University in Cairo), focused on regional contexts and were guided by four key questions:
- How have religious institutions and groups harnessed urban development activities to gain economic and political power?
- How are the activities of religious actors contextualised within wider political-economic processes and the interactions between state, civil society, and market actors?
- How can recognising the diverse roles of religious actors in spatial planning contribute to reflections on social justice in cities?
- How can scholars and practitioners engage with religious institutions and groups to study their influence in practical and constructive ways?
The first workshop, held in Brazil (UFABC Santo André Campus, November 2023), focused on Latin America and revolved around two main themes: the role of Catholic actors and institutions in the transformation of favelas and peripheries and the growing influence of neo-Pentecostal institutions in these areas. Professor Ronaldo de Almeida opened the workshop by discussing the religious transition in Brazil (which has similar occurrences in other Latin American contexts), marked by the decline of Catholicism and the rise of Pentecostalism and the ‘unaffiliated’. This transition is particularly prominent in the urban peripheries. He highlighted how this shift also influenced urban politics, with the decline of Ecclesial Base Communities that once organised social movements and the rise of evangelical political participation, which focuses on voter mobilisation rather than grassroots organisation.
The second workshop, held in Egypt (AUC Tahrir and New Cairo Campus, February 2024), brought together scholars studying the intersection of religion and urban space. Professor Pascale Ghazaleh delivered a keynote address on the role of religious institutions, particularly waqf, in shaping Cairo’s downtown during the Ottoman period and its legacy in the shaping of public spaces in Cairo today. The workshop discussions were enriched by case studies from across the Middle East including Egypt, Iraq, Iran, Turkey, and Lebanon. Panels explored questions of how religious capital sometimes replaced state intervention in public service provision, what constitutes religion, the values and actors involved, and the complex relationship between religion, land ownership, and the commercialisation and financialisation of urban processes in the Middle East.
The final workshop, held in the UK (UCL, Bartlett Development Planning Unit, June 2024), brought together researchers from various disciplinary fields who had participated in previous workshops. The aim was to discuss the role of religious actors and organisations in the production of cities in Latin America, the Middle East, and North Africa. Building on previous discussions, this workshop sought to unpack religious actors’ practices in urban development and planning processes through a more systematic comparison between these cities and other regions of the world. The workshop was designed in the format of roundtable, and we invited participants to reflect on their practical experiences and theoretical knowledge, with discussions organised around four themes and series of questions:
1. Actions and values of religious actors in urban planning and service provision.
How are urban development activities of religious actors and organizations recognised by the government and policy makers, if at all? How does the local and national public sector perceive religious groups?
How do religious organizations overlap with, compete with, complement and/or replace state-led urban policies? And how do these relations vary across local, national and transnational geographies? (for example, housing policy, services provision, cultural heritage and protection of sacred sites, urban security and controlling urban violence).
2. Relations between religious actors and multi-level state actors.
How are urban development activities of religious actors and organizations recognised by the government and policy makers, if at all? How does the local and national public sector perceive religious groups?
How do religious organizations overlap with, compete with, complement and/or replace state-led urban policies? And how do these relations vary across local, national and transnational geographies? (for example, housing policy, services provision, cultural heritage and protection of sacred sites, urban security and controlling urban violence).
3. Impact of religious actors on advancing social and spatial justice in urban planning.
To what extent have the engagement of religious groups/organisations with communities, state institutions and international organizations been contributing (or not) to advancing participatory urban development, area-based approaches and experiments at urban commoning?
How are the spatial and redistributive activities of religious organizations impacting the right to the city and social and spatial justice in cities?
4. Theorising religious actors in urban planning scholarship.
What are the key questions, frames, and methods needed for a more rigorous and productive theorizing religious actors in urban planning disciplines, that can help challenge the predominant binary and rigid analytical categories of ‘state’ and ‘non-state’ sectors (and actors)?
Throughout the seminar series, we brought together an interdisciplinary group of researchers focused on cities in Latin America and the Middle East. Each event targeted diverse audiences, fostering dialogue about the role of religious actors in urban planning and transformation. Many speakers expressed both excitement and discomfort at examining their topics from interdisciplinary perspectives, leading to constructive conversations that allowed participants to reflect on their empirical data through a spatial and urban lens. Reflecting on the series, we believe it was successful in advancing scholarly debates on the role of religious institutions in urban planning. It also helped establish a network of researchers and practitioners with shared interests in urban transformation, governance, and religiosity. The experience of organising this series fostered teamwork and collaboration among the organisers, who are now writing an article together and hosting a panel at RC21, setting the foundation for future projects.