Paper short abstract:

This paper discusses religious spatialities in Poland in the context of social change and political activism. The examined religious spaces represent the mainstream Catholicism conflated with right-wing political ideologies, but they also constitute spaces of social and religious innovations.

Paper long abstract:

In the times of contemporary Polish religious and populist turmoil, some Catholic spatialities have become arenas for alternative and subversive socio-religious practices and imaginaries. Those emblematic Catholic spatialities trigger, or are instrumentalized for legitimizing the expressions of social discontent and activist movements aimed against hegemonic Catholic and populist discourses.

The proposed topic is especially important in the context of the role that the Catholic church plays in contemporary Poland. According to multiple approaches, it is a religious hegemon shaping social and political lives. Polish Catholicism intersects with right-wing political actions and populist discourses; and therefore, it is often perceived as an oppressive social matrix.

Conversely, we argue that Catholicism should be also examined as one of the principal spaces where subversive and alternative social and religious imaginaries and practices emerge. We will concentrate on several case studies of religious spatialities in Krakow, such as "Pope's window" in terms of lived, conceived and perceived space. We will also ruminate on Catholic religious spatilities as zones where Polish traditional religious practices and discourses encounter new imaginaries introduced by migrants, for instance missionaries coming from the Southern hemisphere.

Following the case studies, we will discuss the religious spatialities in Krakow as important intersections and dialogical hubs for the new understanding of the secular-religious dynamics. This paper is based in ongoing research on agency, deconstruction, and new framings of religion in Polish public sphere.