Place-making in the "Holy of Holies": The Church of the Holy Sepulcher, Jerusalem

Abstract

To date, the anthropology of space has been largely grounded in phenomenology and practice theory, both of which emphasise the mutually constitutive relations between embodied subjects and place. Despite the important contribution made by these approaches toward describing the experiential and situated nature of human activity, phenomenology and practice theory offer limited insight into the cognitive complexity involved in ‘place making’. Place is a dynamic state of mind undergoing constant update and revision in response to changing stimuli and available information, and grounded in a necessary interdependence between mind, body, emotion and environment. Based on my fieldwork in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, I contend that the pilgrim's ritual engagement with the ‘holy of holies’ exhibits an exceptional kind of place-making strategy – distinct from that employed in everyday life. Furthermore, I attempt to convey that it is because of the distinct nature of this cognitive strategy that the Holy Sepulchre has the enduring and extraordinary status it does in the Christian imagination.