Mobile urbanism from below: Afro-Christian churches as place-makers and scale-makers in European midsized cities

Abstract

This article conceptualises Afro-Christian churches as vectors for the circulation of spatial knowledge. Scholarship on the ‘reverse mission’ of Afro-Christian churches to Europe emphasises their emplacement in global cities. Yet, during the last decades, new religious geographies have been produced, resulting in a dense, trans-urban network of Afro-Christian churches in Europe, covering not only global cities but also – and more dominantly – midsized cities. This article argues that along this emerging polycentric, trans-urban network of Afro-Christian churches place-making practices are exchanged that impact on and interconnect urban landscapes globally. Referring to recent advances in policy transfer literature, this phenomenon is conceptualised as a ‘mobile urbanism from below’. Apart from discussing the Afro-Christian place-making practices that are circulated by mundane transfer agents and the emergence of a ‘transnational vernacular’ that (invisibly) regenerates ‘the surrounds’ of cities worldwide from below, the article demonstrates how this ‘mobile urbanism from below’ has significant implications for the (subjective) scalar repositioning of cities. By developing the notion ‘mobile urbanism from below’, this article illustrates how (the spatialities and materialities of) European cities are made in relation to cities elsewhere and questions Eurocentric views within urban studies from within Europe itself.