ABSTRACT

This chapter focuses on the role of practices with respect to space, building on de Certeau’s understanding of space as a ‘practiced place’. It provides a short background on the role of the Church of Sweden in modern Swedish society. The chapter discusses the parish of Dalen as a place of both segregation and diversity, and the role of the church in this context. It examines hospitality as expressed and experienced in the particular parish through the sharing of food and through rituals. The chapter describes the long-term integration work going on in Swedish churches, where the roles of guests and hosts are in part fluid and the subject of negotiation. The blurring of boundaries, and the sharing of practices, open up new ways of expressing and experiencing religion, where the balance of giving and receiving means that the power and agency to take the initiative in the church space is no longer located solely among the non-migrant Swedes.