ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the role of public space in the (re)production of religious identity and practice in a heterogeneous urban society and highlights its potential to overcome dividing lines between different religious systems, thus creating forms of interdenominational syncretism. While public space in democratic liberal societies is prototypically constituted as a domain of secularity and therefore reason, its accompanying feature of freedom of belief enables religious agents to enter the public—inducing two momentous circumstances for the (re)production of religious identity. On the one hand, persons making use of public space usually are exposed to religion undesignedly and without expectations. A lack of constraints entails their alternative engagement with religion, which increases the contingency of the outcomes. On the other, the co-presence of different religions in the public space and a lack of hegemony in a secular setting enable various forms of interaction, which individually result in ambiguous adaptations of religious symbols and practices. I will examine these processes as they play out in the municipality of Guayaquil, Equador, where Catholic and Evangelical forms of Christianity prevail.
