Religious Buildings in Southeast Europe - Management Perspectives

This talk presents the planned research project Managing Religious Buildings: Interconnections of Religion, Economy, and Space amid Contemporary Transformations in Southeast Europe. The project investigates how religious buildings in contemporary Southeast Europe are managed and how these practices both reflect and shape broader processes of social transformation after state Socialism. It examines the strategies through which various actors navigate economic, institutional, and symbolic
challenges in changing religious landscapes.

Management is understood as a culturally embedded and contested practice involving the organization, financing, interpretation, and regulation of access, maintenance, and meaning through legal, social, and cultural negotiation. Drawing on ethnographic case studies, the project will explore the restitution of expropriated buildings, informal female caretaking, migration-related transformations, and the negotiation of authority within religious fields.

Combining ethnographic and spatial analyses, Managing Religious Buildings conceptualizes religious sites as arenas of negotiation where economic, social, and symbolic forces intersect. Building on Bourdieu’s field theory, Knott’s spatial theory, and approaches from the sociology of religion and religious economy, the project develops a new analytical perspective on religious plurality as a lived and negotiated practice in post-socialist societies.

Bio:
Evelyn Reuter is a Research Fellow in Religious Studies at the University of the Bundeswehr in Munich (Germany). Her research focuses on religious plurality, governance and management in Southeast Europe, with expertise in Sufi orders, Orthodox churches, and interreligious contacts, particularly the negotiation of religious majorities-minorities-constellations. Her book, Die Mehrdeutigkeit geteilter religiöser Orte (2021), examines the ambiguity of mixed religious places in Macedonia. In addition to her teaching experience at various universities, she has held visiting scholar positions in Tokyo, Graz, and Mainz.