Much of this research will focus on the religious sites of the Old City, and routes that lead into it. Certain more distant and isolated sites are also revealing, like Rachel’s Tomb, sacred to all three monotheistic religions, but presently turned into an armoured camp for ultra-orthodox nationalist Jews. Although religious clashes fuel much of the present conflict, we also find in the religious topography an ability to share space, where, for example, different religious groups process on the same streets during different days or times. In the dense Old City, there is a vertical stratification of space that is often shared by different religious groups.

The symbolic associations of Jerusalem have encouraged certain preconceptions in the minds of its inhabitant as well as in world opinion, and national and ethnic conflicts are often manifested through religious spaces and rituals. The holy places of the three monotheistic religions have and to some extent still do determine the spatial structure and relationships of the city. This study will consider the uses, control, architecture, symbolic meaning and politicisation of a selection of holy places, and their role in the creation and preservation of the city centre, and their influence in both the state and extra-state organisations. It will also look at the larger religious topography in the wider city, e.g. procession routes, religious quarters and neighbourhoods, religious tourism and its infrastructure, and religious consumerism. Although the urban structures are very different, the reciprocity between place and religious/national identity offers fertile ground for contextualising Jerusalem with Belfast.

The primary research for module J2 was begun during the first year of the project, and continues in the second. It focuses on five, interrelated sub-themes:

1. The role of UNESCO in Jerusalem in relation to the limitations of international agency in the politics of heritage
2. The increasing influence and of settlers’ ideological and physical uses of heritage sites in Jerusalem’s ‘Holy Basin’
3. The role Islamic institutions in the Old City
4. The problem of the ‘Holy Basin’ concept in relation to the everyday functioning of the city
5. ‘Sacred space’ today