Abstract
This RIAS issue, entitled "Sacred Spaces," explores questions about the nature of sacredness, its temporality and permanence. What constitutes "sacred"? Where do we encounter hallowed spaces in modern environment? How are these spaces endowed with meaning and why? How do they function as centers of activity and shared values? In what way(s) do they relate to other sacred sites and the larger world of non-sacred places surrounding them? It aims to broaden the understanding of these and other terms by approaching "sacredness" from a wide range of disciplinary and conceptual approaches to these questions, examining the temporality and permanence of the ancient and the modern, the contested definitions of sacredness with their legal and political ramifications, or the questions of cultural appropriation of the Indigenous sacred in art and entertainment, inviting their consideration across the vastness of North America.