Dominik Mattes is a postdoctoral Research Associate in Social and Cultural Anthropology at the Collaborative Research Center Affective Societies, Freie Universität Berlin. His research interests include religious diversity, religion in migratory contexts, and medical anthropology. He recently published “Politicizing elsewhere(s). Negotiating representations of neo-Pentecostal aesthetic practice in Berlin” (2020, in Religion and Society 11(1): 163-175), “Traversing fields: Affective continuities across Muslim and Christian settings in Berlin” (2020, with Omar Kasmani, in Social Analysis 64(1): 111-117), and “‘All eyes closed’. Dis/sensing in comparative fieldwork on affective-religious experiences” (with Omar Kasmani and Hansjörg Dilger, in Analyzing Affective Societies: Methods and Methodologies, Routledge 2019).

Panel “Faith in Diversity”: Affects of presence: Institutionalizing religious diversity in Berlin

28th May 10.30 – 12.00 am | Dominik Mattes

This paper provides a first glimpse into my fieldwork conducted as part of the CRC Affective Societies’ subproject ‘Governing religious diversity in Berlin: Affective dynamics of in- and exclusion in urban space’. Drawing on participant observation at public events and work meetings, as well as on ongoing conversations with members of interreligious initiatives with rather distinct histories and political positions, I sketch out various ways in which ‘presence’ comes to matter affectively in the endeavor of institutionalizing religious diversity in Berlin.