Until recently the ‘heritage industry’ in England overlooked buildings of minority faith traditions. Little has been written about this ‘under-represented’ heritage. Drawing on data from the first national survey of Buddhist buildings in England, we examine the ways in which Buddhist heritage is beginning to be incorporated into the state-funded ‘heritage industry’ as well as how Buddhist communities in England construct heritage through these buildings. First, we draw upon spatial theory in the study of religion to examine three dimensions of minority faith buildings in England and what this tells us about the communities involved: ‘location’ (i.e. the geographical location of the buildings); ‘space’ (i.e. what the buildings are used for and their relationship to local, national and transnational scales); and ‘place’ (i.e. what types of buildings are selected by different communities and why). We then turn to theories of memory that have become popular within the study of religion as well as heritage studies. Religion understood as ‘a chain of memory’ plays an important role in heritage construction via faith buildings, and an analysis of faith buildings, their spatial dimensions and role in ‘memorywork’, helps us think through the dynamics of modern religious belief in a multicultural and post-Christian setting.

From the earliest days of Buddhism in Britain, individuals and communities have sought out buildings to provide locations where they might practise and teach Buddhism. In this paper, we focus on this neglected area of the study of minority faith traditions in Britain. Our research, which was commissioned by Historic England, examines how Buddhist communities have used buildings and what this tells us about how a minority tradition is initially established and how it subsequently changes and develops. In this context, we suggest that buildings are more than bricks and mortar and provide a richly rewarding analytical lens to tell stories about migration, socio-economic status, religious diversity and integration and the complexity of processes around secularisation and religious change, as well shifting policy agendas in the UK that have begun to take faith seriously. This contributes to deepening the picture of the migration and adaptation of Buddhism and Buddhist practice across the globe.

Even after decades of critical scholarship on religion and the Internet, a rapidly changing field and a febrile global political climate demand renewed questions about the relationships between online spaces and gender-related activism. This is particularly the case, in the post-#MeToo era, in relation to women and religion. While digital activism both promotes and challenges gender inequalities, reflecting prejudices apparent in the offline world, women and men continue to create and adapt online spaces that question received wisdom about their roles in religious traditions. We argue that using Nancy Fraser’s concept of the ‘subaltern counter-public’, adapted by Marc Lamont-Hill as the ‘digital counter-public’, allows us to explore the extent to which digital spaces enable traditional religious authority structures to be challenged in ways that might not be possible in the offline environment. The aim of this Special Issue Section is to provide four detailed case study examples, drawn from Sikhism, Wicca, Hinduism, and Buddhism, across varied geographical and political contexts, in order to examine how women have engaged the digital to create spaces that challenge mainstream narratives about their religious attainment and belonging, raising key questions for the ongoing study of religion online.

This article addresses a lacuna in research into the religio-spatial practices of Chinese Buddhist communities in Britain. Although the numbers of Chinese migrants to Britain is increasing and diversifying, scholarly attention to religious practices (especially in relation to Buddhism) has been lacking. In this article, I focus on Fo Guang Shan London - a transnational Taiwanese Buddhist organization, occupying a Grade II* listed former Victorian Parish School and the first Buddhist temple to receive Heritage Lottery Funding for renovations. Drawing on interviews and observational data gathered at the temple, predominantly with university students and young professionals, I examine the varied attitudes to, and experiences of, the heritage building and explore how the built environment has contributed to Fo Guang Shan’s aim of localization in Britain.

Gender discrepancies persist in Buddhist societies and institutions, linked to cultural and religious beliefs and practices that allocate a lower status to women. In some Buddhist traditions, nuns cannot ordain to the same level as monks, most Buddhist archetypes of enlightenment remain male, and men hold positions of power and privilege within the majority of Buddhist organisations. This article focuses on recent controversy surrounding bhikkhuni ordination in the Thai Forest Tradition in Australia and the role of the Internet in these debates. The authors draw on data collected in interviews with key figures in Buddhism in Australia, including Venerable Chi Kwang Sunim, Ayya Nirodha, Ajahn Brahmavamso Mahathera, and Bhante Sujato, recorded as part of the “Buddhist Life Stories of Australia” research project. We argue that the international Buddhist women’s movement and its allies are creating and using digital counter-publics to advance gender parity in contemporary Buddhism. Online activism has not only accelerated the pace of progressive social change, but it has also been used by more conservative actors to try to thwart these changes and maintain their authority, although less successfully.