Magnifying Heritagized Religion in Miniature Parks

Abstract This article analyzes religion in the miniature parks of Madurodam in The Hague, the Netherlands, and Miniatürk in Istanbul, Turkey. I argue that miniature parks can be productively analyzed as sites that express how audiences are supposed to feel about religion, heritage and national identity. The article discusses how these parks reflect social dynamics with regard to religion and secularity. It concludes that theme parks such as Madurodam and Miniatürk are suitable sites for sustained ethnographic explorations of the ‘imagineering’ of religion in secular societies. In an epilogue, it discusses how miniature parks increasingly deploy new forms of immersive media like 4d cinema, augmented reality installations and 3-d printers to stage the parks’ claims regarding culture and the nation in new ways.