The Spatial Transformation of Religious Territories: a Case of Pu-Ji Temple and Its Religious Territory in Tainan

The research about how the Administrative Committee of Pu-Ji Temple confirms the religious territory and if the habitants in the territory identify themselves as members of the territory or not is the case of the religious dimension of sociocultural-urban spatial transformations of Tainan City. The inherent logic of religious-urban spatial transformations is coherent with the narrative logic of the long-term researches on the socioeconomic-urban spatial researches before. We find the persistent endurance and multistoried superposition of the practice of religious dimension. The establishment of Committee of Temple means the centralization of power which is shared by Gak-Tau, the sub communal and spatial unit in the relationship between Jing Temple and habitants. The Committee confirms and reconfirms Jing, the religious territory by several traditional way usually practiced by temples in rural area. However, habitants do not exactly identify themselves with the Jing reconfirmed. Instead, habitants depend on Gak-Tou socially and spatially more than Pu-Ji Temple now. Although Gak-Tou is no longer a unit to motivate habitant religiously, it is still a critical public sphere of habitants deeply rooted in their daily life and tradition. Here we could view the interactions between the changes of Jing Temple and the changes of habitants. The changes are mutually affected. Furthermore, the changes are relatively shallow. In the deep part of local society, both socially and spatially, the basic concepts of spatial recognition primary way of everyday life are unchanged.