Resisting the transcendent

This essay tracks the oft-hidden acknowledgement by critical human geography of the significance of the transcendent as an ontological and imaginary concept that shapes the way that material and urban space is created. Despite a normative prescription against acknowledging the role of the transcendent—usually as a form of Marxist prohibition against recognizing the salience or religion and belief for modernity—I seek to show how an operant ‘transcendent’ tradition subverts and complexifies this normative position. The postsecular this becomes another way of describing this ambivalent and complex relationship that will become more entangled as the 21st century progresses, not less.