sentences:  A key focus in the study of sacred places is the politics of identity, belonging and meaning that are ascribed to sacred sites, and the constant negotiations for power and legitimacy.Particularly in multicultural settings, the contestation for legitimacy, public approval, and negotiations for use of particular spaces are at the heart of determining how communities understand, internalise and struggle to compete for the right to practice their religious traditions in public spaces.Religion may be a starting point to examine issues of ethnic identity formation and the construction of ethnic identity Geographers studying the negotiations of religious identity within various communities are often concerned with the overt articulation of religious identity, for example, how adherents in different locations establish their distinctive (religious and cultural) identities through their own understandings of the religion, and how they externally present their religious adherence (in terms of religious practice, ritual and behaviour).