Religious experience is often viewed as the cementing factor of communities, the ideological medium which enables a community to conceive of its own affiliation and unity. Studies on diaspora, particularly French ones, present religion as a factor that distinguishes certain diaspora from others (Bruneau,1994; 1995). Religion is viewed as a primary resource capable of ensuring a social continuity that surpasses the phenom- enon of dispersion. Concerning the Armenian community in the Parisian conurbation, Hovanessian (1992, page 200) claims that ``reference to a religious tradition gives the group its own intrinsic unity and spatial roots''. Me¨ dam (1993) sees the ``Book'' as helping the Jewish people to ``feel as one'', ``holding together a scattered people'', ``serving as a ground for identity or a shared space when creating physical roots was impossible'' (page 64). Here we can discern the influence of the traditional diaspora model. Clifford (1994, page 306), qualifies this as a ``centered diaspora model'', an example of which can be found in the workof Safran (1991). As is perfectly illustrated in the now classic texts of Hall (1994a; 1994b) and Gilroy (1993), this model has been much criticised over the past ten years, allowing Cohen (1995) to speak of ``iconoclastic conceptions of the diasporic experience''. In this article I take a similar stance and have the added objective of showing religion as an essential feature of the diasporic experience of Caribbeans in the United Kingdom, one which contributes to the development of a particular vision of social conditions. This view is not in line with previous ideas of unity but is, in contrast, free from the rigidity of community boundaries.When I speak of the notion of hybridity, I do not mean to say that diasporic identity is necessarily hybrid: it is much more a question of identifying one system among others in the production of identity which is at work in the Caribbean religious experience. I would describe this identity as `open'. This description highlights its foremost characteristic of being based on the principle of permeability, rather than on that of the rigidity of boundaries. My approach underlines Religion as space for the expression of Caribbean identity in the United Kingdom Christine Chivallon TIDE-CNRS, Maison des Sciences de L'Homme d'Aquitaine, Esplanade des Antilles, 33405 Talence Cedex, France; e-mail: chivallo@msha.u-bordeaux.fr Translated by Karen Belorgane, Denise Ganderton Received 4 January 2000; in revised form 24 March 2000 Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 2001, volume 19, pages 461 ^ 483 Abstract. This paper puts forward the idea that the religious practices of the members of the Caribbean diaspora in the United Kingdom provide a space where an alternative vision of social issues evolves in response to the pressures experienced in British society. Based on the views of Lefebvre and De Certeau, I propose that the religious experience be seen as the appropriation of a symbolic place where identity is freed from the weight of social conventions. Contrary to the dual construction of identity imposed by the reality of segregated British cities, religious space allows for the conception of an intercultural sociality, an `open identity', unhindered by the weight of the specific characteristics of particularisms of the different groups. This approach to the religious experience allows me to intervene in current intellectual debates. Geographically speaking, it is a question of showing how the idea of space is necessary in the formulation of identities, as well as the role played by space in the relationship between `power and resistance'. More generally, it is an examination of the notion of diaspora, showing how, when coupled with the idea of hybridity, this intellectual discourse can be framed empirically.