From Converts to Itinerants: Religious Butinage as Dynamic Identity

• Autores: Yonatan N. Gez, Yvan Droz, Edio Soares, Jeanne Rey
• Localización: Current anthropology: A world journal of the sciences of man, ISSN 0011-3204, Nº. 2, 2017, págs. 141-159
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • Anthropologists and sociologists studying religious practices have to navigate through terminological preconceptions that assume religious identity to be essentially stable, only interrupted at times by dramatic instances of conversion. In this article, we introduce a metaphor as a way of thinking about religious phenomena outside of an exclusivist theological model and as self-fashioned, flexible, mobile, and composite practice. Using an allusion to the behavior of pollinizing insects, we speak of religious butinage as a way of stimulating the discussion regarding such dynamic religious practice, proposing that religious mobility is perhaps more common than some are inclined to think. By presenting the case in favor of this metaphor, we invite a fresh perspective on religious practices and religious identity.