Yonatan N. Gez

From Converts to Itinerants: Religious Butinage as Dynamic Identity

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.

La mobilité religieuse à l’aune du butinage

In this article, we consider the place of religious mobility as one of the fundamental social structures governing religious practice. Rather than considering stable institutional loyalty as the norm, as indeed implied by common conceptions of religion, we suggest an alternative in the form of religious butinage, whose core feature is dynamic, polymorphous mobility. The notion of religious butinage thus reverses the classic perspective that sees religious mobility, and in particular conversion, as an exceptional occurrence requiring explanation through recourse to external factors (for example, social changes, economic transformation, or psychological hardships).

Borders and Boundaries: Eritrean Graduates Reflect on Their Medical Interpreting Training

ABSTRACT This article examines the professional boundaries and obstacles encountered by Eritrean graduates of a medical interpreter course in Israel. Through a series of personal interviews held about a year after their graduation, we identified professional and personal boundaries as a recurring theme. Drawing on the inspiring work of Erving Goffman, we discuss the tension between their “normative roles” and “typical roles.” By deploying two heuristic two-way typologies—in reference to the service provider or the patient, and in reference to formal or informal interpreting settings—we propose that the tension between the normative and the typical manifests most clearly within formal interpreting settings and vis-à-vis the service providers, and is least present outside formal settings and vis-à-vis the patients. Recognizing that the role of the interpreter tends to extend well beyond its formal setting, we conclude by reflecting on how the circumstances of marginalization and lack of support—incurred by the Israeli government’s intention to frustrate asylum seekers and thwart their struggle for recognition as refugees—compels the graduates to extend their services and serve as brokers, counsellors and guides in trying to help their compatriots navigate the ostensibly inhospitable system they confront.

Scholarly Approaches to Religious Mobility

This chapter offers an overview of some of the dominant currents within the study of religious mobility. I begin by focusing on the notion of religious conversion and point at its limitations, such as exclusivity and assumption of an underlying spiritual transformation. I discuss how the term has been used by scholars since the turn of the twentieth century and consider the emergence of more nuanced perspectives such as the “conversion career” approach. I then turn to discuss the challenge of accounting for multiple, synchronic practices, and the myriad scholarly conceptions that emerged therefrom, such as Edio Soares’ notion of “religious butinage.” I then turn to discuss the “lived religion” approach, which has served as a source of inspiration in developing the perspective taken in the work and in particular the “religious repertoire” model.

Introducing Urban Kenya’s Religious Market

This chapter offers an introduction to Christian identity in Kenya both in the past and at present, thus laying out the groundwork for later chapters. I begin by briefly looking at the privileged role of Christianity within Kenya’s image and national ethos from colonialism to independence, emphasizing the ties between religion and power. I then move on to briefly present the cities of Nairobi and Kisumu and the religious landscape religion therein. I discuss the profound transformations that Kenyan Christianity has seen in recent years, especially with the explosion of the charismatic-Pentecostal movement. I finish by discussing the tension between Western-inspired secularism and Christianity, as two dominant cultural domains whose interaction and struggle are central for understanding the place of religion in contemporary urban Kenya.

Religious Repertoire: A Theoretical Model and Approach

This chapter is dedicated to the theoretical presentation of the religious repertoire model. Religious repertoires are comprised of a single, pivotal religious practice and two additional degrees of practice, which I call “periphery” and “inactive forms.” Distinction between the three categories is grounded in de facto religious practice: The religious pivot represents the religious form most persistently practiced; the periphery represents forms practiced with lesser intensity; and inactive forms refer to religious traditions and denominations that, though presently unpracticed, have been practiced in the past and have thus maintained their potentiality for reengagement. New religious forms are incorporated into individual repertoires through a process of familiarization whereby, through practicing a religious form, the practitioner crosses an imaginary “familiarity threshold.” Familiar forms are thus brought into the practitioner’s religious repertoire, which is defined as a given arrangement of all religious forms familiar to the individual.

Balancing Repertoire Arrangements

In this chapter, I turn to consider the three degrees of practice that make up the religious repertoires model: pivot, peripheral practices, and inactive religious forms. The three degrees are considered separately and offer opportunities to discuss notions of religious membership, secondary practices, and the relevance of one’s religious past. Special attention is paid to the tension between institutional expectations, social norms, and personal religious agency, the latter often being justified through appeal to a “freedom of worship” discourse. The chapter ends with an ethnographic focus on the common practice of “church visits,” which is integrated into the religious repertoire model as a central facilitator of familiarization.

Exploring Religious Biographies

In this chapter, I examine at length five case studies from among my interviewees. Each interviewee is briefly introduced, followed by a biographical sketch of his or her religious itinerary. After thus discussing all interviewees separately, I tie their stories together in a final section, in which I employ these examples to illustrate the main points of appeal associated with the religious repertoire model. Beyond the demonstration of the model, I use these five case studies as an opportunity to demonstrate some of the points that were discussed throughout the book and to elucidate additional observations concerning religious identity and behavior in Christian Kenya.

Religious Repertoire as a System in Action

In this chapter, I bring together the previous chapters’ different theoretical and empirical observations to show the working of the religious repertoire model as a living identity system. This chapter is comprised of three sections. The first section examines the thorny question of motivation for religious mobility. The second section, which focuses on circular mobility, examines the management of active religious repertoire, which is explained through appeal to the image of vertical and horizontal axes. The third section focuses on return mobility, which is presented using a hypothesis regarding the centrality of external inducements. The three sections thus come together to invite the reader to think of religious identity as a system in action, considered in terms of ongoing realignment of a larger identity whole.

Negotiating Normative Christianity in Urban Kenya

In this chapter, I argue that, by and large, Kenyan Christians partake in a shared religious culture that, though not fixed and stable, nonetheless manifests through norms and expectations, and maintains a distinguishable degree of coherence. The first section is dedicated to exploring the idea of Christian normativity as the legitimate territory of religious engagement. It is followed by two sections in which I consider the so-called funny or religiously suspect: “funny” religious forms, whose teachings are thought of as contrary to normative Christianity, and “funny” practices, including deception, manipulations, and so-called hypocrisy. The alleged prospering of “funny” religious forms and behaviors raises questions about state-mandated institutional monitoring and about the importance of individual discernment and vigilance—themes explored in the two succeeding sections. In the concluding section, I turn to discuss the implications of the above for the question of religious mobility and for the religious repertoire model more specifically.