Is religious identity essentially stable, only interrupted at times by instances of conversion? In “From Converts to Itinerants: Religious Butinage as Dynamic Identity”, a new article published in Current Anthropology (vol. 58, no. 2, April 2017), Yvan Droz, Edio Soares, Jeanne Rey and Yonatan N. Gez introduce the metaphor of butinage (literally “pollen gathering”) as a way of thinking about religious phenomena outside of an exclusivist theological model, as self-fashioned, flexible, mobile and composite practices. More details with Yvan Droz and Yonatan Gez.
How and why did you become interested in religious mobility?
This interest first emerged out of our observations regarding social practices in Kenya, where we noted significant religious mobility within the Christian landscape. This observation was further supported by hundreds of interviews. We subsequently observed that this phenomenon is not limited to Kenya. Together with Edio Soares, whose work on Brazil has been invaluable for developing our research framework, we launched a joint, comparative research project which included Switzerland, Brazil, Kenya, and later also Ghana. What we learnt is that today as in the past, the idea of a rigid and monolithic religious identity is little more than a myth. It is the religious specialists – theologians, pastors, imams, etc. – that confuse reality with wishful thinking. We thus came to propose that the notion of an exclusive, fixed and singular religious identity is an exception rather than a norm.
Is this practice of butinage more present in some parts of the world than in others?
Our research concentrates on specific urban contexts in four countries: Brazil, Kenya, Switzerland, and Ghana. Our findings led us to the conclusion that, while butinage is common in all these contexts, it manifests itself differently in each one. For example, in Brazil we observed that religious mobility crosses religious borders with relative ease, while in Kenya it tends to be more contained and, among the country’s Christian majority, to keep to a territory that we identified as “legitimate Christianity”. In Switzerland, where we met with substantial disapproval of institutionalised religion, we nonetheless – or perhaps, precisely for that reason – encountered plenty of examples of butinage. Hence our hypothesis that Swiss mistrust in institutionalised religion does not necessarily lead to outright rejection of religion, but rather to greater agency and selectivity in composing one’s own range of religious exposures.
Since when does this phenomenon exist? Or is it new?
Ιt is clear – and supported by multiple historical studies – that the gap between institutional prescriptions and de facto individual practice is not new. However, some contemporary factors may be favourable to butinage, such as the spread of ideas through new communication technologies and feelings of detachment from the community one belongs to, accompanied by strong emphasis on individual agency.
After a critique of the belief in stable religious identities, which you demonstrate through reflecting on the limits of the notion of conversion, you introduce the alternative notion of religious butinage. Can you summarise your major findings around this new concept?
When we talk about religious butinage, we consider what in French is called manière de faire – the way of doing things – within the religious sphere. We consider such practices as passages from one denomination to another, participation in multiple services and events without necessarily maintaining formal membership, engagement in ecumenical home fellowships and informal prayer meetings, etc. While religious specialists, especially within the Abrahamic traditions, may draw clear dichotomies between believers and unbelievers and regard views contrary to their own as deviant, the butinage metaphor’s focus on religious manières de faire emphasises the (dynamic) behaviour of the individual that moves beyond any clear-cut institutional prescriptions.
Can you tell us about the different kinds of butinage that you studied?
We present the butinage framework as a metaphor and a perspective rather than a comprehensive model. The typology that we developed is thus merely a heuristic tool. We offer a continuum between the ideal-type monoflore butineur and the ideal-type polyflore butineur. The monoflore practitioner is the embodiment of the ideal institutional loyalist, who never engages with religious forms outside his or her own. The polyflore practitioner, by contrast, is indiscriminately mobile, and sees no boundaries in quenching his or her religious thirst. Of course, these ideal types, in the Weberian sense of the term, are hypothetical constructs Nearly all people can be located somewhere along this continuum, rather than at one of its ends. The study of most people’s butinage may therefore follow such questions as: What are their patterns of mobility? How do these patterns shift over time, and what are the factors that limit or privilege them?
Are practices of butinage bridging factors between religions or do they rather exacerbate tensions?
We are currently developing the hypothesis that religious tolerance may be fortified by the practice of religious butinage – demonstrable, for example, through a comparison between the relatively peaceful coexistence found in central Kenya and the often-contentious religious relations along the country’s dominantly Muslim coast. It appears that people, in circumstances in which they are accustomed to shift with relative ease between denominations and to pay courtesy visits to other denominations, are more immune to “religious tribalism” and more resistant to taking political action on the basis of their religious identity. Thus, we suggest that, in East Africa and elsewhere, the practice of butinage is a factor supporting peaceful socio-political coexistence.
To pursue the apicultural metaphor, what is the “honey” produced by such mobility?
That is a question that we have much debated and are still debating within our research group. The “honey”, or wider (social) implications, produced by the to-ing and fro-ing of butinage requires further study, but we can propose a few hypotheses. Firstly, at the level of the religious institutions, we observe (in Kenya for example) that such grassroots mobility puts demands on them and invites cross-institutional borrowing (which we may refer to as the “pollination of ideas”). Secondly, in a Durkheimian reading of religion, we identify the social value of such mobility. We see this, for example, in the case of invitation-induced “church visits”, in which cross-denominational solidarity is practiced through accompanying a friend or family member to a new denomination. Thirdly, we can also reflect on the wider socio-political implications of butinage, especially with regard to stemming radicalisation. Associating politico-religious fundamentalism – in the sense of the rejection of shifting religious worldviews and practices and the adaptation of a strictly monoflore stance – with the interests and ideals of religious institutions, we may consider the socio-religious role of butinage as a popular mode of religious action that thwarts manifestations of political and social “religious tribalism”. Indeed, one possible “honey” produced by butinage may take the shape of tolerance and respect that counter extremist ideologies.
Full citation of the article: Gez, Jonatan N., Yvan Droz, Edio Soares, and Jeanne Rey. “From Converts to Itinerants: Religious Butinage as Dynamic Identity.” Current Anthropology 58, no. 2 (2017): 141–159. doi: 10.1086/690836.