Changing Faith: The Social Costs of Protestant Conversion in Rural Oaxaca

Gross, Toomas

doi:10.1080/00141844.2011.595811

Cited by 15 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 34 publications

(18 reference statements)

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Anthropological research shows that women use conversion as a unique platform for exploring and exercising new forms of agency. Research from Latin America, for example, shows that religious conversion can be a decision, making it possible for women to raise their standard of living (Mariz 1992) or claim moral superiority (Griffith 1997). Converting to Islam allows European white women to critically examine the gendered structures and ideals that underpinned their upbringing and to adopt new understandings of desire, complementarity, and femininity (Sultan 1999, McGinty 2006.…”

Section: Convergences and Conversions Of Contested Fault Linesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Making a Difference: The Political Life of Religious Conversion

Kravel-Tovi

2023

Annu. Rev. Anthropol.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This article reviews the anthropological scholarship that engages with religious conversion as a political phenomenon, broadly defined. It develops the idea of making a difference as an overarching framework with a double meaning. First, this idiom captures how, by framing religious conversion in political terms, anthropologists have claimed to have substantially intervened—have made a difference, so to speak—in the discussion of conversion. Second, the article sets aside the prevalent problematization of conversion as a category of change, showing instead how anthropologists have sought to establish how religious change makes a difference—in the interweaved realities of individuals, collectives, and polities. I scrutinize and contextualize the belated consolidation of this area of inquiry, map its major strands, and identify the interrelated theoretical developments within anthropology. Seeing these strands as a generative domain of inquiry, I conclude with a number of suggestions for future research, such as paying closer attention to political conversions and to the links between religious conversion and political crises.

show abstract

Section: Convergences and Conversions Of Contested Fault Linesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Making a Difference: The Political Life of Religious Conversion

Kravel-Tovi

2023

Annu. Rev. Anthropol.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Across varied contexts, converts are subjected to structures of unequal social power, and are embedded within situations that significantly shape and thwart their ability to make religious choices (e.g. Gross, 2012). In particular, conversion is historically associated with material incentives, political gain, ideological pressure, psychological inducements, and brutal coercion (e.g.…”

Section: Converts By Choicementioning

confidence: 99%

Jews by choice? Orthodox conversion, the problem of choice, and Jewish religiopolitics in the Israeli state

Kravel-Tovi

2017

Ethnography

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Anthropologists have long displayed interest in the tension between choice and coercion in processes of religious conversion. In this article, I draw from ethnographic work in contemporary Israel to explore the ways in which this tension animates pedagogic formations of Orthodox Jewish conversion. I argue that conversion teachers’ concerns are rooted in the tension they identify between the religious ideal scripts of Jewish conversion, as an individual voluntary act, and governing religiopolitical state structures of conversion. I show how teachers insist on the image of the willing convert, while simultaneously considering, albeit with limited effect, the withered resonance that these images hold in the lived experience of their students. By contextualizing and analyzing the ‘problem of choice’ besetting conversion teachers, this article sheds light on some of the underlying forces that influence how non-Jews become Jews in the Jewish state.

show abstract

“…Until the time we conducted the interview she failed to restore good communication with her family members due to her conversion. Gross (2012) said that changing faith often inflicts social cost that is too expensive, like breaking with family, breaking with customer, work environment and alike. According to Gross (2012: 145), converts' attempt to make a complete break with the past is most directly manifested in the transformation of the present (compare to Fazzino, 2014: 255-256).…”

Section: Pious Agency Of the Convert Womenmentioning

confidence: 99%

Beyond Pious Critical Agency: Women, Interfaith Marriage and Religious Conversion In Aceh

Ansor¹,

Amri²

2016

j. of soc. sci. and relig.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Most studies discussing about interfaith marriage and religious conversion are ignoring woman's autonomy in selecting spouse as well as choosing religion. This paper examines the agency of women who converted due to marriage based on the experiences of four women in two areas in Aceh, the South East Aceh, and Aceh Singkil. Data was collected through observation and semi-structured interviews of four converted women, her husband, and her relatives. The phenomenon of religious conversion on the reason of marriage is placed in the feminist poststructuralist discourse, especially the concept of pious agency and critical piety agency. This paper challenges the view that says religious conversion on the reason of marriage will give the result to those who converted that religion to them is merely administrative matters and they lose their focus on building personal piety. Instead, this article argued the possibility of people who convert to other religion represent their religiosity after conversion as well as before conversion.

show abstract

Changing Faith: The Social Costs of Protestant Conversion in Rural Oaxaca

Cited by 15 publications

References 34 publications

Making a Difference: The Political Life of Religious Conversion

Making a Difference: The Political Life of Religious Conversion

Jews by choice? Orthodox conversion, the problem of choice, and Jewish religiopolitics in the Israeli state

Beyond Pious Critical Agency: Women, Interfaith Marriage and Religious Conversion In Aceh

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About