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The Process of Bricolage Between Mythic Societies and Global Modernity: Conversion to the Assembly of God Faith in Burkina Faso

Catholic University of Louvain, Belgium, laurent{at}anso.ucl.ac.be

English

The case of conversions in Assembly of God churches in Burkina Faso is typical of the identity tinkering which is now going on in West African societies. Through individual conversion experiences, this particular variant of Christianity ends up playing the role of the group that makes one leave one's original group. Conversion thus constitutes a break which allows one to dare to transgress normal boundaries. In the context of a modernity beset by unaccustomed fears and doubts, religious allegiances often prove to be complex acts of identity bricolage,¹ which even involve a second level of construction, that of an identity which is specifically constructed to defend me against another who is persecuting me.

French

Les conversions aux Assemblées de Dieu du Burkina Faso sont emblématiques du bricolage identitaire en train de se faire dans les sociétés d'Afrique de l'Ouest. A travers ces expériences de conversion individuelle, cette forme particuliè re de christianisme joue le rôle de groupe de la sortie du groupe coutumier. La conversion constitue ainsi une rupture permettant d'oser transgresser. En contexte de modernité insécurisée, les appartenances religieuses s'avèrent dès lors des bricolages complexes, révélant en creux un second niveau de bricolage, celui d'une identité fac¸ onnée pour se préserver d'une autre perc¸ ue comme persécutrice.

Key Words: Assemblies of God • bricolage • Burkina Faso • conversion • healing • identity • modernity • Mossis • Pentecostalism • symbolic systems

Social Compass, Vol. 52, No. 3, 309-323 (2005)
DOI: 10.1177/0037768605055648


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