Call for contributions to the Special Issue: ‘Religious Specialists in Migration’

Ethnologie française

Coordination:
Julie Picard (University of Bordeaux, UMR Passages)
Pierre-Yves Trouillet (CNRS, UMR Passages)

This Special Issue of Ethnologie française will focus on the migration of religious specialists and the role that transnational mobility can play in the formation of religious authority. Religious actors have been travelling for centuries, but little is known about the diversity, patterns and issues of their contemporary migrations. Admittedly, the well-known figure of the missionary remains despite the diversification of the sending countries and the redefinition of the contours of the mission (Prudhomme, 2001; Spindler and Lenoble-Bart, 2007; Miankian, 2020). Nevertheless, this figure alone does not represent the full range of actors from different religions currently engaged in migration and transnational circulations. Who, then, are the religious specialists who migrate and move around the world today to officiate in the places of worship of our societies, which are particularly affected by the recomposition and transnationalisation of religious practices? What are their migration routes? What is the impact of migration on religious authority? How is religious authority (re)constructed through migration? And can we identify some specifically contemporary dynamics within the circulations of such actors, which are actually quite old? The transnational movements of religious specialists also raise social and political issues in the host and home countries, both within religious communities and for states (Jouanneau, 2013), which also deserve the attention of both social sciences and migration studies.

This Special Issue aims to provide answers to these questions, based on contributions from various religions and regions of the world, with a view to developing a comparative approach to the migration of religious specialists. While this Special Issue is open to all geographical and religious contexts, we are particularly interested in proposals dealing with the French (especially with regard to laïcité) and European contexts, and in those dealing with women religious specialists.

The contemporary migrations and circulations of religious specialists, and the role that such mobility can play in the formation of religious authority, have been the subject of relatively little attention in the field of migration studies and in anthropological research on religion. Since the 2000s, the former have focused mainly on the transnationalisation of religions (Van Der Veer, 2002; Bastian et al., 2003; Agyriadis et al., 2012; Grannec and Massignon, 2012), on adaptations of religious practices in migration or in diasporas, and on transformations in the religious landscapes of host countries (Bava and Capone, 2010; Bava, 2011). The mobility of Christian religious specialists has been studied extensively by the field of missiology (Spindler and Lenoble-Bart, 2007; Bosch, 2009; Dumons et al., 2021; Kaczmarek and Prudhomme, 2023), but little attention has been paid to the issues of migration and religious authority that are central to this issue. Furthermore, Christianity is far from being the only religion currently concerned by the migration of religious specialists, whose profiles cannot be reduced to the single figure of the missionary. In particular, further research is required to gain a deeper understanding of the mobility of religious actors who are recruited in their country of origin by their co-religionists in diasporas (Mohammad-Arif, 2004; Trouillet, 2020), religious specialists who move abroad as part of their training (Bava, 2016), or migrants who discover a religious vocation during their migration or in a diaspora (Bava and Picard, 2014; Claveyrolas, 2014; Picard, 2016). All these different profiles are of particular interest to this Special Issue.

Anthropological research on religious authority has rarely addressed the issue of migration, apart from some notable ethnographic studies (Mary, 2003; Mohammad-Arif, 2004; Fancello, 2006; Claveyrolas, 2014; Bava, 2016) and some recent work on the Abrahamic religions in the Mediterranean world (Boissevain et al., forthcoming). The main studies of contemporary changes in religious authority have highlighted the gradual deregulation of institutional authority and the growing importance of personal charisma in legitimising religious authority, in line with the ideas of Max Weber (Cohen et al., 2004; Aigle, 2011; Jouanneau and Raison du Cleuziou, 2012; Boissevain et al., forthcoming). Nevertheless, little attention has been paid to the role of religious specialists’ migrations in shaping their competence, charisma and authority, although the notion of “career” appears in several recent studies (Luca and Madinier, 2016; Fer, 2021; Hérou and Pedron Colombani, 2022).

This Special Issue will focus on four main axes:

1. The transnational making of religious competence and authority
Inspired by the revival of work on religion in migration and “on the move” (Hervieu-Léger, 2001; Levitt, 2003; Meintel and Le Blanc, 2003; Bava and Capone, 2010; Bava and Picard, 2014; Chanson et al., 2014; Droz, 2016; Trouillet and Lasseur, 2016), we would first like to examine the extent to which religious competence and authority can be constructed or acquired through mobility. We distinguish between religious competence and religious authority because they are not synonymous but rather complementary: on the one hand, religious authority depends not only on institutional legitimacy and personal charisma, but also on recognised competence in terms of knowledge and savoir-faire, which can be nurtured by migratory experience; on the other hand, some religious specialists are recruited abroad because of their competence in ritual technique, but without exercising moral authority over the faithful (Mohammad-Arif, 2004; Trouillet, 2020). Furthermore, we wish to take into account both institutionalised and informal processes of construction of religious competence and authority, in order to consider not only migrant actors with various levels of religious specialisation, but also to understand their roles in religious transnationalisation, considering both (neo)missionary type projects and non-institutional transnationalisation “from below”.

2. Migration routes and socio-economic mobility of religious specialists
The second axis will delineate the migratory paths (personal, professional, training) of religious specialists, both men and women, and assess the extent to which the migratory experience can have an influence on the social and economic mobility of these actors, both in the country of origin and in the country of migration. The aim is also to understand the nature of the relational spaces (including virtual ones) defined by the migrations of these religious actors, between “transnational social fields” (Basch et al., 1993) and “territoires circulatoires” (Tarrius, 1996), and to examine the extent to which these transnational networks contribute to their social mobility.

3. Migrant religious specialists and society in the host country
The third axis could address the relationship between migrant religious specialists and the social environment in which they work, i.e. the society of the host (or transit) country, its religious and political institutions, its different religious communities and the various generations of co-religionists present there. Whether made up of people from local society, immigrants or descendants of immigrants, with or without the same nationality, the public of these migrant religious specialists is essential to their practice, their recognition and their recruitment. This audience may also reconsider their own religious practices under the influence of religious actors from abroad. It will also be necessary to consider the political issues and the legislation put in place by the host countries to receive these migrant religious specialists (types of visas and work contracts), as well as the ways in which the State intervenes in religious training (professional and training monitoring, right of inspection, inter-State diplomatic agreements, etc.).

4. Circulation and transformation of knowledge and practices
The fourth point, which focuses more on practices and knowledge, will seek to assess the extent to which the transnational circulation of religious specialists and their knowledge has an impact on ritual techniques and on the content of religious training and knowledge in both host and home countries. We will also look at the importance of digital technology in the training and knowledge of religious specialists, and the importance of social networks in the construction of the charisma and authority of certain religious specialists, some of whom post their CVs, activities and international experience on the internet.

Timeline

Articles may be written in French or English. Proposals for contributions (title and abstract of 5,000 to 6,000 characters, including bibliographical references) are expected by 15 February 2025. They should put forth the main lines of the argument and the materials (surveys and/or archives) used, and should be accompanied by a bio-bibliographical note on the author. They should be sent to the Special Issue coordinators, Julie Picard (julie.picard@u-bordeaux.fr) and Pierre-Yves Trouillet (pierre-yves.trouillet@cnrs.fr).

Authors will be notified of the selected proposals at the beginning of March 2025. The final texts (35,000 to 70,000 characters maximum, including spaces and bibliography) must be sent in before 30 September 2025.

The publication of this issue of Ethnologie française is scheduled for October 2026.

The formatting of selected articles should be based on the journal’s ‘Note to Authors’, which can be found here: http://ethnologie-francaise.fr/proposer-un-varia/.

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