The geographies of religious conversion

1 Structural determinants of religious change

For more than a century, modernization – which according to Weber (1956) equates to the rationalization of society – has been seen as the key structural driver of conversion (see Hefner, 1993; Jenkins, 2007; van der Veer, 1996). Conversion as a result of modernization is based on two premises: that the advancement of society involves a continual reorientation towards more rational thought and action; and that a key distinction between world religions (e.g. Christianity, Buddhism, Islam) and their traditional counterparts (e.g. animism, ancestral worship) is the superior rationalization of the former. ¹ Asad (1996) provides a relevant metaphor to explain the process of modernization and, in doing so, evokes the structural transition of society from traditional to world religion:

Most individuals enter modernity rather as converts enter a new religion – as a consequence of forces beyond their control. Modernity, like the convert’s religion, defines new choices; it is rarely the result of an entirely ‘free choice’. And like the convert’s religion, it annihilates old possibilities and puts others in their place. (Asad, 1996: 263, original emphasis)

Over time the mundane instrumentalism of traditional religion (Asad’s ‘old possibilities’, e.g. conforming to social conventions, superstition) is replaced by world religion (the ‘new choices’). Replacement occurs as rationalization involves searching for answers to the ethical, emotional and intellectual challenges of everyday life – a need that is met by world religions’ proclamation of ‘the existence of a transcendental realm vastly superior to that of everyday reality’ (Hefner, 1993: 8). For example, Tong (2007: 4) argues that Singapore’s science-oriented education system and associated ‘intellectualization’ of the population has facilitated a growing number of conversions to Christianity. Moving away from traditional Chinese ritual practices towards the more ‘rational’ bible teachings of Christianity reflects a shift ‘from an unthinking and passive acceptance of religion’ to a religion that is believed to be more ‘systematic, logical, and relevant’. Changes in the structure of society, perhaps unknown to converts themselves, therefore play a key role in determining religious choice.

Alternative theories point to the consequences of modernization in initiating processes of religious conversion. These include social or economic deprivation (often termed ‘relative deprivation’ – see D’Epinay, 1969; Jenkins, 2007; Marshall, 1991; Parker, 1996), social disorganization (Talmon, 1962), or changing sociocultural contexts (Chen, 2002; Smilde, 2007; Yang, 1998). The relative deprivation thesis, for example, suggests that processes of modernization create situations of socio-economic deprivation and anomie that foster the growth of small, independent religious groups that are adept at meeting the felt needs of a population. This has commonly been used to explain the phenomenal growth of evangelical and charismatic forms of Christianity throughout Latin America and Africa in the latter half of the 20th century (e.g. Chesnut, 1997, 2003; Martin, 1990, 2002). In Latin America, Protestant churches appeal to migrants and the marginalized, especially those found in the regions’ sprawling megacities; whereas in Africa, Pentecostal churches flourish where ‘neoliberal forces have eroded the capacity of liberal democratic states to provide education, health, and welfare’ (Comaroff and Comaroff, 2003: 121). Being able to provide welfare and support, such churches have managed to establish a foothold from which conversion takes place, and religious alternatives flourish.

Structural perspectives hold a lot of deductive value in explaining large-scale movements between religions, yet they fail to account for variance in conversion processes and outcomes. Relative deprivation, for example, fails to account for why Christianity has struggled to achieve similar rates of growth in Northern Africa, the Middle East and much of Asia where situations of deprivation and anomie also prevail (Martin, 2005). Criticism of the tautological ways in which scholars deploy the relative deprivation thesis (i.e. that conversion is proof of prior deprivation – see Robbins, 2004) underscores the value of more inductive approaches to religious conversion. Postcolonial theorists in particular have made important developments in this regard. Expressing sensitivity to the complex, and often dialectical, relationship between submission and resistance that arose from mass conversion to Christianity during, and after, colonial rule, they show that rather than passively accepting the consequences of modernization, converts often pursued resistant and innovative strategies of emancipation (Rambo, 1999; Viswanathan, 1998). Structural determinism must therefore be balanced with a degree of individual voluntarism in order to explain patterns of acceptance and dissent among potential converts (Hefner, 1993). This shows the important role played by human agency in affecting conversion processes and outcomes.

2 Human agency perspectives on religious conversion

The growing influence of psychologism in the latter decades of the 20th century has led to the recognition of an acting and conscious human agent that exercises volition in deciding to convert to a new religion (Richardson, 1985; Straus, 1979). Such approaches have been theorized as a ‘sequential ‘funnelling’ process’ (Snow and Phillips, 1980: 430) that track, monitor and seek to explain the conversion trajectories of individuals from different socio-economic and psychological backgrounds, and life-stages. In doing so, there has been a tendency to focus overwhelmingly on changes over time, especially in terms of the transition from ‘pre-convert’ to ‘convert’ (e.g. Beckford, 1978; Gerlach and Hine, 1970; Lofland and Skonovd, 1981; Lofland and Stark, 1965; Rambo, 1989, 1993). Studying this transition has engendered a psychological bias that remains central to conversion discourses to the present day. ² Such bias is evident in the exploration of conversion ‘motifs’ – intellectual, mystical, experimental, affectional, revivalist or coercive (Lofland and Skonovd, 1981); the effects of brainwashing (Schein et al., 1961; Singer, 1979); the fulfilment of unmet emotional or cognitive need; the provision of self-expansion and fulfilment (Buxant, 2009); and the relationship between changing religious belief and psychosis (Penzner et al., 2009). While the inductive value of psychology is evident, there is a tendency for such approaches to be myopic and overly descriptive, and treat converts as autonomous operators that are divorced from the social fields within which they exist.

Social network approaches have proved to be relatively more enduring than a unitary focus on the individual convert (e.g. Long and Hadden, 1983). Networks of religious influence at the micro level, such as friends, family, colleagues and other social relations, have long been recognized as playing an integral role in influencing conversion patterns and behaviours. Two studies in particular are seminal in this regard. First, Lofland and Stark’s (1965: 871) study of conversion to a millennial cult in America shows how members of the cult formed strong affective bonds with potential converts, leading to the maxim that ‘conversion [i]s coming to accept the opinions of one’s friends’. Second, Gerlach and Hine’s (1968) examination of the growth of Pentecostalism in Latin America shows how pre-existing social relationships provide the ‘catalytic agent’ needed to trigger religious conversion. What these two studies show is that individuals seldom change religion without first being influenced by their social relations (whether new or existing), meaning human agents have as much of a role to play in conversion processes as the economic and political structures within which they are embedded.

Attempts have also been made to reconcile the structural determinants of change and human agency perspectives. This has involved situating the micro-level networks of religious influence within the macro (i.e. dominant political, economic and religious systems) and meso (i.e. the intersection of the micro and macro contexts, such as local governance and religious institutions) contexts (Rambo, 1993; Rambo and Farhadian, 1999). For example, to explain the phenomenal growth of Christianity in Korea, Kane and Park (2009: 366) argue that the macro influences the micro by showing how ‘geopolitical networks provoke nationalist rituals that alter the stakes of conversion at the microlevel’. In other words, Korean Christians played an integral role in orchestrating nationalist sentiment against Japan through the use of ritual, and in doing so increased the number of conversion networks available. While realization of the need to situate micro-level understandings is not as new as some may think (cf. Gerlach and Hine’s 1968 aforementioned study, which is clearly situated within, and engages with, the hegemonic Catholic context of Latin America), such awareness is a good reminder of the need to properly situate religious conversion within various scales of contextualization.

The depth and variety of human agency perspectives on religious conversion is exhaustive, with all showing a preoccupation with identifying and explaining the motives and processes that result in an individual changing his or her religion. But there is more to conversion than religious switching. Conversion itself is a discursive construct that adopts different forms and meanings over space, time and tradition. What follows is an exposition of three key factors currently limiting the expansion of conversion discourses, and the opportunities that present themselves for geographers in particular to carve out a niche in the study of religious conversion.

1 The politics of the academy

A theoretical and empirical blinkeredness to understanding what conversion discourses could be is in part sustained by the long-standing influence of the Anglo-American academy. The politics of the academy is understood to be the effect of the limited frame of reference that is most commonly used by scholars to approach the study of religious conversion. More specifically the language of conversion has often failed to adopt perspectives that are broad or inclusive enough to cover the full gamut of conversion processes and outcomes. Such restrictiveness lends credence to Rambo’s (1989) view that conversion should be treated as a descriptive, rather than normative, enterprise. It should be observed, understood, interpreted and explained as it is practised in various local contexts and not, as some may argue, relative to an all-encompassing canon. This is not unique to religious conversion, but is apparent in all fields of study that rely on, while call into question, the:

Transferability of culturally loaded concepts and keywords, usually from Western sources, to other traditions … The most powerfully evocative terms have some meaning for almost everyone but on closer inspection, turn out to mean substantially different things to different people, varying by context and audience … Meaning thus unfolds through action and debate and hence should not be expected to be completely consistent, to conform to an easy ‘definition’ or set of prescriptions, either within or across cultures. (Nagata, 2001: 492–493)

In light of this, it is apparent that western assumptions and biases have constrained the development of conversion discourses by problematizing their application in the ‘contexts’ and to the ‘audiences’ of the non-West. Indeed Comaroff and Comaroff (1991: 250) question ‘how well does it [conversion] capture the complex dialectic of invasion and riposte, of challenge and resistance’ that has been set in motion throughout much of the non-western, postcolonial world? By effectively highlighting the asymmetry between conversion discourses and the non-western peoples that they attempt to explain, the Comaroffs show how conversion is as much about resistance to, and the politics of, change, as it is about the change itself. The framing of conversion according to the putative linguistic and religious parameters defined by western discourse is problematic, but can be remedied by a more critical engagement with what conversion is (and is not) in different religious contexts around the world. Comparative studies between people and groups in different religious and cultural contexts would provide a welcome first step towards expanding the frame, as would a focus on where conversion is viewed as a threat to existing power structures, and is therefore subjected to various forms of structural opposition. Doing so will add nuance to the discourse, aiding its application in different sites of religious activity beyond the ‘normative’ West.

2 The proselytizing bias

Religious conversion is more common among some groups than it is others, with the proselytizing religions (i.e. Christianity, Islam) courting most attention from the academy to date. This trend is not unwarranted given that, for example, the worldwide explosion of Pentecostalism and charismatic forms of Christianity in recent decades – variously described as one of the greatest ‘success’ stories in the current era of cultural globalization (Anderson and Tang, 2005; Robbins, 2004) – is attributed to the efficacy of large-scale Christian proselytism in the developing world (Freston, 2001, 2009). It does, however, raise concerns over the extent to which alternative perspectives derived from ‘other’ religions are valued, used to challenge, and ultimately incorporated into existing understandings of what conversion is. Conversion discourses hitherto equate to the study of successful outcomes and efficacious religious agents. Narratives of the non-converts, the unconverted, or the unconvertible, the stratum of society that is ignored or rejected by religious groups, or those that actively oppose the changes to the sociocultural milieu affected by the practices and processes of proselytization all present problems that existing debates do not, or have not yet, fully addressed.

The proselytizing bias therefore underscores the necessity of really understanding what conversion means and entails to other, substantively ‘non-proselytizing’ religious groups. Speaking of conversion to Buddhism among the animist hill tribes of northern Thailand, for example, Keyes (1993: 268) shows that an understanding of the law of karma, which is taught by Buddhist monks through the use of ‘moral stories and didactic teachings’, can co-exist with traditional beliefs, meaning ‘converts’ can ‘retain their belief in spirits’. In this sense conversion does not require the rejection of one set of beliefs in place of another, but more of an expansion of belief and understanding that enables the co-existence of two distinct belief systems. In a similar vein, the New Age is a relatively recent phenomenon that has taken root in many postmodern western countries where consumerism is strong. Conversion is less a process of religious switching as it is of spiritual self-development: adherents create their own bespoke spiritual syntheses by choosing different spiritual commodities – a process of ‘spiritual shopping’ – that best suit their personal needs (Hanegraaff, 2002). Both examples counter the exclusivist claims associated with converting to the Abrahamic religions, and in doing so provide useful, yet solitary, reminders of how conversion discourses can develop along more flexible, syncretic lines.

3 The silence of geography

The situatedness of religious conversion is a common theme that runs throughout the full range of conversion phenomena, irrespective of the politics of the academy or the proselytizing bias. Conversion occurs in ‘a dynamic force field of people, events, ideologies, institutions, expectations and experiences’ (Lamb and Bryant, 1999: 24), all of which are grounded within, and determined by, a given locality, context or tradition. Attention therefore needs to be paid to where, and not just why and how, conversion happens. One of the most promising trends in this regard has been the attention paid to Islam in the West; in Europe, for example, it is recognized that ‘Islam is anchored in a social and symbolic milieu, a concrete geographical, geopolitical and ‘geo-religious’ space which was not at first very favourable to it’ (Allievi and Dassetto, 1999: 244). While such moves are a positive indication of the direction in which the discourse is headed, there are many more ‘geo-religious’ spaces that are as sensitive to the power dynamics that transcend individual religious switching, if not more so. Moreover, the fact that such recognition comes from non-geographers suggests a worrying disinterest among geographers in establishing their own niche in the study of religious conversion.

That being said, geographers are in a position to play an important role in directing the future progression of the subdiscipline. As the three news stories used to open this paper show, the consequences of converting into and out of religions are far-reaching, and a function of the idiosyncrasies of the ‘geo-religious’ context within which conversion occurs. The fact that ‘much nationalism and imperialism have found purpose and justification in religious differences and in proselytizing’ (Agnew, 2006: 185; e.g. Kammerer, 1990) affirms the reality that conversion can be as much a political act as it is a religious one. Centuries of Christian and Islamic missionization and conversion have led to the creation of ‘geo-religious’ spaces throughout the postcolonial world that are highly sensitive to contemporary conversion, and can easily trigger residual feelings of colonial resentment and domestic insecurity. Attempts to better situate conversion discourses will see them engage with the challenges posed by the groups involved, which more often than not prefer to be in a position of religious control than a part of the compromising jigsaw of religious pluralism. Empirical grounding in the spaces of the non-West will further help redress the modernist, implicitly western bias imposed by the politics of the academy.

1 Conversion of space

Religious belief and doctrine provide potent justification for claims to territory. Fault lines emerge when two or more groups clash over territorial belonging, making the spatial encroachment of minority players via the conversion of space symbolic, and conflictual. Power and symbolism are invested in the codification of physical space, meaning that ‘whoever retains the resources behind material codification also has the power to produce social categories and to maintain “Other” in these categories’ (Chivallon, 2001: 476). Nowhere has the delineation of territory along religious lines been more contested than the conversion of Palestine to the Jewish settlement of Israel, with both sides claiming sovereignty through various spatial processes ranging from the renaming of physical features and landmarks to the mapping and counter-mapping of territory (Azaryahu and Golan, 2001; Gorlizki, 2000). This example and others (e.g. Anderson and O’Dowd’s 2007 consideration of the role of religion in exacerbating the struggle for Home Rule in Ireland; Hervieu-Leger’s 2002 discussion of religious spatiality; Heuser’s 2009 study of how transnational Christian crusades seek to establish hegemony in Ghana’s public urban space) provide a clear expression of religion as a geopolitical idiom; one that reflects, challenges and enforces existing patterns of power and subordination. It also serves as a reminder that religious conversion is not an exclusivist field of study that is limited to geographers of religion only. Instead, it intersects with, and gives meaning to, broader processes of geographical change, and can often exacerbate the spatial politics contained therein.

More specifically, the recent legislation regarding the religious use of commercial space in Singapore should help attune discourse to how competing groups delineate boundaries, and use space for specific, religiously oriented purposes. In doing so it will provide a ‘powerful resource’ by which examination of places that are ‘ostensibly non-religious or secular but to which sacrality is nevertheless attributed’ (Knott, 2005: 173) can begin. Taking this a step further, the recent furore surrounding plans to convert a parcel of land adjacent to the site of the 9/11 terrorist attacks in New York City into an Islamic centre shows how changing religious landscapes can be as much about the politics of location as they are the politics of converting space. Interpreting religious landscapes as either hegemonic designs on the environment or an articulation of subaltern patterns of resistance and emancipation will open conversion discourses to issues of broader concern, such as the spatial dimensions of religious pluralism, the politics of church planting (or the ‘planting’ of any other place of religion), and tensions surrounding both permanent and impermanent places of religious activity. In addition, the desanctification of religious space should not be ignored. Converting defunct churches into housing, schools, nightlife venues and sites of ‘other’ religious activity presents a growing trend in western countries that has a significant, yet hitherto overlooked, impact on the groups – religious or otherwise – involved.

2 Spaces of conversion

Consideration of the spaces wherein conversion processes occur will help further contextualize religious conversion by expanding the discourse beyond the individual, situating it within different localities, and encouraging consideration of how external conditions can determine conversion processes and outcomes. Conceptualizing space, as Massey (2005: 59) does, as ‘open, multiple, and relational, unfinished and always becoming’ provides a foundation from which engagement with the spatial politics of conversion can begin. More specifically, to differentiate between ‘legitimate’ and ‘illegitimate’ spaces of conversion (i.e. the spaces wherein conversion practices and processes occur, and politics are embroiled) presents, in a very loose sense, an extension of Kong’s (2001) well-heeded call for research to focus on the ‘officially’ and ‘unofficially’ sacred sites of religious activity. Reconstruing Kong’s differentiation in more perceptual, as opposed to substantive, terms, I suggest that a focus on legitimacy presupposes a politics of the spaces of conversion that is inherent, and situated within the competing interests of other religious groups. As Kong (2010: 757) recognizes, ‘there are many ways in which everyday spaces can be implicated in religious meaning-making, legitimating, maintaining and enhancing, but also challenging religious life, beliefs, practices and identities’. It is the conflation of practices and goals that muddies the water between what are legitimate or illegitimate grounds for proselytization, as perceived by different religious groups.

For example, there exists an uneasy symbiosis between proselytizing groups and environmental, social and political upheaval. Sites of degradation present opportunities for groups to conflate religious evangelism and proselytism with secular processes of reconciliation, development and relief. In Sri Lanka, international religious NGOs were condemned for mixing aid distribution with Christian proselytization in the aftermath of the 2004 tsunami, leading to allegations of the ‘distortion of the right to freedom of religion given the potential of conversion due to allurement’ (Owens, 2007; 329–330; see also Jenkins, 2008; Matthews, 2007). Taken to the extreme, such sites can become ‘illegitimate’ spaces of forced conversion, where relief may be contingent upon, and provide a pretext for, religious switching. Being fertile sites of empiricism they can help physically decentralize the discourse away from its western core, engaging instead with the real-world problems plaguing much of the postcolonial world, such as ‘unethical’ conversion, religious imperialism, (neo)colonization via religion, and the imbrications for, and responses of, oppositional religious groups (e.g. anti-conversion legislation). This will also disrupt liberal conceptions of religious choice, and instead focus attention on how conversion can support or challenge prevalent state or hegemonic discourses surrounding religion.

In addition, the city as site of multiple degradations (social, familial, moral, capitalist and so on), and polarizations, has created a void wherein religious groups take on roles traditionally filled by ‘secular’ organizations, including the state. The transformation of the European city, from a site of secularity (see Cox, 1965) to one of postsecularity (see Molendijk et al., 2010), is defined by the realization that religion transcends individual belief and worship, instead encompassing the gamut of social engagement, improvement and reform. Indeed, debates surrounding the postsecular city have been compounded in recent years by growing exploration of the role played by religious (often Christian) groups in providing welfare to the city’s inhabitants (e.g. Beaumont, 2008a, 2008b; Beaumont and Dias, 2008), with a particular focus on the homeless (e.g. Cloke et al., 2005, 2010). This, alongside the fact that cities are traditional repositories of religious pluralism, has caused faith to become an ‘option’ (Taylor, 2007; see also Cloke, 2010) that is increasingly easy to exercise, and increasingly difficult to ignore. Critical inquiry is needed to understand the ameliorative, and potentially predatorial, interconnections between social marginality, welfare provision, faith-motivated groups and religious conversion within the space of the city.

While the (postsecular) city provides an important site of degradation from which research can develop, a focus on the relationship between young people and religious choice provides an immediate point of entry into the spatial politics of religious conversion. Being the focus of many evangelization and proselytization campaigns, youth are commonly believed to be more open to religious (and fundamentalist) alternatives than adults. Yet given their position of dependence, conversion out of the family religion (if there is one) will also, invariably, be more contentious and problematic. As a result the space of conversion becomes all the more strategic. In Malaysia, the spaces of the school and university have become sites of ‘some of the most vigorous religious experimentation, competition, and membership “poaching”’ (Nagata, 2005: 111; see also Hopkins, 2011; Nagata, 1995). Beyond this realization, more needs to be done to reconcile the tension between religious evangelization and youth dependence. Youth camps, campus crusades, Sunday schools, mission schools, the alpha course, and child sponsorship and adoption programmes are all rich sites of empiricism that are waiting to be explored in detail.

3 Spaces of negotiation

Conversion is a process of change that involves the (re)definition of self and other in accordance, or discordance, with a religious schema. Invariably a space of negotiation prevails throughout this transition, given that conversion engages with, informs and ultimately disrupts existing notions of meaning and identity, and impacts individuals, families, communities and the religious groups that represent old and new affiliation. The spaces of negotiation that exist at the intersection of religious belief and national/territorial belonging, and the identity politics therein, present an area of especial interest for geographers of religious conversion. For example, McAlister (2005: 253) observes that conversion to Christianity weakens territorial and national attachment among Haitians, with Jerusalem ‘displacing the image of Haiti as nostalgic homeland’. In Malaysia, Chinese conversion to Christianity galvanizes a similar sort of displacement, with Malay agitators viewing the religion as a symbol of foreign exploitation that keeps the nation mired in poverty (Jenkins, 2007). As these examples show, identity politics provide one of the clearest justifications for why conversion research should actively seek to transcend the individual convert by situating them within competing spheres of influence and consequence.

Furthermore, Viswanathan (1996: 90) argues that the spaces of negotiation that exist between religious and national identity, and the narratives produced therein, ‘shed visible light on the strains and stresses in community self-identification’, especially when such ‘self-identification’ runs counter to that imposed from above by the nation state or local community. In northern Thailand, for example, Keyes (1993: 262, 277) shows how worshipping God during Buddhist rites in schools is interpreted as ‘an act of defiance to the authority of the state’, meaning Christian converts ‘set themselves apart from the dominant religion of the society and also place themselves in an ambiguous, at best, relationship to a state that rules in the name of the Buddhist nation’. In such instances, religious conversion is imbued with a politics that creates tension and conflict within and between religious groups, and dominant (often traditional) conceptions of society, culture and nation. Taken to the extreme, conversion can result in (and cause) persecution and violence, as shown by subsequent waves of anti-Christian pogroms in Orissa, India, since the 1980s. From this stems a need to understand the coping strategies used by converts to negotiate the conflicting processes of religious adoption and distinction, and how they intersect with the dislocation strategies used by religious groups to encourage/discourage commitment, reduce/increase attrition and discourage/encourage backsliding, whether by force or persuasion. While Gerlach and Hine (1968) draw attention to the importance of acts of desecration (e.g. the burning of Voodoo objects) used to induce commitment among Haitian Pentecostals, discussion of the full ramifications of such bridge-burning acts is, unfortunately, lacking.

4 The (im)mobile convert

Changing mobility that arises from social, cultural, religious or territorial dislocation intersects with conversion processes in manifold ways. For example, Nagata (2001: 494) argues that conversion to fundamentalist Islamic viewpoints is most prevalent among culturally dislocated youth who are ‘geographically and socially mobile’ and, when provided with a prescriptive world-view and set of principles, are in a good position to convert others in support of their cause. Research needs to build on Nagata’s cultural dislocation hypothesis by exploring how conversion processes can enforce, reflect or challenge distinctions between rural immobility and urban mobility ⁴ (in all its multivalent guises), how conversion intersects with the (im)mobility forced upon refugees living in conflict zones or sites of environmental degradation, or how international movements of low-skilled labour intersect with processes of religious change, including the creation of opportunities for proselytizing religious groups that cater specifically to such demand. There is also a dearth of understanding regarding how individuals whose mobility is limited, restricted or otherwise dependent on another party – such as youth, the elderly, disabled, prisoners, and armed forces – intersect with conversion practices and processes.

The interrelationships between religion and transnationalism present a burgeoning field of research that intersects with conversion discourses in multifarious ways. Moreover, Sheringham (2010) has recently expounded the need for geographical scholarship to pay attention to the ‘everyday dimensions of transnational mobility’ (Conradson and Latham, 2005: 229) within a religious schema. Focusing on the interplay between mobility and religion, and the associated networks of religious believers and organizations, geographers are well positioned to explore how local contexts can expose migrants to alternative religious beliefs and needs. As Kemp and Raijman (2003) show in their study of Latin American labour migrants in Israel, the dislocation associated with movement causes some migrants to turn to religion as a response to their new circumstances, even if it was previously shunned. How the spaces of transnationalism produced by religious agencies and experienced by religious adherents intersect with conversion processes, the role of transnational conversion networks in effecting such processes, and the impact of conversion on sending and receiving communities presents some of the most immediate areas of inquiry in this regard.

Alternatively, changing mobility that arises from conversion itself presents another process of reorientation that is associated with, yet goes beyond, changing religious belief. Looking at conversion to Islam in particular, the restrictions placed on female converts’ mobility outside the home presents an inviolable source of tension, especially in western societies, where ‘at the end of the day, it might not be a “minor thing” to hand over to your husband the right to decide where you are and are not allowed to go’ (Sultan, 1999: 330–331). Freedom to move in public spaces, displacement from the places that converts used to frequent, often difficult processes of resocialization, and an inherent gender imbalance all point to the everyday difficulties faced by female converts to Islam (e.g. Sultan, 1999: 325; Wohlrab-Sahr, 1999: 355–358). It is this redrawing and redefinition of boundaries that can lead to cathartic emotions, and intersects with questions of religious and social acceptance, and freedom. How immobility may compromise or strengthen a convert’s sense of religious belonging, their social relationships and their engagement with public life are important areas that require closer consideration.

5 The (dis)embodied convert

At the most intimate scale of analysis is the embodied experiences of converts and conversion. Straus’s (1979: 163) recognition that ‘it is not so much the initial action that enables the convert to experience a transformed life but the day-to-day actions of living it’ foreshadows Holloway’s (2003, 2006; after Kong, 2001) call for geographers to embrace the embodied practices of the everyday and ordinary in order to develop new ways of thinking about spiritual practice. Despite some developments, the embodiment of the sacred remains an area of marginal concern for geographers of religion, and is conspicuously absent from existing conversion discourses. In going beyond the immutable markers of race, ethnicity, gender and caste, research needs to begin exploring how individual choice and/or change intersect with the body. How the imbrications of marking the body through tattoos and piercings, the embodiment of disease, deformity and sexual orientation intersect with converting, and of being converted, presents a future politics of the convert(s’/ed) body that warrants considerable attention.

On a more immediate note, embodiment and heightened sensory perception are important signifiers of the presence of spirits and deities, and play an integral role in conversion processes. They can cause the body to become a ‘site of signification in and of itself’ (Holloway, 2003: 1962) through the production of religious identity (see Wohlrab-Sahr, 1999: 355), the channelling of a spiritual presence (e.g. inspirited worship – see Connell, 2005; exorcism), the correction of physical ailments (e.g. spiritual healing) or the manipulation of emotion. As Kong (2010: 757) points out, the ‘different sensuous ways in which the sacred is experienced and reproduced’ remains ‘unexplored’ by geographers, with emotional geographies in particular being able to develop, and be developed by, conversion discourse. Given that ‘emotions are an intensely political issue’ (Anderson and Smith, 2002: 7; see also Davidson et al., 2005), research can explore the role of emotion as an arbiter and response to religious conversion that affects not only the individual, but the family and community as well. Investigation of how emotion affects personal conversion trajectories and public discourses surrounding the religious self and other presents a starting point from which the emotional geographies of religious conversion can begin.

While embodiment presents individual access to a spiritual source of authority, disembodiment presupposes a degree of intellectual rationalization in making the decision to convert. Beckford (1978: 256) talks of Jehovah’s Witness conversion as a thoroughly cognitive experience, a ‘self-attribution of agency’ that stands in opposition to many conversion accounts in the Christian tradition that emphasize emotion, intimacy and faith. Alternatively, Bryant and Lamb (1999) argue that the collective manipulation of emotion that is evident during evangelist Billy Graham’s ‘Crusade for Christ’ events does not necessitate a deep turning of converts to God. How the manipulation of emotion and reason – or embodied and disembodied conversion practices – manifests itself over time and space (in terms of commitment or backsliding) provides another area of focus that is currently lacking.