Conversion, with versions: exploring models of religious conversion

Abstract

By maintaining that it is not for the anthropologist to disempower native discourses, whatever the propositions of the latter may be, this work aims to take into account diverging statements concerning the processes of religious conversion. Different instances of conversion are not mobilized to be explained by the models presented, but to reveal both the presuppositions and the applicability of these models. In this way, and drawing support from ethnographic examples, the work looks to resituate certain questions about what a conversion is and how it occurs. Lastly, it analyses how the movements of conversion contemplated involve a challenge to the notions of acculturation or social change.

Keywords

• conversão religiosa
• modelos de conversão
• aculturação
• mudança social