Processes of Religious Subjectivation in Contemporary Algeria: Dynamics of Individualisation and Communitarisation of Belief in an Evangelical-Pentecostal Kabylian Context
The aim of this article is to explore the close interconnections between conversions to Pentecostalism in Kabylia and the logics of the subject’s quest for empowerment, in a context of strong social and normative regulations. While the influence of evangelical movements and their global offensive on local groups has been widely exploited to account for conversions in Algeria, the aim here is to demonstrate that this reading grid is not sufficient to grasp the issues at stake in the emergence of a new ethic observed within a group driven by a need for self-care. We will try to focus the analysis on the process of individualization, a formulation that can be heuristic to analyse the religious not as an invariable entity, but as a social phenomenon with variable interpretations linked to space and time. In sum, this article allows us to see that, well beyond the change in representations and practices, the question of conversions provides a framework for analysing the agentivity of actors.