Religious Conversions in the Mediterranean World

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Author: Nadia Marzouki & Oliver Roy (eds)

Publisher/Publication: Palgrave Macmillan

Through studies of conversions across the Mediterranean this book examines the challenges that they represent for national, legal and policy ways of dealing with religious minorities. The chapters of the book revolve around Christians in the Middle East but the field of analysis expands further. Cases regarding conversions to Evangelical Christianity, draw upon sociological and anthropological studies which consider globalisation as a ongoing process with a deep impact on the nation-state in the Mediterranean, and at the same time reveal how religion can unsettle existing political and social relations. The writers posit that there are numerous resemblances between the everyday practice of converts, in places as different as France, Algeria, Lebanon, Turkey and Israel. No matter how different these contexts may be, individuals face similar challenges, resort to analogous arguments and modes of reasoning, and attempt to cultivate comparable forms of emotions.