Routes et sens postcoloniaux de la transnationalisation religieuse (Relitrans)

Abstract

EnglishWe propose in this article to conduct a critical revision of the distinction between North and South: or, to put it another way, to compare the institutional and epistemological positions that provided a framework for our research. The project, Religious Transnationalization of the Souths: Between Ethnicizing and Universalizing (Transnacionalizacion religiosa de los Sures: entre la etnizacion y la universalizacion, Relitrans), which brought together 22 researchers from seven countries, aimed to test a methodology which included various innovative elements, such as the production of multi-situated ethnographies, in which students of “the Souths” could counduct their field work operations in the “North”, thus following a trajectory in the opposite direction to that taken by the colonization and Christianizing of African and American populations; to establish the dynamics of working together in an attempt to break with polarizations of the North and different types of South, and thematic and national specializations, preferring to emphasize transversal processes rather than specific objects; and finally, to direct attention towards the consequences of transnationalization on the decentralizing of production, and on the circulation and validation of religious practices. However, during our research we came up against difficulties deriving from the historical direction taken by colonialism, which, like the religions focused on, still produces effects on the “opposite directions” of transnationalization, and these difficulities now lead us to ask the following questions: to what extent does the distinction between the North and various Souths still permeate the conceptual categories and epistemological positions of our researchers ? Is academic discourse capable of overcoming or recomposing these interpretations ? And how are we to find a common language, a “multicentrism” in the production of knowledge, according to the example set by the actors we have observed ? francaisCe texte propose une revision critique de la distinction Nord / Suds, c’est-a-dire des postures institutionnelles et epistemologiques qui ont servi de cadre a notre recherche. Le projet Transnationalisation religieuse des Suds : entre ethnicisation et universalisation (Relitrans), qui a reuni 22 chercheurs de 7 nationalites differentes, s’etait donne pour objectif de mettre a l’epreuve une methodologie qui comportait plusieurs elements novateurs : la realisation d’ethnographies multisituees, ou les chercheurs des « Suds » ont pu mener des terrains au « Nord », suivant en cela une trajectoire opposee a celle de la colonisation et de la christianisation des populations africaines et americaines ; l’etablissement d’une dynamique collaborative tentant de rompre avec la polarisation Nord / Suds et les specialisations thematiques et nationales, en privilegiant les processus transversaux et non les objets specifiques ; enfin, l’attention portee aux consequences de la transnationalisation sur le decentrement de la production, de la circulation et de la validation des pratiques religieuses. Cependant, au cours de la recherche, nous nous sommes heurtes a des difficultes qui nous amenent aujourd’hui a formuler les questionnements suivants : de meme que le sens colonial de l’histoire des religions continue de produire des effets sur les « sens contraires » de la transnationalisation religieuse contemporaine, dans quelle mesure la distinction Nord / Suds traverse-t-elle encore les categories conceptuelles et les postures epistemologiques des chercheurs ? Le dialogue academique est-il capable de depasser ou de recomposer ces signifies ? Comment alors trouver un langage commun, un « polycentrisme » dans la production des connaissances, a l’instar des acteurs que nous avons observes ?