Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Religion in Meaning Making and Boundary Work: Theoretical Explorations

  • Regular Article
  • Published:
Integrative Psychological and Behavioral Science Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Based on the articles brought together for this special issue, this article proposes a transversal analysis and theoretical elaboration of the question of the uses of religious elements for meaning making and boundary work. In order to do so, we will first propose a sociocultural psychological perspective to examine meaning making dynamics. Second, we will apply a boundary work perspective, as recently developed in the social sciences, on the organization of religious differences. The first considers religious elements as resources that can be used by people to orient themselves in time and the social space, to interpret and guide action, and to create new forms of life. The second approach proposes an analysis of uses of religious stuff in order to understand how boundaries between groups are created, transgressed or dissolved as well as to explore the link between religion and power. Our argument is that the articulation of these two approaches can itself offer a rich theoretical frame to apprehend religions in contemporary society.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Subscribe and save

Springer+ Basic
$34.99 /Month
  • Get 10 units per month
  • Download Article/Chapter or eBook
  • 1 Unit = 1 Article or 1 Chapter
  • Cancel anytime
Subscribe now

Buy Now

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. This does not mean that they would not develop persistence – especially when there are institutionalised boundaries.

References

  • Alba, R. (2005). Bright vs. blurred boundaries: second-generation assimilation and exclusion in France, Germany, and the United States. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 28(1), 20–49.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Anthias, F., & Yuval-Davis, N. (1992). Racialized boundaries. Race, nation, gender, colour and class and the antiracist struggle. London: Routledge and Kengan Paul.

    Google Scholar 

  • Baghdadi, N. (2010). “Die Muslimin” im Spannungsfeld von Zuschreibung, Abgrenzung und Umdeutung. In B. Allenbach & M. Sökefeld (Eds.), Muslime in der Schweiz (pp. 213–240). Zürich: Seismo.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bail, C. A. (2008). The configuration of symbolic boundaries against immigrants in Europe. American Sociological Review, 73, 37–59.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Barth, F. (1969). Introduction. In F. Barth (Ed.), Ethnic groups and boundaries: the social organization of culture difference (pp. 9–38). London: Allen & Unwin.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bauböck, R. (1998). The crossing and blurring of boundaries in international migration. Challenges for social and political theory. In R. Bauböck & J. Rundell (Eds.), Blurred boundaries: migration, ethnicity, citizenship (pp. 17–52). Aldershot: Asgate.

    Google Scholar 

  • Baucal, A., & Zittoun, T. (2013). Religion as dialogical resource: a socio-cultural approach. Integrative Psychological and Behavioral Science, 1-13. doi:10.1007/s12124-013-9229-z.

  • Baumann, M., & Stolz, J. (2007). Religiöse Vielfalt in der Schweiz: Zahlen, Fakten, Trends. In M. Baumann & J. Stolz (Eds.), Eine Schweiz - viele Religionen (pp. 39–66). Bielefeld: transcript Verlag.

    Google Scholar 

  • Beckstead, Z. (2012). Values internalization on the move. The revivification of faith along the pilgrims path. In A. U. Branco & J. Valsiner (Eds.), Cultural psychology of human values (pp. 87–111). Charlotte: Information Age Publishing, Incorporated.

    Google Scholar 

  • Behloul, S. M. (2009). Discours total! Le débat sur l’islam en Suisse et le positionnement de l’islam comme religion publique. In M. Schneuwly Purdie, M. Gianni, & J. Magali (Eds.), Muselmans d’aujourd’hui. Identités plurielles en Suisse. Genève: Labor et Fides.

    Google Scholar 

  • Belzen, J. (2010a). Psychology of religion: perspectives from cultural psychology. Mental Health, Religion and Culture, 13(4), 329–347. doi:10.1080/13674670903415212.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Belzen, J. A. (2010b). Towards cultural psychology of religion: principles, approaches, applications. Springer.

  • Berger, P. L., Sacks, J., Martin, D., Weiming, T., Weigel, G., Davie, G., et al. (Eds.). (1999). The desecularization of the world: resurgent religion and world politics. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company.

  • Bhatia, S. (2007). American karma: race, culture, and identity in the Indian diaspora. New York: NYU Press.

  • Branco, A. U., & Valsiner, J. (2012). Values as culture in self and society. In A. U. Branco & J. Valsiner (Eds.), Cultural psychology of human values (pp. vi–xviii). Charlotte: Information Age Publishing, Incorporated.

    Google Scholar 

  • Brubaker, R. (2012). Religion and nationalism: four approaches. Nations and Nationalism, 18(1), 2–20.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bruner, J. S. (1990). Acts of meaning. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Casanova, J. (2004). Religion, European secular identities, and European integration. Transit- Europäische Revue, 1–13.

  • Cesari, J. (2010). Securitization of Islam in Europe. In J. Cesari (Ed.), Muslims in the West after 9/11. Religion, politics and law (pp. 9–27). London and New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dahinden, J. (2011). « Kulturelle Vielfalt » ? Grenzziehungen mittels « Kultur » im Kontext von migration und integration. In SAGW (Ed.), Von der Deklaration zur Umsetzung – Schutz und Förderung der kulturellen Vielfalt in der Schweiz. Akten der Tagung vom 25. Januar 2011, Zürich, 2011. Bern: Schweizerische Akademie der Geistes- und Sozialwissenschaften.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dahinden, J., Duemmler, K., & Moret, J. (2012). Islam and gender in the boundary work of young adults in Switzerland. MAPS Working Paper 1/2012. Neuchâtel: University of Neuchâtel. Maison d’analyse des processus sociaux.

    Google Scholar 

  • Davie, G. (2000). Religion in modern Europe. A memory mutates. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Deconchy, J.-P. (1973). Systèmes de croyances et comportements orthodoxes. La recherche, 30(4), 35–42.

    Google Scholar 

  • Deconchy, J.-P. (1980). Orthodoxie religieuse et sciences humaines; suivi de, (Religious) orthodoxy, rationality, and scientific knowledge/Jean-Pierre Deconchy. La Haye; New York: Mouton.

    Google Scholar 

  • Doise, W. (1982). L’explication en psychologie sociale. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.

    Google Scholar 

  • Duemmler, K., & Nagel, A.-K. (2013). Governing religious diversity: top-down and bottom-up initiatives in Germany and Switzerland. Integrative Psychological and Behavioral Science, 1-19. doi:10.1007/s12124-012-9226-7

  • Duemmler, K., Dahinden, J., & Moret, J. (2010). Gender equality as ‘cultural stuff’: ethnic boundary work in a classroom in Switzerland. Diversities, 12(1), 19–37.

    Google Scholar 

  • Eade, J. (2011). From race to religion: multiculturalism and contested urban spaces. In J. Beaumont & C. Baker (Eds.), Post-secular cities: spaces, theory and practice (pp. 154–167). London and New York: Contiuum International Publishing Group.

    Google Scholar 

  • Endelstein, L., & Ryan, L. (2013). Dressing religious bodies in public spaces: gender, clothing and negotiations of stigma among Jews in Paris and Muslims in London. Integrative Psychological and Behavioral Science. doi:10.1007/s12124-012-9228-5.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Geertz, C. (1972). La religion comme système culturel. In R. Bradbury, C. Geertz, M. E. Spiro, V. W. Turner, & E. H. Winter (Eds.), Essais d’anthropologie religieuse (pp. 19–66). Paris: Gallimard.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gerson, J. M., & Peiss, K. (1985). Boundaries, negotiation, consciousness: reconceptualizing gender relations. Social Problems, 32(4), 317–331.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gillespie, A., & Zittoun, T. (2010). Studying the movement of thought. In A. Toomela & J. Valsiner (Eds.), Methodological thinking in psychology: 60 years gone astray? (pp. 69–88). Charlotte: Information Age Publisher.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gorski, P., & Ates, A. (2008). After secularization? Annual Review of Sociology, 34, 55–85.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Greco Morasso, S., & Zittoun, T. (Submitted paper). The trajectory of food as symbolic resource for international migrants.

  • Grillo, R. D. (2003). Cultural essentialism and cultural anxiety. Anthropological Theory, 3(2), 157–173.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Grillo, R. (2010). British and others: from ‘race’ to ‘faith’. In S. Vertovec & S. Wessendorf (Eds.), The multicultural backlash. European discurses, policies and practices (pp. 50–71). Londono and New York: Routlege.

    Google Scholar 

  • Holtz, P., Dahinden, J., & Wagner, W. (2013). German Muslims and the ‘integration debate’: negotiating identities in the face of discrimination. Integrative Psychological and Behavioral Science. doi:10.1007/s12124-012-9227-6.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hüwelmeier, G. (2011). Socialist cosmopolitanism meets global Pentecostalism: charismatic Christianity among Vietnamese migrants after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 34(3), 436–453. doi:10.1080/01419870.2011.535547.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hüwelmeier, G. (2013). Creating and refining boundaries – church splitting among Pentecostal Vietnamese migrants in Berlin. Integrative Psychological and Behavioral Science, 1-11. doi:10.1007/s12124-012-9225-8

  • Hüwelmeier, G., & Krause, K. (2010). Traveling spirits: migrants, markets and mobilities. London: Taylor and Francis.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hylland Eriksen, T. (2003). Creolization and creativity. Global Networks, 3(3), 223–237.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • James, W. (1904). What is pragmatism. In A new name for some old ways of thinking. The Library of Amercia. Consulté à l’adresse http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/us/james.htm

  • Jenkins, R. (1997). Rethinking ethnicity: arguments and explorations. London: Sage.

    Google Scholar 

  • Josephs, I. E. (2007). The semiotic regulation of sexuality from a microgenetic perspective. Integrative Psychological and Behavioral Science, 41(3–4), 319–325. doi:10.1007/s12124-007-9028-5.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Josephs, I. E., Valsiner, J., & Surgan, S. E. (1999). The process of meaning construction. Dissecting the flow of semiotic activity. In J. Brandstädter & R. M. Lerner (Eds.), Action & self-development. Theory and research through the life-span (pp. 257–282). Thousand Oaks: Sage.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Kadianaki, I. (2009). Dramatic life courses: Migrants in the making. In J. Valsiner, P. C. M. Molenaar, M. C. D. P. Lyra, & N. Chaudhary (Éds.), Dynamic process methodology in the social and developmental sciences (p. 477-492). New York, NY: Springer New York. Consulté à l’adresse http://www.springerlink.com/content/u1q753k13474h582/.

  • Koenig, M. (2005). Incorporating muslim migrants in western nation states - a comparison of the United Kingdom, France, and Germany. Journal of International Migration and Integration, 6(2), 219–234.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lamont, M., & Mizrachi, N. (2012). Ordinary people doing extraordinary things: responses to stigmatization in comparative perspective. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 35(3), 365–381.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lamont, M., & Molnar, V. (2002). The study of boundaries in the social sciences. Annual Review of Sociology, 28, 167–195.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Levi-Strauss, C. (1966). The savage mind. Chicago/London: University of Chicago Press/Weidenfeld and Nicolson Ltd. (Original French publication: 1962.).

    Google Scholar 

  • Levitt, P. (2007). God needs no passport: how immigrants are changing the American religious landscape. New York: New York Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mahmoud, H. W. (2009). Disrupted lives and shattered dreams: culture, identity, and coping pathways among Sudanese refugees in Cairo. Cambridge: University of Cambridge (PhD Dissertation).

    Google Scholar 

  • Moira, D., & Phillips, A. (2008). Whose agenda is it? Abuses of women and abuses of ‘culture’ in Britain. Ethnicities, 8(3), 405–424.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Moloney, G., Wagner, W., & Holtz, P. (2013). Editorial political cartoons in Australia: social representations & and the visual depiction of essentialism. Integrative Journal for Psychological and Behavioral Science.

  • Moscovici, S. (2000). Social representations: studies in social psychology. Cambridge: Polity Press (G. Duveen, Éd).

    Google Scholar 

  • Moscovici, S. (2008). Psychoanalysis. Its image and its public. Cambridge: Polity Press (D. Macey, Trad., G. Duveen, Éd.).

    Google Scholar 

  • Pachucki, M. A., Pendergrass, S., & Lamont, M. (2007). Boundary processes: recent theoretical developments and new contributions. Poetics, 35, 331–351.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Peirce, C. S. (1878). How to make our ideas clear. In Writings of Charles S. Peirce (Vol. 3). Indiana University Press. Consulté à l’adresse http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/us/peirce.htm.

  • Plüss, C. (2009). Migration and the globalization of religion. In P. B. Clarke (Ed.), The Oxford handbook of the sociology of religion (pp. 491–506). Oxford: University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Radtke, F.-O. (1996). Fremde und Allzufremde : zur Ausbreitung des ethnologischen Blicks in der Einwanderungsgesellschaft. In H.-R. Wicker et al. (Eds.), Das Fremde in der Gesellschaft : migration, Ethnizität und Staat (pp. 333–352). Zürich: Seismo.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ramm, C. (2010). The Muslim makers. How Germany ‘Islamizes’ Turkish migrants. Interventions, 12(2), 183–197.

    Google Scholar 

  • Razack, S. H. (2004). Imperilled Muslim women, dangerous Muslim men and civilised Europeans: legal and social responses to forced marriages. Feminist Legal Studies, 12, 129–174.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rochex, J.-Y. (1998). Le sens de l’expérience scolaire. Paris: Presses univesitaires de France.

    Google Scholar 

  • Roggeband, C., & Verloo, M. (2007). Dutch women are liberated, migrant women are a problem: the evolution of policy frames on gender and migration in the Netherlands, 1995–2005. Social Policy & Administration, 41(3), 271–288.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sartre, J.-P. (1948). Anti-Semite and Jew. (G. Becker, Trad.). New York: Schocken Books.

  • Schiffauer, W. (2007). Der unheimliche Muslim - Staatsbürgerschaft und zivilgesellschaftliche Ängste. In M. Wohlrab-Sahr & L. Tezcan (Eds.), Konfliktfeld Islam in Europa (pp. 111–134). Baden-Baden: Nomos.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sherif, M., Harvey, O. J., White, G. J., Hood, W. R., & Sherif, C. W. (1988). The robbers cave experiment: intergroup conflict and cooperation (1st Wesleyan Ed.). Wesleyan University Press.

  • Stolcke, V. (1995). Talking culture: new boundaries, new rhetorics of exclusion in Europe. Current Anthropology, 36, Special Issue: Ethnographic Authority and Cultural Explanation, (1), 1–24.

  • Stolz, J., & Baumann, M. (2007). Religiöse Vielfalt: kulturelle, soziale und individuelle Formen. In M. Baumann & J. Stolz (Eds.), Eine Schweiz - viele Religionen. Risiken und Chancen des Zusammenlebens (pp. 21–38). Bielefeld: Transcript.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tajfel, H. (1981a). Social categorization, social identity and social comparison. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tajfel, H. (1981b). Social categorization, social identity and social comparison. In Humans groups and social categories (pp. 254–287). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Valsiner, J. (1998a). The guided mind. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Valsiner, J. (1998b). The guided mind: a sociogenetic approach to personality. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Valsiner, J. (2007). Culture in minds and societies: foundations of cultural psychology (1 re éd.). New Delhi: Sage Publications Pvt. Ltd.

    Google Scholar 

  • Van der Veer, R. (2012). Cultural-historical psychology: contributions of Lev Vygotsky. In J. Valsiner (Ed.), Handbook of culture and psychology (pp. 58–68). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Vertovec, S. (2009). Transnationalism. Key ideas. London and New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Vertovec, S., & Wessendorf, S. (2005). Cultural, religious and linguistic diversity in Europe: an overview of issues and trends. In M. B. R. Penninx & K. Kraal (Eds.), The dynamics of internaitonal migration and settlement inEurope (pp. 171–199). Amsterdam: University of Amsterdam Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Vygotsky, L. S. (1986). Thought and language. Cambridge: MIT Press (A. Kozulin, Éd.).

    Google Scholar 

  • Wagner, W., Holtz, P., & Kashima, Y. (2009). Construction and deconstruction of essence in representating social groups: identity projects, stereotyping, and racism. Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, 39(3), 363–383. doi:10.1111/j.1468-5914.2009.00408.x.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Weber, M. (1996 [1922]). Ethnic groups. In W. Sollors (Ed.), Theories of ethnicity. A classical reader. [from Chapter V in Guenther Roth and Claus Wittich (eds), economy and society (Berkeley: University of California Press 1978), pp. 385–98, originally published in 1922 (pp. 52–66). New York: New York University Press.

  • Wilcox, M. M. (2012). “Spiritual sluts”: uncovering gender, ethnicity, and sexuality in the post-secular. Women’s Studies. An interdisciplinary Journal. Special issue: Religion and Gender: Towards Diversities, 41(4), 639–659.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Willaime, J.-P. (1995). Sociologie des religions. Paris: Presses universitaires de France.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wimmer, A. (2002). Nationalist exclusion and ethnic conflict. Shadows of modernity. Cambridge: University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Wimmer, A. (2008). Elementary strategies of ethnic boundary making. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 31(6), 1025–1055.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wimmer, A. (2009). Herder’s heritage and the boundary-making approach: studying ethnicity in immigrant societies. Sociological Theory, 27, 244–270.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Zittoun, T. (2006a). Difficult secularity: Talmud as symbolic resource. Outlines. Critical social studies, 8(2), 59–75.

    Google Scholar 

  • Zittoun, T. (2006b). Transitions. Development through symbolic resources. Greenwich: InfoAge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Zittoun, T. (2012a). On the emergence of the subject. Integrative Psychological and Behavioral Science, 46(3), 259–273. doi:10.1007/s12124-012-9203-1.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Zittoun, T. (2012b). Lifecourse. In J. Valsiner (Ed.), Handbook of culture and psychology (pp. 513–535). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Zittoun, T., & Dahinden, J. (2013). Religious meaning-making and boundary work – introduction to the special issue. Integrative Psychological and Behavioral Science.

  • Zolberg, A., & Woon, L. L. (1999). Why Islam is like Spanish? Cultural Incorporation in Europe and the United States. Politics & Society, 27, 5–38.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Neuchâtel, Neuchâtel, Switzerland

    Janine Dahinden & Tania Zittoun

Authors
  1. Janine Dahinden
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Tania Zittoun
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Janine Dahinden.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Dahinden, J., Zittoun, T. Religion in Meaning Making and Boundary Work: Theoretical Explorations. Integr. psych. behav. 47, 185–206 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12124-013-9233-3

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12124-013-9233-3

Keywords

Search

Navigation