Enacting Diversity: Boundary Work and Performative Dynamics in Interreligious Activities

Abstract

In this paper I examine how religious differences are articulated and dealt with in interreligious activities, such as joint prayers for peace, interfaith dialogue or open days. I assume that interreligious activities are an instrument for modern societies to govern and domesticate religious pluralization. In the conceptual part of the paper I combine elements from Symbolic Interactionism with social anthropological concepts of boundary work in order to understand the enactment of religious difference in organized forms of interreligious encounter: With reference to Erving Goffman I analyze interreligious activities as “interaction rituals” which ceremonialize the tension between transgression and maintenance of religious boundaries. In the empirical part of the paper I will draw from participant observation in 27 interreligious activities and elaborate seven ideal types of managing religious diversity and difference though symbolical interaction.