New and alternative careers in butinage: A comment on Gez et al.: Religious butinage as dynamic identity

In ‘From converts to itinerants: Religious butinage as dynamic identity’, Yonatan N. Gez, Yvan Droz, Edio Soares and Jeanne Rey (2016) argue that, in order for scholars to adapt to theories of religion that recognize its complex, situated and fluid aspects, it is crucial that they have better concepts for describing religion in these terms. This practical approach is compelling, and the notion of butinage that they offer is intriguing – and

promising. Most associated with the activity of bees as they move from flower to flower, foraging for nectar, gathering and delivering pollen as they go Gez. et al. 2016), the notion of butinage achieves what has eluded many other scholars working with relational social theories: where others have fallen back on synchronic metaphors and/or analytic modes – ‘snapshots’, ‘assemblages’, etc. – butinage is a metaphor that powerfully evokes a sense of networks of relations existing across time. For the purposes of analysis, the notion helps us work with religiosity not through moments, but through careers. And it does so in a way that captures, most vividly, the physicality and spatiality of the actor – the butineur – in their relation with culture (‘nectar’).