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2006 40: 1135SociologyClaire Mitchell

The Religious Content of Ethnic Identities

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Claire Mitchell

Queens University Belfast

ABSTRACT

The religious dimensions of ethnic identities have been under-theorized. In con-

temporary industrial societies there is a tendency to characterize religiously

demarcated groups as really ethnic.This article suggests that the religious content

of ethnic boundaries may be more important than might initially be assumed. A

religious identification may have specific religious content and assumptions that

may cause it to operate in different ways from other identities. Even if identities

do not seem primarily religious per se, they may have latent religious dimensionsthat can become reactivated. Whilst identity conflicts and other social struggles

may stimulate the return of the religious, once reactivated, the religious dimensions

of identity may take on a logic of their own.Therefore, the article argues that in

many contexts there is a two-way relationship between religion and ethnicity. Each

can stimulate the other, rather than religion simply playing a supporting role to the

ethnic centrepiece.

KEY WORDS

community / ethnicity / identity / nationalism / religion


t is clear that religious affiliation is not the same as religious identity.

Whether Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland or Muslims in

secular France, social groups are often distinguished religiously vis--vis oneanother. However, religious labels are often used as shorthand for a wide vari-

ety of cultural and ethnonational differences. Simply because an individual

identifies with a religious grouping, it does not necessarily follow that there is

1135

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anything particularly religious about their sense of self, conception of group

membership or understanding of the world. It is recognition of this disjuncture

that has caused commentators to conclude that many religious identities are

actually ethnic in nature and have little actual religious content (Gans, 1994;

Demerath, 2000, 2001).This assumption, whilst it may be correct in some contexts, certainly needs

to be interrogated theoretically and empirically. Sometimes it is very difficult to

work out where a religious identity ends and a cultural identity begins. When a

radical young British Muslim attends Londons Finsbury Park mosque to hear

a political sermon, is this a religious or cultural act? When a religiously non-

practising member of a loyalist paramilitary group in Northern Ireland tattoos

his body with the slogan for God and Ulster, is this religious or cultural sym-

bolism? When religious organizations, practices and ideas infuse cultural orga-

nizations, practices and ideas, it is pertinent to ask whether this religiouscontent actually matters.

It is perhaps a western bias to assume that religiously demarcated groups

are in essence ethnic. Baber (2004), for example, argues that the literature on

Indian nationalism has been obsessed with religious boundaries, when in fact

racial identity has been overlooked as a key aspect of divisions. This challenges

the status quo in an Indian context. Conversely, the literature on ethnicity and

nationalism relating to Europe, and to a lesser extent the United States, has no

such obsession. If anything, there is a marked tendency amongst western ratio-

nalists to downplay religions social significance (Marty, 1997) a trend that is

perhaps understandable given the emphasis on secularization theory since the

1960s (Wilson, 1979; Bruce, 1995, 1996, 2002). However, the dominant thrust

now within the sociology of religion is to explain varieties of religious persis-

tence (Casanova, 1994; Davie, 1994, 2000a, 2000b, 2002; Berger 2000). This

article calls for political sociologists and scholars of ethnicity to respond to

debates in the sociology of religion and to develop new models to understand

the significance of religious persistence.

Of course most commentators agree that religion can be a basis of ethnic

identity. There has recently been a rise in scholarship on religio-political funda-

mentalism in the modern world (Jurgensmeyer, 1993; Keddie, 1998; Bruce,2001). But these are not the types of religious identities under analysis here.

Rather, this article is concerned with social groups in western societies that have

hitherto been assumed to be motivated by ethnicity predicated on national,

political and economic grounds. It is concerned not with establishing the pri-

macy of religion, but with theorizing the contribution of religion to multiply

constituted identities, communities and conflicts.

The article aims to untangle these debates and to offer some analysis of the

ways in which substantive religious content infuses ethnic or communal identi-

ties. It maps out recent debates about the relationship between religion and eth-nicity, arguing that religion has predominantly been cast either as an ethnic

marker or as something that supports the primary category of ethnicity.

However, in these accounts the relationship between religion and ethnicity is

1136 Sociology Volume 40 Number 6 December 2006



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unidirectional religion feeds into ethnicity. In contrast, this article argues that

religion often constitutes the fabric of ethnic identity. Even if identities do not

appear to be primarily religious per se, they may have latent religious dimen-

sions that can become reactivated. Religious content and assumptions may

cause identities to operate in different ways. Moreover, identity debates canstimulate religious revival. Therefore, the article argues that in many contexts

there is a two-way causal relationship between religion and ethnicity. Each can

stimulate the other, rather than religion simply playing a supporting role to the

ethnic centrepiece.

A Quick Definition of Religion

A variety of commentators argue that in order for something to be counted asreligious, it must pertain, in Wilsons (1979: 4) terms, only to those activities

that make some explicit reference to a supernatural source of values. However,

all religions do not make reference to the supernatural, and an emphasis on

questioning ultimate reality may apply only to those most religiously committed.

Durkheim (1915) and other functionalists are more concerned with how rituals

generate group cohesion and shared values. However, what counts as a religious

ritual has been defined widely, for example Shils and Youngs (1953) analysis of

royalism and coronation rituals. Certainly, there are problems with classing any-

thing that brings people together as religious in nature. Whilst football may pro-voke strong common sentiments, defining it as sacred expands the definition of

religion so much as to make it analytically meaningless. Therefore, there is a case

for ruling things in and out when characterizing the religious field.

A useful guide is the rule of once removed. That is to decide whether the

institutions, practices and ideas one is analysing are connected to recognizably

religious institutions, practices and ideas in a stricter spiritual sense. In other

words, one can begin with a stricter spiritual/theological definition of religion

and allow only one step away from this when deciding which beliefs and

behaviours connected to it may be classified as religious.This would mean that attending religious services for social reasons could

be classed as religious behaviour because individuals will come into contact

with spiritual messages when they participate. When an individual who was

socialized into a religious tradition but now does not practice and is unsure of

their beliefs refuses to marry someone of another religion because of their dif-

fering beliefs, this might also be classed as a religious act. Whilst the individ-

uals relationship with religious beliefs may be ambiguous, beliefs are clearly

still a factor in their social relationships. When a church helps set up and run a

government employment scheme, it could be argued that that this activity hasa religious dimension. This is because the central agency still holds to a tradi-

tional religious outlook. In all these cases there is no spiritual dimension, but

the spiritual dimension is only once removed.

1137The religious context of ethnic identities Mitchell



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It is important to include these types of organization, behaviour and belief

in an analysis of religion because they are so closely connected with religion in

a stricter substantive sense. Most people experience religious journeys where

practices and beliefs change, loosening and strengthening over time. Whilst an

individual may attend church to meet business contacts one week, another weekthey may find unexpected meaning in the religious content of the service. It is

not unlikely that somebody who uses a church as a community centre will be

familiar with some of its religious messages and may later want to turn to this

institution in a time of personal crisis. Whilst there remains some connection

with recognizably religious terrain, religion is still socially important and may

have the capacity to rehabilitate itself.

Other commentators have characterized the question in similar terms. Davie

(2000b), for example, speaks of vicarious religion. She argues that whilst most

western European societies appear to be secular with only a small number ofindividuals keeping religion alive, beneath the surface religious ideas and mem-

ories continue to form a mass of meaning. In times of personal or social crisis,

these religious meanings and behaviours rise to the surface and reveal the con-

tinued public significance of religion. For Hervieu-Lger (2000) religion also

forms an integral part of cultural memory and enables the transition of identity

from one generation to another. However, religious memory is stored institu-

tionally, and as religious institutions lose social influence the place of religion in

communal cultural identities declines. Both these approaches echo the once

removed rule. They indicate that religious significance ebbs and flows over time,

but also that there needs to be a core of religious commitment or institutional

presence in order to keep religious ideas in the public consciousness.

Not everything that gives meaning to life or brings people together may be

classed as religious. However, religion must be conceived of in terms broader

than just that which relates to the supernatural, traditional orthodoxy or regu-

lar practice. This is because religion has the capacity to simmer and surface in

the lives of individuals and groups over time. It can recede but also revive. In

order to do so, however, individuals and societies need sacred reference points.

Thus thinking of religion in the stricter supernatural sense and religion once

removed is a useful way of deciding what to rule in and what to rule out in theanalysis of religious identity.

Religion as an Ethnic Marker

A common way of conceptualizing religious identity is as an ethnic marker.

This is religion many times removed. It is where religion provides the labels of

identity, but no content or values. In contrast, ethnicity, or a sense of people-

hood based on a sense of shared descent and belonging, is more often empha-sized (Horowitz, 1985; Smith, 1986; Connor, 1994; Hastings, 1997). Often,

this is coupled with political national ideals or attachment to a specific terri-

tory. In a primordialist interpretation, ethnicity is seen as based on blood-ties




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and ancestry. In a more popular foundationalist interpretation, ethnicity is

founded on perceptions of kinship rooted in a shared history, culture and very

often language (see Fishman, 1999). Religion is often added to this list of

resources for imagined kinship (Connor, 1972; Nash, 1989). However, as

Coakley (2002: 206) points out, religion has been given relatively little atten-tion in the literature (notable exceptions include Jacobson, 1998; Smith, 1999;

Hunt, 2002; Coakley, 2002; Collins and Coleman, 2004). As a result whilst

most commentators would agree that ethnicity can be informed by religion, the

general tendency is to assume in modern industrialized societies that it is not.

This has been theorized in different ways. Gans (1979: 9) defines symbolic

ethnicity as characterized by a nostalgic allegiance love for and pride in a

tradition that can be felt without having to be incorporated in everyday

behaviour. Similarly, he theorizes symbolic religiosity as an attachment to a

religious culture that does not involve regular participation in its rituals ororganizations. Whilst some rituals may be participated in irregularly and reli-

gious symbols utilized, this is done in such a way that does not contradict oth-

erwise secular lifestyles (1994: 5856). Winter (1996: 233) makes this

observation in relation to American Jews for whom feeling Jewish does not

necessarily entail doing Jewish, engaging in or even preferring Jewish religious

or communal activities and affiliations to other activities and affiliations.

Very similar to Ganss symbolic religion is Demeraths (2000, 2001) cul-

tural religion. This is an identification with a religious heritage without any

religious participation or a sense of personal involvement per se (2001: 59).

Cultural religious identities at the individual level are mirrored by competing

civil religions at the societal level (2000: 1312; 2001: 50). There is a sacral-

ization of ethnic group. In the final analysis, Demerath (2000: 137) concludes

that cultural religion may represent the penultimate stage of the secularization

process. A primordial sense of cultural continuity, symbolized by religion but

devoid of religious content, is all that remains. However, Demerath himself

raises a very important question when he asks whether the culturally religious

might actually need deeper commitments with more compelling participation,

and if so where might these be found (2000: 137)? Surely it is worth asking

whether the remnants of religious ideas, symbols and practices might continueto help constitute these meanings.

These ideas have frequently been applied to Northern Ireland, the case with

which I am most familiar. McGarry and OLeary (1995) maintain that in

Northern Ireland because religion is the key marker its importance is exagger-

ated. It is an analytical mistake to endow the boundary marker with more sig-

nificance than the fact that there is a boundary The religious label is an

ethnic label (1995: 137). McGarry and OLeary argue that the two communi-

ties may have some form of civil religion, where each worships their own

nation, but are keen to point out that this is an argument which states that reli-gion reinforces nationalism, not the other way around (1995: 212).

This assumes that political identity is the dominant identity. But communal

identity is not reducible to political identity. Protestants in Northern Ireland can




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feel Protestant without also being unionists, feeling British or identifying with

Ulster. Whilst the dominant national identity amongst Protestants is British, its

meaning is very ambiguous. So ethnicity is often a knotty category that is not

always reducible to national identity or kinship. When ethnic identity is con-

fusing or ambiguous, religious resources sometimes offer a more solid frame-work for identity. This point is also made by Jacobson (1998) in relation to

young British Pakistanis, amongst whom ethnic identity is a tricky category and

for whom Islam has become a more meaningful source of social identity. So, if

religious identities are dominant signifiers of identity, often more so than ethnic

labels, we are therefore compelled to ask what actually is being signified. Might

it not be that difference is partially constructed from religion, rather than just

represented by it?

In these accounts where religion is characterized as an ethnic marker there

is scarcely anything that could be described as substantive religious content.This is somewhat like civil religion where feelings of national groupness are of

primary importance. The rituals and beliefs that support groupness rarely relate

to the recognizable terrain of religion. However, accounts that neglect to

explore whether aspects of religion help inform a sense of self only provide a

certain level of analysis. Given the universally knotty nature of ethnic identity,

the problematic assumptions of the dominance of ethnic and political identity

and given questions about peoples possible need for deeper commitments, it is

important to at least ask whether religion may actually provide some of the

content, as well as the markers, for certain ethnic identities.

Religion as Support for Ethnicity

Another literature emphasizes the roles that religion plays in supporting eth-

nicity. Religion is not just a marker of identity, but rather its symbols, rituals

and organizations are used to boost ethnic identity. In this version of the rela-

tionship, the substantive content of religion plays a more significant role in the

construction of group identity. But this is still a supporting role. Ethnicity is still

the primary category of analysis, and religion is thought to legitimize, sacralizeand otherwise buttress the primary ethnic category.

Hamf (1994), for example, argues, in terms similar to Barth (1969), that

whilst cultural distinctions can be based on common origins, language or reli-

gion, the objective distance measured by markers is rather irrelevant.

However, he also argues that religious boundary marking can be socially pow-

erful. Religion and rites, he maintains, are far more resistant to social change

than many other markers of identity, religion has been successfully used by eth-

nic entrepreneurs and religious images are useful in validating any history of the

people (1994: 1112). So for Hamf, religion does make a difference to how thecommunity mobilizes and politicizes. This is because religion is deeply rooted

in the socialization processes of early childhood. Its rituals shape and mark the

day, the year, and stages in life that create an emotional bond between all




8/19

members. As a rule, its officers and organizational forms at different levels are

more numerous and better established than those of ethnic and linguistic com-

munities (1994: 15).

However, Hamf indicates that religious rituals are an instrument of mobi-

lization (1994: 16). Theology can be used to legitimize a groups economic andpolitical interests. In this sense, Hamf argues that religion functions as a potent

support for ethnicity. Hamf is quite right to underline how religion can be instru-

mentalized to support ethnicity. However, he assumes that most groups ultimately

have economic and political ends, rather than actually religious identities and

motivations. As such, Hamf ultimately sees religion as something that needs to be

depoliticised (through syncretism, universalism, assimilation, regulation etc.),

rather than sometimes being the very fabric of ethnicity itself (1994: 1617).

A similar approach is found amongst those, such as Mol (1976), who argue

that religion sacralizes identity by providing an orderly interpretation of an oth-erwise complex reality. This is where groups and individuals call on religion to

give divine explanation and justification for deeper, perhaps ethnic, concerns.

Mol maintains that religion protects identity by providing psychological reas-

surance and emotional security. However, for Mol, religion protects other iden-

tities that are already there. It is not an active agent in their construction or

transformation.

This, however, is a problematic assumption. Winter (1996), for example,

cites Prell (1989: 188) who found that members of the Minyan (Jewish prayer

group) she studied, even when they had no personal relationship with God,

related through prayer to a self-transcending element called the people of

Israel. Winter argues (1996: 243) that where ethnic groups are sacralized, some

form of religion can become important for the survival of the group. Religion

is needed to protect ethnic identity. But surely it is pertinent to analyse the con-

sequences of this for the religious conscience of the ethnic group at hand. Smith

(1999: 3368) argues that religious election myths are important because they

confer on the chosen a sense of moral superiority over outsiders and provide an

idea that the community has a special destiny that promises spiritual liberation.

Whilst these can be seen as purely ethnic processes, when myths like these are

used to help draw the boundary, Smith argues that the elect may turn in uponthemselves and are forced to rely more fully on their spiritual resources. In

short, where ethnic identities are sacralized, religion may come to change the

meaning of that ethnicity.

Chong (1998) makes these types of observations about the role of conser-

vative/evangelical Protestantism amongst second-generation Korean Americans

in the United States. She argues that the ethnic and religious aspects of the

church are irrevocably related in supporting and reinforcing ethnic identity and

consciousness (1998: 275). Legitimation is sought from the bottom-up as

people try to make sense of their place in American society. In addition, con-nections between evangelical and Korean values are promulgated by religious

leaders from the pulpit. In the final analysis, Chong allows for much substan-

tive religious content to Korean American identity. However, rather than




9/19

religion and ethnicity being mutually conditioning, Chongs focus is on religion

reinforcing, supporting, maintaining, legitimizing, and sacralizing ethnic identi-

ties. Religion is closely related to ethnicity, and ethnicity is formed from it, but

ethnicity is the primary category.

These ideas have often been applied to analyses of religious identity inNorthern Ireland. Bruce (1994: 22; 1986: 264), for example, highlights the

symbolic role evangelical culture plays in the ethnic identity of Ulster

Protestants, and argues that this is why it pervades politics beyond the numbers

of the faithful. Religion defines group belonging, figures large in history, legit-

imizes the groups advantages and radically distinguishes the group from its tra-

ditional enemy (1994: 25). In fact, Bruce feels that religion is such a dominant

theme in Northern Ireland politics that, for Protestants, the conflict is a reli-

gious one. However, this is somewhat misleading as Bruce (1995, 1996) fre-

quently argues that secularization is the normal course of events, except insituations of conflict or change where religion becomes a badge of ethnic group

identity. For Bruce, what matters is not any individuals religiosity, but the indi-

viduals incorporation in an ethnic group defined by a particular religion

(1996:. 122). Therefore whilst Bruces work is useful in fleshing out how the

substance of evangelicalism supports ethnic identity, ultimately, the real root of

the problem, and the final category of analysis, is ethnic rather than religious.

Brewer (1998) and Brewer and Higgins (1999) work on religious anti-

Catholicism amongst Protestants might also be characterized as ethnic support.

Brewer asserts that anti-Catholicism must be understood as sociological pro-cess. It provides the resources to mark out boundaries, rationalize and justify

Protestants political position and to provide unity in times of threat. Brewers

work by no means ignores theology as he outlines how each variant of anti-

Catholicism intertwines specific theological positions with political ideas and

(lack of) relationships with Catholics. He teases out the how the substance of

religious anti-Catholicism relates to social and political power. However, for

Brewer, anti-Catholicism is a resource that is used to expediate goals, forms a

source of support, and supplies material benefits (1998: 11). Brewer seems to

argue that Protestants are anti-Catholic because they want to retain power and

a superior identity. This may well be true in many cases, but this does not cap-

ture the ways in which religion is also used from the bottom-up by people try-

ing to make sense of their place in the world. As Flanagan replies to Brewer:

[t]heology is treated in terms of social characteristics, the identities and boundaries

it effects. This differs from other approaches, where sociology is forced to seek a

theology to resolve the limits of understanding faced in dealing with issues of iden-

tity, and the self in a culture of postmodernity. (2000: 234)

Of course religion often supports ethnicity and legitimises and justifies power,

as suggested by Bruce and Brewer, but we need to ask what other kinds of iden-tity work it does as well.

These accounts go further than those that characterize religion as a mere

ethnic marker. They put substantive religious flesh on the bones of ethnic




10/19

identity. They correctly acknowledge how religion often functions as a power

resource, how religious symbols legitimize identity, and how ethnic

entrepreneurs seek to harness religious meanings. These observations are vital

if we are to push forward debates about the interaction between religion and

ethnicity. And in many cases, religion plays exactly these kinds of legitimizingand sacralizing roles. But ultimately, these are instrumental roles. By treating

religion as a support for ethnicity they downplay the role that religion itself

often plays in constituting ethnicity and reproducing power.

Religion as the Fabric of Ethnicity

Banton argues that the content of ethnic consciousness varies in time and space

and cannot be easily abstracted from its social setting (2000: 482). He correctlypoints out that if a broad definition is employed, then many conflicts could be

classed as ethnic, but that without an appreciation of the multidimensional

nature of social relationships, based on neighbourliness, class, race, religion and

political interest, for example, then a classification of ethnic does not con-

tribute much to our analysis of events or relationships.

Echoing this, Ruane and Todd (2005) provide an alternative conceptual

framework for examining the content of ethnicity. They argue that ethnicity

is a useful practical category, but that it is often a thin one that needs to be

filled up with other substantive content. Perceptions of groupness, they

maintain, are not always based on a feeling of shared descent or kinship. The

ethnic category may also be filled up with religious or linguistic content.

Moreover, they argue that these other categories do not become the (surface)

markers of a (deeper) category of ethnicity. Rather, they partially constitute

the felt significance of the ethnic category, the type of peoplehood invoked

and the values that are linked to it (p. 6). Moreover, Ruane and Todd go on

to suggest that the content of ethnicity is changeable in meaning and function

over time.

These arguments are very significant in the analysis of religious identities.

The content of a specific religion may have an important impact on how a cer-tain ethnic group thinks of itself and what its core values are. This is important

in order not only to understand how a group conceives of itself, but also its rela-

tionships with other groups and the basis of its members actions. In other

words when religious ideas and values help compose identity and action, this is

a different type of identity and action than one based simply on ideas of shared

kinship and specific national or political ideals.

Religious content infuses identities in a variety of ways. First, religion usu-

ally evokes a sense of the sacred. This can add a potent dimension to the already

oppositional nature of identification. In a society with a religious history, it islikely that theological beliefs, which are intrinsically about good and bad, come

into play. This may help explain why some groups in society are more antago-

nistic than others. Religion can provide spiritual resources to explain and justify




11/19

circumstances and events. Reference to the sacred may produce an ideological

certainty that is difficult to create from other resources. But it is not simply a one-

way relationship where people use religion to legitimize boundaries that are

already there; religious beliefs themselves may partially constitute the boundaries.

Second, religions provide specific ideological concepts that may influencethe character of an identity. Religions have particular doctrinal teachings and

moral orientations. Religiously informed concepts, blended with cultural and

historical context, can seep into common-sense understandings of daily life

(Mitchell, 2004). Evangelicalism, for example, has concerns with sexual moral-

ity and an emphasis on individualism (Martin, 1999: 402). These concepts of

morality and individualism deeply influence the operationalization of, for

example, Korean American, Nigerian, Venezuelan and Northern Irish evangel-

ical identities. They inform assumptions about other groups, about work, about

public law and so on. Similarly, within Islam there is a body of legal norms thatprovide the template for Islamic values and society. In short, religions offer spe-

cific ideological concepts to interpret the social world and define the meaning

of the good life.

These ideological concepts may permeate down even to those who are not

religiously devout, but who retain some contact with their religious community.

Even when identities might seem secular, it is worth probing the underlying

sources of their constitution because often latent religious content partially

conditions the way an identity functions. Concepts of Protestant individualism,

for example, may inform even nominal Protestants self-understandings. As one

non-practising Protestant interviewee told Mitchell (2005), her Protestantism is

a way of life and a personal choice that has given her independence, a right

to choose and to think for herself. She presents this in contrast to her Catholic

counterparts whom she says have more pressure and guilt about their religion

due to the strictness and indoctrination of Catholic schools. So specific reli-

gious concepts can be used to fill up the ethnic category even for those who pre-

sent themselves as non-religious.

The institutional dimensions of religiously informed boundaries are also

important. Religions are generally accompanied by powerful institutions that

attempt to spread their influence. This influence often extends into educationsystems and therefore can become a key agency for the transmission of com-

munal identity. Churches seek to give meaning to peoples political experiences

as well as provide leadership. They offer sanctuary and guidance in times of cri-

sis; and often speak up for morality and justice against secular states

(Casanova, 1994). This can give religiously identified groups a powerful insti-

tutional anchor, agent of socialization, organization and leadership.

In addition, religion can be a very effective facilitator of community. Ritual

practices are a key way in which communities enact their imagined groupness.

It is difficult to think of other organizations that could provide a forum to facil-itate regular contact for such a wide spectrum of populations. Other social

activities that are rooted in churches may enhance community organization and

political mobilization. Faith-based voluntary organizations provide much of the




12/19

social care work in European societies. Even when people use churches instru-

mentally, simply to provide a meeting place or foster cultural identity, this can

have unintended religious consequences as people are continually brought into

contact with religious norms, symbols and messages.

Religion has many specific features that can provide substantive content tosocial boundaries. Of course not all societies or identities have a religious basis,

but in societies where there has been a significant religious presence or history,

religion can form a cultural reservoir from which categorizations of self and

other may be derived. Religious traditions provide a wealth of cultural data

from different sorts of values, lifestyles, expected behaviour and decorum to

memorials and rituals (Ruane and Todd, forthcoming). For the most devout,

religion may be important in all of these ways. However even if one does not

practise religion or believe in God, it is possible that religion still reaches into

many areas of everyday life. Very often, where it appears on the surface thatreligion simply marks out a deeper ethnic difference, it is actually playing some

of these extra roles.

It is also important to conceptualize religion as providing substantive eth-

nic content in order to capture the dynamics of ethnic identity change over time.

The ethnic category may be reconfigured by religious changes and this may

change its meaning and function. Descent and kinship may become less impor-

tant in a given ethnic identity and its religious dimensions may be elevated, or

vice versa. In other words religion may influence ethnicity, just as ethnicity

influences religion. The relation between them may be multidirectional rather

than linear, where religion simply props up ethnicity. This is important in help-

ing explain religious as well as ethnic changes.

There are compelling examples that help throw light on how the religious

dimensions of identity can rise and fall over time. In his discussion of Serbian

nationalism Sells (2003: 31213) describes the 1989 re-enactment of the

Serbian Golgotha as injecting a newly zealous religious mythical content to

this story of the nation, and the emergence of a new religious language con-

cerning the Serb Jerusalem. Similar dynamics of religious revival during the

conflict were seen amongst Croat Catholics. The institutions and symbols of

Catholicism not only justified bloodshed, but also provided a framework ofunderstanding redemption and sacrifice in the conflict.

Sells underlines that religious mythology was instrumentalized by nation-

alist actors it did not actualize itself. He speaks of the complicity of religious

figures, the deployment of symbols, the project to create religiously pure

regions. He argues that these are attempts to construct internal religious com-

munity and spirituality through rejection of the other. However, he also argues

(2003: 315) that [o]nce militants had spilled blood in the name of that mythol-

ogy they became dependent on it [o]nce the power of symbols, rituals and

myths was instrumentalised, that power took on a life of its own; those whobegan by manipulating it found themselves its slaves. So Sells analysis also

stresses how religion itself constitutes ethnicity, how, once reawakened, religion

itself becomes substantively salient. Religion became what was signified. This




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provides an excellent insight into how social and political conflicts can rehabil-

itate religion and cause a revival of spirituality.

In a similar vein, Raj (2000: 548) highlights the growth of Hindu societies

in UK universities from the early 1990s. Initially, ethnic entrepreneurs sought to

promote the category of Hindu instead of other problematic Asian, Muslim andblack identities that were ascribed to them. The primacy of religious identity

was invoked, and linked to identity politics, but was not in the first instance

linked to religious ideas of Hinduism. Rather, a more cultural version of

Hinduism was stressed. However, as people began to define what is Hindu?

the religious elements of the ethnic boundary began to emerge more clearly.

Activists began to explain and justify themselves with reference to Hindutva

rather than simply Hinduism. The societies programmes began to redefine their

goals with more emphasis on religion, promoting Hindu unity, propagating the

eternal relevance of the Hindu way of life and underlining the importance of thephilosophy of Hindutva.

Raj points out that these emphases coincide with the rhetoric of South

Asian Hindu nationalist movements; they may also be related to some key

events that happened in Britain at the time. So the newfound promotion of the

religious elements of Hindu identity has social catalysts and political parallels.

However, the fact that Hinduism was being used beforehand as a meaningful

category of self-understanding meant that religious conceptions of identity, or

dharma, a way of life, were already familiar to people. Religion continued to be

socially significant in latent ways and was later able to respond to changing

social conditions. As such, Raj argues that religious revivalism is implicated in

the politics of identity (2000: 550).

The revival of religious identity components happens at an individual as

well as a group level, without ethnic entrepreneurs necessarily catalysing the

transition. Chong (1998: 2668), for example, found that although her respon-

dents initially began to attend Korean American evangelical churches for social

and cultural reasons (such as to maintain social networks and keep up the cul-

ture and language), their newfound participation led to genuine religious con-

versions and religious renewals. The religious content of ethnicity was

reactivated in a time of personal struggle with issues of ethnic identity. Afterthis, religious identity took on a logic of its own and Chongs respondents

actions became simultaneously informed by their evangelicalism and their

Korean cultural identity. The meaning of the ethnic category changed.

These examples demonstrate instances where groups or individuals delib-

erately instrumentalize religion to bolster ethnic identity. After this, the religious

elements of identity can become rehabilitated and take on a life of their own.

There are also cases where religion once removed becomes unconsciously reac-

tivated in the self-understanding of individuals. They are not deliberately har-

nessed, but religious beliefs and practices may spontaneously resurface asindividuals grope to make sense of their unfolding biographies.

Jims story (Mitchell, 2005) helps illuminate the dynamics of the uncon-

scious reactivation of religious identity. This demonstrates the salience of latent




14/19

religious content in what might otherwise might be seen as secular ethnic group

identities. Jim (a pseudonym) is a young, non-churchgoing Protestant loyalist

from Belfast. His father was a Pentecostalist but Jim says he was a trouble-

maker and never made a serious commitment. He describes himself as becom-

ing more moderate in recent years, both religiously and politically. Jim ismotivated by class issues as well as a wider attachment to his community; his

religious identity is secondary. However, in times of political crisis, such as the

perceived Protestant loss after the Good Friday Agreement of 1998, religious

aspects of identification are reactivated. Although Jim now works with

Catholics and considers them to be friends, he describes how his sense of polit-

ical loss, in his words, provokes the triggers of anti-Catholicism in him once

again. Even though he is not a practising Protestant and despite his new-found

relationships with Catholics, political fears cause him to rebound back into

religious ideas about self and other. He finds himself reverting to traditionalreligious categories, suspecting that the Catholic Church and his Catholic col-

leagues have sinister motives. He wonders why he feels that there are right and

wrong religious principles and no compromise between them.

Whilst Jims Protestant loyalist identity is ostensibly a secular one, and

whilst he will show up in no quantitative measure of religiosity, his identity is

at least partially constituted from religious resources. Indeed, religious aspects

of identity may be latent and can be triggered in response to circumstances.

Social and political experiences can impact on an individuals religious journey.

Where there is familiarity with religious ideas, contact with religious institu-

tions or participation in religious activities, for whatever reason, religion

remains in peoples consciousness and may be rehabilitated in response to exter-

nal (or indeed internal) factors. These religious elements of identity make most

sense in times of struggle, but this does not mean that religion merely backs up

a deeper ethnic category. Instead it helps constitute the meaning of that strug-

gle and interpretations of social relationships.

Once these ideas are put back out there into society, they continue to have

their own logic and to reproduce patterns of social relationships, rather than

simply signify them. This is important because an identity constituted from

these kinds of religious resources in the case of Protestant identity, ideas offreedom, individualism and so on is a specific kind of identity. These reli-

giously informed concepts play a major role in social relationships and political

negotiations. To understand their substance is to inch toward understanding

what makes Protestants in Northern Ireland tick. Reducing this to ethnic sym-

bolism or support is to misconstrue how many Protestants see themselves, and

to misunderstand how to communicate with them on their own terms. So, reli-

gious substance matters.

These cases have illustrated how dormant religious ideas become rehabili-

tated in response to social and political conditions. A final example will expli-cate the two-way relationship between religion and ethnicity by outlining a

situation where a primarily religious understanding of identity has enabled

reconfiguration of the ethnic category. Recent interviews by this author with 20




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conservative evangelical Protestants in Northern Ireland show a shift in empha-

sis away from the constitutional question, away from affinity with Britain and

towards an identity more rooted in Protestant faith and moral values (see also

Ganiel, 2004; Mitchell and Tilley, 2004). Continued unity with Britain was con-

strued as just as bad an option as a united Ireland. It was described as a hedo-nistic society whose laws are harmful for evangelicals. A united Ireland was

seen as a less threatening option with the decline in strength of the Catholic

Church and the rise of consumerism. In fact, a majority of interviewees focused

on new opportunities opening up for evangelicalism in the Republic of Ireland.

In many cases, evangelicals were turning to their religious identities instead.

Many interviewees indicated that we are currently in the end times, and that

the Agreement may be a sign of the times. Some said that they had lost interest

in politics and had begun to focus on saving souls, evangelism and conversion.

One says that the passing of the Agreement brought it home to him that time isnow precious as the end times approach, and he now focuses on spreading the

good news rather than his previous political activism. In these cases, the reli-

gious elements of Protestant identity are becoming stronger and the politi-

cal/territorial/nationalist dimensions are weakening. Religion is not simply

being instrumentalized to support Protestant political superiority in Northern

Ireland. Rather ethnic identity is reconfiguring and religion is playing an active

role in this.

In sum, religion often constitutes the fabric of ethnicity. Sometimes groups

or individuals may use religious resources to boost ethnicity, and in many cases,

this reactivates religious dimensions of identity. In these situations, identity

becomes simultaneously informed by religious as well as ethnic content. In

other cases, latent religion, or religion once removed, can be rekindled uncon-

sciously by individuals in response to social and political changes. Sometimes

religious ideas learned in childhood seem to make sense of situations in later life

and can be called upon by individuals groping to understand themselves and

their social relationships. Once rekindled, the religious aspects of identification

may become dominant, they may remain secondary, or they may recede once

again. They may come into play in some situations and not others. The impor-

tant point is not that there is a set pattern of religious reactivation, but ratherthat there is a dynamic two-way relationship between religious and ethnic iden-

tity. Each can activate changes in the other.

Conclusions

This article has argued that there may be more religious causality and content

in certain ethnic identifications than one might think. There is certainly a need

to look beneath surface assumptions that identities are primarily ethnic, andprobe their religious foundations, expressions and implications. Often, there

appears to be a complex two-way relationship between the religious and ethnic

bases of identity, where each can inform and provoke changes in the other. As




16/19

a social construct, religion only has meaning in so far as individuals and groups

give it meaning. In saying that religion is an active identity category, this is not

to suggest that it is somehow itself able to affect changes or inform action.

Rather, it is to argue that individuals and groups often call on substantive reli-

gious content to construct identifications.This is important because religious identifications are different types of

identifications than ones based primarily on ideas of ethnic descent and kinship.

A key property of religion is that it evokes a sense of the sacred. This can add

a potent dimension to the already oppositional nature of identification. The

institutions and ritual practices that religion provides may enhance community

organization and political mobilization. Even when people use churches instru-

mentally, to provide a meeting place or foster cultural identity, this can have

unintended religious consequences. Similarly, even when identities might seem

secular, it is worth probing the underlying sources of their constitution becauseoften latent religious content partially conditions the way an identity functions.

Moreover, whilst there are latent dimensions of religious identity underlying

other identities, religion has the capacity to revive and resurface. Whilst iden-

tity conflicts and other social struggles may stimulate the return of the religious,

once reactivated, religion may take on a logic of its own. Given the continuing

salience of religion in public life, and the ever-increasing emphasis on the nego-

tiated nature of identity, teasing out the relationships between religion and eth-

nicity in modern societies, theoretically and empirically, promises to be a

challenging new area of research.

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Claire Mitchell

Is a lecturer in the School of Sociology, Social Policy and Social Work at Queens

University Belfast. Her research focuses on religion, identity and politics, evangelicalism

and Northern Irish society. She has recently published articles in Sociology, Ethnic and

Racial Studies, Political Studies and Sociology of Religion.

Address: School of Sociology, Social Policy and Social Work, Queens University Belfast,

6 College Park East, Belfast BT7 1LP, Northern Ireland, UK.

E-mail: [email protected]


religious content of ethnic identities

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