Genre, conversion personnelle et individualisme en pentecôtisme: les Assemblées de Dieu de Polynésie française (original) (raw)
Alors que les Assemblées de Dieu (ADD) de Polynésie française insistent sur la dimension choisie de l’appartenance au pentecôtisme, par opposition au protestantisme «historique» hérité des parents, les conditions de plausibilité des conversions au pentecôtisme relativisent cette opposition binaire. Les pasteurs des ADD conditionnent en effet la reconnaissance institutionnelle de la conversion personnelle (le baptême par immersion) à la régularisation de la situation conjugale. Ce faisant, ils modifient le processus de conversion en transformant une démarche supposée individuelle en négociation conjugale et familiale. En adoptant une perspective de genre, l’auteure montre comment les modalités de conversion au pentecôtisme et de prises de responsabilités diffèrent selon le sexe et la situation conjugale des individus. Elle s’interroge ensuite sur la signification de l’autonomie et de la liberté individuelles promues par le pentecôtisme par ailleurs associées à une répartition traditionnelle des rôles sexués centrée sur la défense des «valeurs familiales». While the Assemblies of God (AoG) in French Polynesia insist on the dimension of choice in their definition of Pentecostal belonging, in contrast with the ‘historical’ Protestant identity inherited from parents, the conditions under which Pentecostal conversions take place lead us to qualify this simplistic opposition. The institutional recognition of personal conversion (through immersion baptism) by AoG ministers depends, in fact, on the regularisation of the conjugal situation. In so doing, they alter the process of conversion by transforming a supposedly personal decision into a conjugal and family negotiation. Adopting a gender perspective, the author first shows how the modalities of conversion to Pentecostalism and responsibility for such conversion vary significantly according to the gender and conjugal situation of the individual concerned. She goes on to question the signification of the ‘autonomy’ and ‘individual freedom’ promoted by Pentecostalism in so far as these are associated with a traditional division of gendered roles focused on the upholding of ‘familial values’.
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