Religious Conversion and Imperial Rule

For centuries and across continents religious communities have shaped the ways in which individuals position themselves within their societies. While historians and anthropologists have increasingly focused on the phenomenon of religious conversion, studies on the relationship between conversion and imperial rule have remained sporadic and geographically isolated. To remedy this, the present volume adopts a global and comparative approach. Focusing on efforts to spread Christianity and responses from different faith communities, the authors engage in a debate that goes beyond specific confessions or imperial configurations. The case studies presented here powerfully illustrate the multidirectional nature of religious conversion practices. They demonstrate how local structures both enabled and limited the changes brought about by conversion. The volume also addresses notions of subjectivity within convert communities which shaped their reactions to imperial strategies. "Religious Conversion and Imperial Rule" thus illuminates the interplay between power, conversion, agency, and social transformation.

Ricarda Vulpius is Professor of East European History and a Principal Investigator of the Cluster of Excellence Religion and Politics at the University of Münster. She specialized in the history of the Russian Empire and the history of Ukraine and its entanglements in the 16th to 20th centuries.
Ricarda Vulpius ist Professorin für Osteuropäische Geschichte und Mitglied des Exzellenzclusters Religion und Politik der Universität Münster. Zu ihren Forschungsschwerpunkten gehören die russländische Imperiumsgeschichte und die Geschichte der Ukraine und ihrer Verflechtungen im 16.-20. Jahrhundert.
Guillermo Wilde is Professor of Anthropology and History of Latin America and Principal Investigator at the National Scientific Research Council of Argentina (CONICET). He specializes in the Ethnohistory and the study of religious conversion in missionary contexts of the Iberian World.
Guillermo Wilde ist Professor für Anthropologie und Geschichte Lateinamerikas und leitender Forscher am Nationalen Rat für wissenschaftliche Forschung Argentiniens (CONICET). Er ist spezialisiert auf Ethnohistorie und die Erforschung religiöser Konversion im missionarischen Kontext der iberischen Welt.

Preface
Introduction
Locating the Self, Negotiating the Other: Conversion and Imperial Rule in the Early Modern Period
Ricarda Vulpius and Guillermo Wilde
Section I: Knowledge, Texts, and Translation
Conversion, Evangelization and Indigenous Agency in Colonial Mexico (16th Century). The Florentine Codex as a Space of Negotiation Andrea Maria D'Amato
Opening the Doors to Conversion: The Reformed Mission and Antiquarianism in the Open Door to Hidden Paganism
Benjamin Leathley
Section II: Hybridity and Indigenous Appropriation
Evangelization Struggle on the Margins of the French Empire: Conversion in the Illinois Country in the 18th Century
Thomas Croisez
Adaptation and Ambiguity: Indigenous Engagement with Catholic Devotions in the Jesuit Missions of Spanish Amazonia (1638-1768)
Francismar Alex Lopes de Carvalho
Imperial Catholicism and Indigenous Cosmologies. An Approach to Religious Conversion on the Frontiers of Colonial Latin America
Guillermo Wilde
Section III: Imperial Control and Coercion
Baptism and Bureaucracy: Religious Conversion of the Yakut under 17th- Century Russian Rule
Angelina Kalashnikova
Conversion by Deception: The Case of the Uniates inside the Russian Empire
Barbara Skinner
Conversion as a win-win-situation? Russian Imperial Policies and Kalmyk Strategies of Adaptation in the 18th Century
Ricarda Vulpius
Section IV: Confessional Politics and Individual Agency
Negotiating Faith: Jewish Conversions, Imperial Policies, and Confessional Choices in Russia
Victoria Gerasimova
Armenians, Empire, and the Politics of Conversion in 19th Century Russia
Paul W. Werth
Contributors