Paper short abstract:

Based on empirical data produced between March 2020 and September 2022, this reflection aims to demonstrate the complexity of the collaboration between secular structures (EU, Niger State) and religious organisations (CDIR) in social transformation programmes.

Paper long abstract:

The present reflection attempts to propose an analysis of the emergence of religious engineering deployed by a certain number of donors, particularly the European Union through the intermediary of the State of Niger via the HACP (Haute Autorité à la Consolidation de la Paix) and the Ministry of the Interior, in order to reconstitute the category of religion to better regulate the conduct of religious activities on the one hand, and on the other, to promote religious pluralism that excludes any forms of extremism. To do so, it explores the way in which the CDIR (Comité de Dialogue Intra et Inter Religieux), an interreligious dialogue association, was mobilised as a resource for this transformation, and how this involvement was used by CDIR actors to better position themselves in the religious sphere. Indeed, in the present case of religious engineering, beyond the reshaping of religious traditions, the empirical data reveals the instrumentalisation of this collaboration by the religious actors involved in order to confront their religious opponents.