"No Sunday Business": Navigating Religious Rules and Business Opportunities in the Shipyard Mennonite Settlement, Belize

Abstract

Within the Old Colony Mennonite settlements of Belize, the relationship between religious and economic practices entails a constant navigation of the acceptable, where threats of worldliness come from technology and from contact with outsiders. This paper takes as its focus the business of a butcher in Shipyard settlement, whose daily work testifies to a navigation of both of these potential threats. This entrepreneur uses technologies of energy, transportation, and communication-operated in part by an outside worker-to extend the radius of his meat business. The tense environment of Shipyard's religious diversity frames our discussion of these observations, leading us to reconsider our understanding of the Ordnung and its relation to business activity. To understand the entrepreneur's skillful navigation of rules and opportunities, we use the term "social capital" (Bourdieu 1986;Portes 2010) to reflect on the paradoxical relationship between religious rules and entrepreneurial space-and to consider how the Ordnung can be seen as a spacious (rather than a constrictive) place for Mennonite entrepreneurs.

Beyond methodology: unveiling multisited entrepreneurship

“…During the observations, the student found out that despite the forbidden use of mobile phones or driving trucks with combustion engines was unthinkable because of the strict and fairly conservative ideals of the Old Colony community, the entrepreneur was still able to serve a substantial number of customers in the country Belize. He achieved this with the help of an outsider (not a member of the Old Colony Mennonite), who used a mobile phone to take customer orders, communicate these to the butcher and help distribute the meat all over the country with a truck (Roessingh and Bovenberg, 2016). This example of the Old Order Mennonite entrepreneur illustrates a coping mechanism by the Mennonite to deal with the paradox of being a successful entrepreneur while also adhering to the dominant in-group orientation and desire for separation from the world (Loewen, 1993).…”

When simplicity becomes complexity: negotiations between a Mennonite enterprising community and the Government of Belize

“…Groups" (2010, p. 93). The Ordnung (which translates as regulation or discipline) is the (often unwritten) reflection of the culture of Gelassenheit and contains the daily rules according to which Mennonites are expected to organize their lives (Kraybill and Bowman, 2001;Roessingh and Bovenberg, 2016). The Ordnung applies to many areas of life, such as moral behaviour, dress, the built environment, the use of electricity and technology, drinking or smoking, contact with outsiders, agricultural practices and business conduct.…”

Ethnic boundary dynamics in immigrant entrepreneurship: a Barthian perspective

“…Internal debates about worldliness erupt with some regularity in Mennonite communities, as their members find themselves needing to adjust to changing times while attempting to adhere to the timeless interpretation of the Scripture referred to as Ordnung. Ordnungtranslated as regulation, or disciplinesummarizes the behavioural expectations of the local church body on topics such as fashionable clothing, gambling, taking photographs, technology use, participation in the wider society, and more broadly in expressing values like obedience, humility, and simplicity (Roessingh and Bovenberg 2016;Kraybill 2010).…”