Becoming Missionaries: Gender, Space and Subjectivities in Chinese Christian Communities in the UK

Abstract

In recent years, single young women and married couples migrating from mainland China have constituted a prominent group engaging in ministry careers among Chinese Christian communities in the UK. By investigating how they construct meaning out of their career choices that were entangled in the binaries and contradictions of the past/present, home/diaspora, public/private, men/women and family/self, this study explores the complexity of gender, Christianity and space in a (late) socialist Chinese case, thereby revealing the paradoxical subjectivities of these Chinese ministers. The idea is advanced that apart from a structural demand for clergies from mainland China, the complex interaction between traditional, (late) socialist and Christian gender ideologies has also affected their choices. The interaction works as a ‘transformative mechanism’ which creates a new moral order in terms of gender relations, family relations and work ethics. The new order incurs a patriarchal backlash against women in this group as well as empowering them. This research explores an interesting relationship between feminism, socialism and Christianity.