Abstract
The increasing embeddedness of religious issues within contemporary global phenomena has increased the role religion plays in migrants’ spiritual, social, and economic lives. Drawing on the findings of the study, conducted within one of the Pentecostal migrant churches in Johannesburg, this paper explored ways in which a (migrant) church shapes a refugee’s motivation to integrate and his resultant quest for a transient alternative belonging and inclusion within diasporic communities through church affiliation. Through interviews with members of the Word of Life Assembly (WOLA), one of the independent churches established by forced migrants in Yeoville, the study revealed that refugees tend to integrate themselves within their own churches, while the refugee church itself – labelled a ‘foreign’ entity by South African community members – works to garner approval and acceptance from South Africans and faith-based institutions. Cultural and linguistic problems were identified as major barriers to a refugee’s attempts to integrate into local churches, thereby becoming important issues that need to be considered in the establishment of migrant churches within the South African host community.
Highlights
In the process of negotiating their livelihoods in host communities, forced migrants – especially those staying in urban areas – have recourse to a wide range of survival strategies, including small business, employment, studies, and use of local assistance channels and remittances from abroad
This suggests that non-Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) church members maintain their membership within the Word of Life Assembly (WOLA) because there is tolerance in respect of the third level, inasmuch as the first two levels – integration into refugee community and spiritual congregation – are at least fulfilled
Four levels of integration were identified within the Church: a refugee integrating into a refugee community, cultural and spiritual integration, the integration of the Church into the South African community in general and host faith-based institutions in particular
Summary
In the process of negotiating their livelihoods in host communities, forced migrants – especially those staying in urban areas – have recourse to a wide range of survival strategies, including small business, employment, studies, and use of local assistance channels and remittances from abroad. Unlike refugees who flee their country of origin due to sociopolitical persecution or war and who cannot return home for fear of persecution, economic migrants are those fleeing their country primarily for economic reasons In terms of both the 1951 UN Convention relating to the Status of Refugees and the 1969 OAU Refugee Convention, economic migrants do not fall under the definition of a ‘refugee’ and are not eligible for refugee status or international protection. Ethnicity refers to the differential and often-negotiable relationship between insiders and outsiders (Bekker 2001:4), ‘autochthons’ and ‘allochthons’ (Konings 2003:53), where it emerges either as an ‘ascribed’ or ‘self-ascribed’ identity (Lindgren 2002:24) within a particular community
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