Immigrant Religion Research Articles

Religion and minority in Japanese contexts

ABSTRACT This collection brings together five contributions that draw on ethnographic research into a range of cases from Japanese contexts to explore religion and minority from a variety of perspectives. This introduction provides a brief overview of the key questions and themes that the collection addresses. How is minority religion constructed and by whom? What is the impact of minority status on a group or an individual’s marginalisation and exclusion? What are the implications when a particular group, practice, or faction within a larger organisation is defined as ‘minority’? And how do marginalised groups use their minority status to negotiate their place within society or inside their religious community? Taken together, these contributions highlight how minorities emerge within minority groups such as so-called new religions and immigrant religions, how traditional practices or traditions can themselves be minoritised in different social, historical, and geographical contexts, and how minority status can be used as a tool of empowerment as well as exclusion.

The Color of Devotion

This study of race and religion examines the largest population converting to Haitian Vodou in the United States today: blan—foreigners. This article investigates the experiences of white western foreigners, who remain vastly understudied as devotees of “immigrant religions.” As with many conversion narratives, white Americans report becoming initiates into Vodou to deepen divine connections, restore health, develop spiritual sensibility, and establish community. Drawing from ethnographic fieldwork conducted in New England with white American devotees of United States Vodou temples, I explore westerners’ feelings of belonging in the lakou, or ritual kinship system. I explore the tension between white practitioners’ power and privilege and their desire to forge meaningful new spiritual communities, as the development of religious race consciousness for white initiates is not always a linear process. Ultimately, this work illuminates how foreign devotees must cultivate both religious maturity and racial consciousness as they work to acquire “religious citizenship” in Haitian Vodou, a Pan-Africanist tradition that requires all devotees to be dedicated advocates of Black liberation.

Religion and Immigrant Occupational Attainment across Social Integration Contexts in Finland

This article focuses on expanding the existing knowledge on contextual social integration of immigrants based on religion and occupational attainment. Drawing on the theory of social exchange, it identifies that immigrant religion in Finland serves as a marker of ethnic structures and social identify for minority groups of groups. Religion is the main social identity that provides an institutional belongingness that provides access to tangible resources. These claims are supported by a systematic literature review of prior scholarly work that have investigated the area of religion, migration, and social integration. Using empirical data obtained from interviews conducted on selected number of immigrants living in Helsinki, Finland, this article analyzes the effects of religion across social integration contexts in relation to immigrant occupational attainment. Analysis of the interviews find out to a limited extent that in immigrant religious circles social integration is enhanced and there are high chances of connection to occupational opportunities. Similarly, there is an association of discrimination in structural social integration in case of immigrant strong religious expressions. By contrast, this article found out that in case of matching immigrant and natives’ religious practice religious participation and attendance seems to be positively associated with occupational attainment.

Researching religion and migration 20 years after ‘9/11’: Taking stock and looking ahead

This contribution to the special issue on religion and migration reviews two decades of large-scale survey research on changes in immigrant religion and the relationship between immigrants’ level of religiosity and their integration into European societies. The body of work reveals that Muslims in European societies stand out due to their comparatively high levels of religiosity and greater stability in religiosity over time and across immigrant generations. While the comparative picture is rather clear, findings regarding the long-term trend in Muslims’ religiosity and its association with immigrant integration are instead inconclusive. A systematic review of empirical studies of the association of (various indicators of) individual religiosity with immigrant integration reveals positive, negative and non-significant results for all outcomes and domains. Thus, based on the current state of art it is hard to assess whether and why religion forms a bridge or barrier to immigrant integration in Europe. To move the field forward, the contribution ends with a twofold proposal for a research agenda that includes a broadened empirical scope, moving beyond the focus on Sunni Muslims, and a conceptual extension that focuses on differences in reasoning about religion and religious meaning-making as additional, potentially more consistent and more powerful explanation for immigrants’ social relations and positions in their new societies

Religious Spaces of Care in the Postsecular City

This article examines the civic engagement of two Nigerian Pentecostal churches in London: the London Lighthouse and Freedom’s Ark. Firstly, it sets the context by reviewing the literature on immigrant religion and civic engagement, and examining the relationship between faith and social policy during the ‘decade of austerity’ and subsequent COVID-19 pandemic. It then describes the case study churches and outlines their civic activities. Finally, the article considers the characteristics of Nigerian Pentecostal churches that shape their civic activities. The increasing prominence of churches and faith-based organizations in social welfare provision in Britain has led to claims that faith groups are being co-opted into the wider processes of neoliberal governance. Drawing on research conducted in London, I show that in some contexts Nigerian Pentecostal civic activities represent ethical forms of resistance to neoliberal politics, especially those that address issues related to social and economic justice.

Pragmatic Sedăqâ in Nehemiah: Reconciling African Perspectives of Justice and Morality

It has variously been acknowledged that immigrant religions (Christianity and Islam) in Africa, rather than enhancing conscience and morality, have tended to merely exacerbate religious rituals and drive conscience and morality far away from the African society (Knitter & Muzaffar, 2002). The indigenous African society had been administered by instant justice, supervised by the potent and inherently ubiquitous, inescapable deities in the African milieu. This situation formed an incorruptible judicial system which planted a living, conscious fear of crime in the African and formed the basis for a deeply rooted morality. The immigrant religions present the idea of deferred punishment and reward (eschatology) which is completely alien to Africa, and which, in any case, dislodged the African notion of instant justice, until morality finally faded away from the African conscience and consciousness. The Book of Nehemiah presents a perspective of justice ( צ (ְד קָ הָ as response to the criminal obstruction of societal aspirations, which is in line with the African indigenous pragmatic orientation that yielded instant result and enabled the project of post-exilic reconstruction of the walls of Jerusalem to be accomplished. This paper employs a phenomenological perspective in examining justice and morality in Africa in the pre- and postimmigrant religions dispensations, and attempts a reconstruction of the failing conscience and morality in the contemporary African society, using Nigeria in particular as the domain of the study.

Secularisation and the rise of immigrant religions: the case of the Netherlands

Europe and the United States are very different as far as the significance of religion is concerned, both in the private and the public sphere. Whereas autochthon Europe is secularising to a great extent and any growth of religiousness is mainly a matter of immigrants, the United States is the scene of a vivid market of numerous churches, congregations and sects culminating in a high rate of people that belong to a church or religious community and that believe in God. The aim of this paper is to explain this gap between Europe and the United States on the basis of social science theory and theoretical insights derived from (historical) political and cultural geography. It is argued that a different kind of historical political territorialisation (from below in the US versus from above in Europe) in combination with culturally selective settlement (US) is at the centre of the explanation. <b>Sekularizace a nárůst významu náboženství přistěhovalců: případ Nizozemska</b> Pro celosvětový vývoj je charakteristický nárůst významu religií (Berger et al. 1999; Norris & Inglehart 2004), ale v rámci Evropy se jedná spíše o výjimku. Žádný jiný světadíl není v současné době v takovém pokročilém stavu sekularizace a přitom právě Evropa vybudovala v minulosti mnoho nádherných náboženských staveb (katedrály, kostely atd.) a je odpovědná také za rozšíření křesťanství do celého světa. V rámci Evropy patří Nizozemsko k nejvíce sekularizovaným státům. Podle současných výzkumů 61–66 % obyvatel Nizozemska se nehlásí k žádné církvi nebo náboženské komunitě a pouze 16 procent obyvatel navštěvuje církve k pravidelným modlitbám (např. Bernts et al. 2007). Křesťané se stali menšinou s podílem méně než jedné třetiny obyvatel a k tomu ještě okolo 6–7 procent populace se hlásí k nekřesťanským náboženstvím (islám, hinduismus, buddhismus a judaismus). Cílem studie bylo analyzovat dvě kontrastní tendence. Za prvé stanovit přehled současného vývoje procesu sekularizace včetně vybraných metodologických reflexí a za druhé popsat nárůst významu nových náboženských komunit v Nizozemsku se zvláštním zřetelem na islám. Jako modelové území přitom posloužilo město Amsterdam.

The Contexts of Spiritual Seeking: How Ghanaians in the United States Navigate Changing Normative Conditions of Religious Belief and Practice

AbstractTwo concurrent agendas in the sociology of religion explore how conditions of secularism in the United States result in widespread norms of “spiritual seeking”, and how religion functions as a basis of belonging for U.S. immigrants. This study brings these subfields together by asking whether new immigrants from Ghana, West Africa, also exhibit an orientation of spiritual seeking in their religious trajectories, and how they engage with normative conditions of spiritual seeking within institutional contexts. I find strong evidence of spiritual seeking in their narratives, and I identify processes within the social institutions of family and coethnic networks, higher education, and African Evangelical Christianity that support a seeking orientation. I argue for more focus on the counter-impulses of seeking versus dwelling in immigrant religion, and that more studies of religion and culture should explicitly analyze the institutional contexts that mediate between normative culture and trajectories of social practice.

Congregants and Citizens: Religion and Naturalization among US Immigrants

Scholars and pundits have long debated whether religion helps new immigrants integrate politically in the United States. Those who see religion as an integrative institution cite the country’s history of vibrant religious congregationalism that supports connections between the native and foreign born, while critics point to anti-immigrant hostility, Christian nationalism, and patterns of religious membership that can reinforce social segregation. This article aims to adjudicate this debate, using a large sample of survey data, the New Immigrant Survey (NIS), fielded among new legal residents in 2003/2004. I find that religious membership is associated with increased probability of naturalizing in a short (3.5–7 years) timeframe and is stronger for those with greater human capital and income and longer tenure in the United States. Involvement in US-origin congregations also exhibits a stronger effect on naturalization than involvement in national-origin congregations. Additionally, I find that religious minorities, though less likely to be members of congregations, are independently more likely than Christian immigrants to naturalize in the same timeframe. These results are interpreted as support for a view of organized religion as a setting for American identity formation and a basis for mobilizing resources in response to anti-immigrant sentiment. For certain groups, organized religion seems to support a type of selective acculturation that combines American citizenship with the establishment and/or retention of a distinct ethno-religious identity. The article thus affirms, with caveats, the broader relevance of a long tradition of ethnographic scholarship on immigrant religion in the United States.

The surprising politics of anti-immigrant prejudice: How political conservatism moderates the effect of immigrant race and religion on infrahumanization judgements.

Attitudes towards immigrants in the United Kingdom are worsening. It has been posited that these attitudes may reflect covert racial and religious prejudices, particularly among conservatives. To investigate this, two studies examined the role that immigrant race (Black/White; Study 1) and immigrant religion (Muslim/non-Muslim; Study 2) played in immigrant infrahumanization judgements, using political conservatism as a moderating variable. There was a moderating effect of political conservatism; however, it was not in the predicted direction. The results of both studies indicated that immigrant race (Black) and immigrant religion (Muslim) predicted greater infrahumanization when political conservatism was low. Conservatives infrahumanized all immigrants equally (and more than liberals), but liberals were more sensitive to racial/religious biases in their evaluations of immigrants.

Delivered from the Temptation of Smoking: An Examination of Religion and Health Behaviors of New US Immigrants.

This study aims to contribute to the literature on smoking, religion, and health, by analyzing the associations between smoking and health of a sample of US immigrants, who represent many religions, ethnicities, and cultural backgrounds. Immigrants to the USA have better health outcomes than their native-born peers. This paper asserts that the pattern of smoking, influenced by immigrants' religion and religiosity, is key to understanding this phenomenon. This study investigates the relationship between religion and health of new legal immigrants to the USA by analyzing the New Immigrant Survey. The findings suggest that there is a protective relationship between immigrant religion and smoking patterns, both in likelihood of having ever smoked and in quitting smoking.

The Impact of Immigrant Religions on the Nature of Religious Pluralism in the USA and Western Europe

Some of the most significant consequences of transnational immigration is growing religious diversity and finding a way to manage it. This article considers the concept of pluralism, the differences in religious pluralism between America and Western Europe occurring due to immigration, as well as the roles and possibilities of immigrant religions in the process of adapting to the host society. The history of immigration, models of immigrant incorporation and adaption, patterns of religious pluralism and types of secularism strongly vary in the aforementioned regions. Religion in America is a positive resource and a basis for incorporating immigrants into American society, their recognition in public life, assimilation and construction of an American identity. By contrast, in Western Europe immigrant religions, particularly Islam, are perceived primarily as an obstacle to incorporating immigrants into European societies and their recognition in the public domain. This is explained mainly by the secularist mindset of European people in general, their uncertain “private” religiosity in the context of “Euro-secularity”, the European concept of religion’s place in the “private domain”, as well as types of state-religion relations and institutional patterns of recognition which differ from America.

Immigrant Faith: Patterns of Immigrant Religion in the United States, Canada, and Western Europe. By PhilipConnor. New York: New York University Press. Pp. i + 165; figures, tables. Paper, $25.00

Immigrant Faith: Patterns of Immigrant Religion in the United States, Canada, and Western Europe. By PhilipConnor. New York: New York University Press. Pp. i + 165; figures, tables. Paper, $25.00

Strangers No More: Immigration and the Challenges of Integration in North America and Western Europe. By Richard Alba and Nancy Foner. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2015. Pp. 336. $35.00 (cloth); $24.95 (paper).

Strangers No More: Immigration and the Challenges of Integration in North America and Western Europe. By Richard Alba and Nancy Foner. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2015. Pp. 336. $35.00 (cloth); $24.95 (paper).

Immigrant Faith: Patterns of Immigrant Religion in the United States, Canada, and Western Europe

Book Review| October 01 2016 Immigrant Faith: Patterns of Immigrant Religion in the United States, Canada, and Western Europe Immigrant Faith: Patterns of Immigrant Religion in the United States, Canada, and Western Europe. By Phillip Connor. New York: NYU Press, 2014. 192 pp. Methodological appendix, notes, bibliography, and index. $75 (cloth); $22 (paper). Todd Scribner Todd Scribner United States Conference of Catholic Bishops Todd Scribner works at the migration policy office at the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and is author of the recently published book A Partisan Church: American Catholicism & the Rise of Neoconservative Catholics (Catholic University of America Press, 2015). Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Journal of American Ethnic History (2016) 36 (1): 102–104. https://doi.org/10.5406/jamerethnhist.36.1.0102 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Permissions Search Site Citation Todd Scribner; Immigrant Faith: Patterns of Immigrant Religion in the United States, Canada, and Western Europe. Journal of American Ethnic History 1 January 2016; 36 (1): 102–104. doi: https://doi.org/10.5406/jamerethnhist.36.1.0102 Download citation file: Zotero Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All Scholarly Publishing CollectiveUniversity of Illinois PressJournal of American Ethnic History Search Advanced Search The text of this article is only available as a PDF. Copyright 2016 by the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois2016 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

Book Review: Immigrant Faith: Patterns of Immigrant Religion in the United States, Canada, and Western Europe

Book Review: Immigrant Faith: Patterns of Immigrant Religion in the United States, Canada, and Western Europe

Who are these Buddhists and How Many of Them are There? Theoretical and Methodological Challenges in Counting Immigrant Buddhists: A Danish Case Study

Religious demography is generally a challenging endeavor and counting and defining religions and religious identities in an Asian context is notoriously difficult. Buddhists in both Asia and the West have a long tradition of gray-zone religiosity, which means that membership and mono-identity is less common than syncretic engagement and hybrid identity. The immigrant Buddhists in the West are generally far more numerous than the convert and new age Buddhists. Their numbers are, however, extremely difficult to ascertain. This article discusses the methodological and theoretical problems in quantifying immigrant religion and the challenges of operationalizing such constraints into concrete methods. The empirical data derive from the author’s engagement in research on Buddhism in Denmark, in which traditions from both Theravada and Mahayana groups are represented. While concrete figures are suggested, it is also concluded that further empirical research as well as comparison with more contexts are necessary for the continued refinement of usable methods in counting immigrant religion.

Immigrant Faith: Patterns of Immigrant Religion in the United States, Canada, and Western Europe. By Phillip Connor . New York, NY: New York University Press, 2014. x + 165 pp. $75.00 Cloth, $22.00 Paper

Immigrant Faith: Patterns of Immigrant Religion in the United States, Canada, and Western Europe. By Phillip Connor . New York, NY: New York University Press, 2014. x + 165 pp. $75.00 Cloth, $22.00 Paper

Understanding the Veiling of Muslim Women in the Netherlands

In this study we analyze veiling as an Islamic religious practice among Turkish and Moroccan immigrant women in the Netherlands, investigating whether the strength of religious identity, education, contact with natives, and gender role attitudes can explain who veils and who does not. Confirming stereotypical interpretations of the veil as a religious symbol of a strongly gendered religion, we find that a strong Muslim identity and traditional gender role attitudes are positively associated with veiling. While our results seem to support predictions that contact with natives and education relate negatively with wearing a headscarf, these relationships with veiling are more complex. Education strengthens the positive relation between religious identification and veiling, indicating that most highly educated women endorse veiling as a religious practice if they are more religious. Contact with Dutch, however, weakens the association between religious identification and veiling, meaning socially well integrated women veil less often even if they are religious. We discuss our findings against the background of previous qualitative research on veiling as a religious practice and regarding theories on immigrant religion in Europe.

Immigrant faith: patterns of immigrant religion in the United States, Canada, and Western Europe

Contents Acknowledgments ix Introduction: Introducing Immigrant Faith 1 1 Moving Faith 15 2 Changing Faith 43 3 Integrating Faith 68 4 Transferring Faith 93 Conclusion: Weaving Immigrant Faith Together 115 Methodological Appendix 129 Notes 145 Bibliography 155 Index 163 About the Author 165