Debating Religion and Forced Migration Entanglements

This open access book brings into dialogue emerging and seasoned migration and religion scholars with spiritual leaders and representatives of faith-based organizations assisting refugees. Violent conflicts, social unrest, and other humanitarian crises around the world have led to growing numbers of people seeking refuge both in the North and in the South. Migrating and seeking refuge have always been part and parcel of spiritual development. However, the current 'refugee crisis' in Europe and elsewhere in the world has brought to the fore fervent discussions regarding the role of religion in defining difference, linking the ‘refugee crisis’ with Islam, and fear of the ‘Other.’ Many religious institutions, spiritual leaders, and politicians invoke religious values and call for strict border controls to resolve the ‘refugee crisis.’ However, equally many humanitarian organizations and refugee advocates use religious values to inform their call to action to welcome refugees and migrants, provide them with assistance, and facilitate integration processes. This book includes three distinct but inter-related parts focusing, respectively, on politics, values, and discourses mobilized by religious beliefs; lived experiences of religion, with a particular emphasis on identity and belonging among various refugee groups; and faith and faith actors and their responses to forced migration.

“This volume casts new light on an age-old issue--the role of religion in forced migration. Gozdziak and Main have brought together articles focused on the intersection of politics, religion and asylum; the lived religious experiences of the displaced; and the role of faith actors in responding to forced migration. With chapters by both academics and practitioners, Debating Religion and Forced Migration Entanglements contributes immensely to our knowledge of forced migration and religion.” (Susan Martin, Donald G. Herzberg Professor Emerita of International Migration, Georgetown University)

“Debating Religion and Forced Migration Entanglements is a welcome addition to the expanding literature on religion and forced migration that has emerged over the past two decades. It both expands the theoretical framing of how we think about the religion and forced migration nexus and enriches the available bank of case studies by drawing on an impressive array of materialspanning Norway to Zimbabwe to the United States and beyond. By combining perspectives from both advocates and scholars, this book breaks down the false dichotomy between them. “(Dianna Shandy, Professor of Anthropology, Macalester College and Scholar-in-Residence, Elon University. Author of Nuer American Passages: Globalizing Sudanese Migration.)

“The intersection of religion and migration is one of the most important and yet underexplored questions of our times. Bringing in conversation scholars with spiritual leaders and NGO representatives, this volume provides a much-needed contribution to understanding how religion shapes and is shaped by the lived experience of refugees, faith-based organizations, and ordinary people. Interrogating the ‘compelling, competing, and contradictory’ manifestations of religion, the contributors bring us through a journey where ethnocentrism, trauma, and persecution cross path with hope, solidarity, and spirituality, thus shedding lighton the complexities of the current refugee crisis. An essential reading for both academics and practitioners.” (Luca Mavelli, Reader in Politics and IR at the University of Kent, UK. Author of Neoliberal Citizenship: Sacred Markets, Sacrificial Lives (OUP, 2022).)

Elżbieta M. Goździak is Visiting Professor in the Center for Migration Studies, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poland, and Adjunct Lecturer at Georgetown University, Washington, DC. From 2002 to 2018, she was Research Professor at the Institute for the Study of International Migration (ISIM) at Georgetown. In 2016, she was the George Soros Chair of Public Policy at the Central European University in Budapest, Hungary. Previously, she served as an editor-in-chief of International Migration. Her recent books include: African Migration to Thailand: Race, Mobility, and Integration (co-edited with Supang Chantavanich, 2022); Human Trafficking as a New (In)Security Threat (2020); Europe and the Refugee Response: A Crisis of Values? (co-edited with I. Main and B. Suter, 2020); Children and Forced Migration: Durable Solutions during Transient Years (co-edited with Maris O. Ensor, 2017); Contested Childhoods: Growing Up in Migrancy (co-edited with Marie Louise Seeberg, 2016); andTrafficked Children and Youth in the United States: Reimagining Survivors (2016).

Izabella Main is Associate Professor in the Department of Anthropology and Ethnology at Adam Mickiewicz University, Poland, and Director of the Centre for Migration Studies. In 2019 she was a Fulbright Senior Scholar in ISIM at Georgetown University, USA. She authored three monographs and more than 30 chapters and journal articles. She co-edited several volumes: Europe and the Refugee Response: A Crisis of Values? (with Elżbieta M. Goździak and Brigitte Suter, 2020); Not Useful Enough: The Struggle of Immigrants in the Local Labor Market (with Natalia Bloch and Karolina Sydow, 2015); In health and illness. Research in medical anthropology and other fields (with Danuta Penkala-Gawęcka and Anna Witeska-Młynarczyk, 2012); and Refugees: The Theory and practices (with Izabela Czerniejewska, 2009).