Religion, Race and Migrants’ Integration in Italy: The Case of Ghanaian Migrant Churches in the Province of Vicenza, Veneto (original) (raw)
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How religion shapes immigrants' integration: the case of Christian migrant churches in Italy
Current Sociology, 2021
This paper investigates the relationship between migrant integration process and religion by the analysis of participation in churches established into the city of Milan. While in Europe most of the public opinion and literature is focused on Islam, and religion is often viewed as an impediment and barrier to integration, this work wants instead to discuss the ways in which religion serves migrants’ needs into receiving society, acting as a social bridge. Combining qualitative data collected in six Christian migrant Churches, three Catholic and three Protestant, the paper explains how religious communities have become significant urban hubs for immigrants, providing opportunities to socialize, developing welfare services, supplying places for family activities, as well as moral guidance in a diverse society. By detailing practical and social functions of churches, this article shows how religion represents an alternative and mediating force, able to support migrants’ integration, a role which is still understudied in Europe.
THE CHRISTIAN SUPPORT NETWORKS FOR IMMIGRANTS IN PALERMO
2014
Based on a fieldwork conducted in Sicily, this paper analyses how, when faced with the emergence of immigration, Christian organisations in Palermo become involved with the migration issue, notably thanks to the pioneering commitment of certain clerics. It draws attention to the heterogeneous nature of the Christian sphere, the internal secularisation of the religious organisations working with migrants, and the transformations of the church-related associative sector from a volunteering to professional expertise model. In sum, the capacity for organisational and ideological adaptation of religious organisations has enabled them to retain social control of the territory by becoming inescapable stakeholders in the migration issue. This study also identifies the practices and the know-how of the actors involved in these organisations, and singles out the motives that lead them to engage with these organisations and the meaning they attach to their implication
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HTS Teologiese Studies / Theological Studies, 2021
Contribution: This research will contribute to determining the relationship between the church and migration for identity formation. The question I wish to explore is how the church can respond to the quest for identity which shapes the social welfare and cultural coexistence of the South African society and migrants in post-apartheid South Africa. Because of the complexity of identity and the effect that migration has (had) on shaping identity, I will first provide a description of migration and identity. The article will then address the factors that cause migration and the possible ways in which migration can shape identity. A brief discussion of a theology of migration will be introduced. This will be followed by a critical discussion of how the church as a pilgrim community can contribute to identity formation and the peaceful coexistence of differentiated people.
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It was only in the 1900s that the Catholic Church began to concern itself systematically with the evangelisation of ‘Nomads’. The pastoral strategies did not develop as a monolithic set of actions within the Catholic Church; rather, they varied in relation to specific events and showed considerable diversification. The article discusses this complexity and the interplay between different imageries about the Roma and Sinti and different evangelisation modalities. Eventually, it identifies three active lines which operated within the Catholic Church: the Church of ‘projects’ for integration, the Church that evangelises, and the Church that ‘smells of sheep’. Each line built on different categorisations of Roma and Sinti and proposed different pastoral strategies. The article sums up the history of each line, their evolution and their ‘evangelisation imagery’ by evoking the actions of three pioneer priests who, as of the 1950s, started pastoral action among Roma and Sinti in Italy.
Objectives. Scholars of immigrant integration generally agree that the success or failure of the integration of immigrants in the host society is determined by the course followed by the second-generation migrants. This research investigates if Ghanaian churches in Amsterdam bond Ghanaian second-generation migrants to their ethnic group and/or bridge them to the mainstream Dutch society. The study of the effect that social capital generated within Ghanaian churches has on the process of assimilation of Ghanaian second-generation migrants in Amsterdam is relevant because of the recent arrival and rapid increase in Ghanaian immigrants and Ghanaian Christian churches in Amsterdam. Material and methods. This work is carried out through ethnographic research methodology of life history interviews, participant observation, informal conversation and in-depth semi-structured interviews. Results and conclusions. The findings show that bonding social capital within some Ghanaian churches in Amsterdam breeds intergenerational intra-marriage rather than intermarriage. Moreover, the research reveals that the religious-cultural identity formed by some of the analysed Ghanaian second-generation migrants contests the politico-legal understanding of citizenship bound to the nation-state and they call for citizenship of participation in everyday life which is marked by equality of rights. The notion of immigrant integration as defined in this research is contested by some of the analysed Ghanaian second-generation migrants that result from their experience of discrimination in the mainstream Dutch society. The enforcement of social control mechanisms on the choice of spouse in Ghanaian churches in Amsterdam is gendered, as the pressure weighs more on the female respondents than the male ones.