Typically, scholars approach migrants’ religions as a safeguard of cultural identity, something that connects migrants to their communities of origin. This ethnographic anthology challenges that position by reframing the religious experiences of migrants as a transformative force capable of refashioning narratives of displacement into journeys of spiritual awakening and missionary calling. These essays explore migrants’ motivations in support of an argument that to travel inspires a search for new meaning in religion.
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9 | (2) |
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11 | (24) |
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Human Mobility as Engine of Religious Change |
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Section 1 Mobile Religious Practices |
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35 | (36) |
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Spiritual Nationalism and the Proselytizing Missions of Global Yoga |
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3 Renewed Flows of Ritual Knowledge and Ritual Affect within Transnational Networks |
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71 | (30) |
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A Case Study of Three Ritual Events of the Xinghua (Henghua) Communities in Singapore |
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4 Liberalizing the Boundaries |
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101 | (28) |
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Reconfiguration of Religious Beliefs and Practice amongst Sri Lankan Immigrants in Australia |
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Section 2 Transnational Proselytizing |
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5 From Structural Separation to Religious Incorporation |
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129 | (24) |
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A Case Study of a Transnational Buddhist Group in Shanghai, China |
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153 | (24) |
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Naga Missionaries as Spiritual Migrants and the Asian Experience |
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7 Religion, Masculinity, and Transnational Mobility |
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177 | (24) |
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Migrant Catholic Men and the Politics of Evangelization |
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8 Helping the Wounded as Religious Experience |
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201 | (20) |
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The Free Burma Rangers in Karen State, Myanmar |
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Section 3 Refashioning Religiosity in the Diaspora |
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221 | (22) |
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Notes on Sri Lankan Transnational Workers and the Migrant Chaplaincy in Italy |
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243 | (28) |
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The Paradox of Empowerment among Filipino Catholic Migrants in South Korea |
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271 | (32) |
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The Devotional Sivaist Esthetic Matrix and the Creation of a Diasporic Hinduism in North Sumatra |
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303 | (12) |
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What Makes Asian Migrants' Religious Experience Asian? |
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| References |
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315 | (26) |
| Index |
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341 | |
Bernardo Brown is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the International Christian University in Tokyo, Japan. He obtained his Ph.D. in Cultural Anthropology from Cornell University and has recently edited with Michael Feener, "Configuring Catholicism in the Anthropology of Christianity" Brenda S. Yeoh is Provost's Chair Professor in the Department of Geography at the National University of Singapore. Most recently she has co-authored Contested memoryscapes: The Politics of Second World War Commemoration in Singapore (Ashgate, 2016), Transnational Labour Migration, Remittances and the Changing Family in Asia (Palgrave Macmillan 2015) and Return: Nationalizing Transnational Mobility in Asia (Duke University Press, 2013).
