November 12, 2009
The Religious Lives of Migrant Minorities: Great Britain, Malaysia, and South Africa
Immigrant minority groups frequently face discrimination from their host societies on the basis of differences of national origin, race, culture, and religion. But religion can also provide identities, connections, resources and practices that can facilitate immigrants' adaptations and integration into new contexts. To improve understandings of religion in the day-to-day lives of international migrants, the SSRC Project on the Religious Lives of Migrant Minorities investigated the roles of Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism for immigrants settled in Malaysia, South Africa, and Great Britain. The conference offered preliminary comparative findings from the research.
This event was cosponsored by the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace and World Affairs, the
Institute for the Study of International Migration, and the
Social Science Research Council.
The conference was made possible through the support of the
Luce/SFS Program on Religion and International Affairs.
Session I Cross-Site Comparative Reflections (1:30-3:15pm)
Chair: Susan Martin, ISIM, Georgetown
Welcome
(Tom Banchoff, Berkley Center)
Introduction of the Project
(Josh de Wind, SSRC)
Migrant and Spiritual Journeys
(José Casanova, Berkley Center)
Immigrant Sacred-Secular Place-Making
(Manuel Vasquez, University of Florida)
Migrant Circulations
(Kim Knott, Leeds University)
Open Discussion
Session II: Thematic Site Presentations (3:30-5:00pm)
Chair: Jose Casanova
Kuala Lumpur: Journeys
(Diana Wong, Universiti Kebansaan Malaysia)
London: Place-Making
(Ann David and David Garbin, Roehampton University)
Johannesburg-Durban: Circulation
(Samadia Sadouni, Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research)
Response
(Susan Martin, Georgetown)
Open Discussion
Featuring
José Casanova is one of the world's top scholars in the sociology of religion. He is a professor at the Department of Sociology at Georgetown University, and heads the Berkley Center's Program on Globalization, Religion and the Secular. He has published works in a broad range of subjects, including religion and globalization, migration and religious pluralism, transnational religions, and sociological theory. His best-known work, Public Religions in the Modern World (1994), has become a modern classic in the field and been translated into five languages, including Arabic and Indonesian.