1. religion and spirituality

Promised Lands and Scattered Tribes: Spiritual Aspirations and Counter Worlds in
Modern Mass Migration
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Research Question
The project is to examine modern mass migration as a particular form and expression of
spiritual aspiration and as a means to enhance human life. While previous research has
primarily focused on monetary challenges or assets of migration (economics), matters of
integration and social cohesion (sociology), or a hybridization of identities or cultural
production (cultural anthropology) the project sets out to develop a sociology of religion
perspective on migration which pays due attention to the role of religious imaginaries in
fostering and structuring migration processes.
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Migration has been among the first social strategies of mankind to enhance life: drought,
flooding and other natural disasters as well as every kind of human or animal enemies have
been significant ‘push-factors’ from the early days on. Along with the emergence of more
holistic worldviews and spiritual reasoning, however, utopian visions of a “promised land”
have gained momentum as ideational driving forces and ‘pull factors’ to leave the mediocrity
of one´s home and venture for a better world. These visions of enhancement may, but need
not be explicitly religious and can include the wish for freedom of religion or speech (e.g. in
case of religious minorities) as well as more worldly hopes for the peace and well-being of
future generations. At any rate, however, they dwell on an emphatic notion of the future
‘place to be,’ thus creating a counter-world to a given status quo.
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The proposition that the cognitive dissonance between status quo and counter-world provides
sufficient reason and motivational energy for emigration is neither very original nor thought
provoking. Within the general framework of the Enhancing Life Project another research
questions seems more promising: How do concepts of enhancement change after the counterworld has become the actual world? Consequently, the proposed project will focus on
notions of enhancement in the process of immigrants re-embedding themselves in the country
of residence.
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State of Research and Research Gap
In the last two decades migration has been a booming topic in a number of academic
disciplines including the social sciences, economics and demography as well as cultural
anthropology, religious studies and literature studies. Broadly speaking, social scientific and
economic studies have addressed the question of how the countries of arrival can deal with
and make use of sociocultural heterogeneity induced by migration. While economists have
tried to measure the impacts of migration on national economies (Sjaastad 1962; Borjas
1990) or to estimate transnational remittances and their potential for development in the
countries of origin (Taylor 1999), sociologists have been concerned about the social and
structural integration of migrants. A focal question in this regard was whether structural
integration, i.e. successful inclusion into the educational system and labor market of the
country of arrival would go hand in hand with cultural assimilation. From its very beginning,
this debate focused on ethnic or religious forms of migrant self-organization and has brought
about a number of academic metaphors some of which have found their way into public
debate: While some authors have warned that migrant organizations may become a “mobility
trap” for their members (Wiley 1967) by creating an ethnic economy that would prevent
socio-economic upward-mobility (Elwert 1982, 718-720), others have put forward an idea of
immigrant groups as “ethnic colonies” (Heckmann 1992, 97-98) or “cultural enclaves,”
which might provide refuge and recreation, but are bound for social and cultural assimilation
(Park/Burgess 1969). In contrast to these deficit-oriented perspectives, more recent
approaches have pointed to the specific bridging social capital (Wuthnow 2002) and cultural
brokerage of religious migrant communities (Baumann 2015, in print; Nagel 2015, 15).
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Beyond any doubt, these contributions have their merits in understanding the dynamics of
migrant self-organization and the interaction of religious migrant groups with their respective
host societies. At the same time, they have largely neglected the role of religious imaginaries
in structuring migration biographies as well as the building and maintenance of religious
communities. To put it boldly: where scholars (predominantly from social anthropology and
religious studies) took religion as an ideational factor seriously, they did so in order to
understand individual religious identities (Nökel 2002) or ‘hybrid’ modes of cultural and
religious reproduction (Vertovec 1999; Levitt 2007). What is still lacking, however, are
attempts to identify and classify religious (in the sense of bound to a distinct religious
tradition) or spiritual (in the sense of involving a more general notion of transcendence)
aspirations and their transformation in the process of migration. One of the rare examples in
this regard is a dissertation on utopian concepts of migrants (Castro Varela 2007). The author
sets out to analyze what she calls “utopian fragments” in the self-perception of female second
generation migrants. In her understanding, utopias are normative visions with a capacity for
(political) mobilization (ibid., 13). Unfortunately, she does not account for any sort of
religious or spiritual connotations in these visions. Moreover, the focus on the second
generation does not pay off as the respondents tend to portray Germany as the utopian
country of their parents (ibid., 212). Hence, it seems important to address first generation
migrants as an important target group even though it might entail some methodological
challenges (see below).
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The framework of the Enhancing Life project offers a number of conceptual tools to address
the research gap outlined above: In the context of the proposed project, spiritual laws might
refer to the internal coherence of migration self-concepts and world views which may be
ascribed to some divine (“God has put me where I am”) or supernatural entity (“fate has
something in store for me”). In contrast, spiritual aspirations might indicate both religious
interpretations of emigration (“coming here was my vocation”) and a new, transcendent
orientation in the country of arrival. Last, but not least, counter-worlds might refer to utopian
imaginaries of the country of arrival as a promised land as well as nostalgic idealizations of
the country of origin as mythical homeland.
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Main Hypotheses
The project will empirically explore a variety of dimensions of enhancement in a postmigration setting along four hypotheses:
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Hypothesis 1 [Migration and Redemption]: The achievement of worldly goals through
migration fosters the creation of a new extramundane counter-world. Having established
themselves in the country of arrival, immigrants might experience a ‘soteriological turn.’ As a
consequence, practices of personal or collective salvation may gain importance, which may
include charitable giving, extended ritual exercise or other efforts, reaching from pilgrimage
over missionary activity unto activist and even violent forms of religious activism. While
migration studies have repeatedly pointed to an alleged intensification or radicalization of
religious world views and practices in a migration setting (Bielefeldt/Heitmeyer 1988), they
have limited religion to a dependent variable and did not sufficiently focus on the spiritual
conditions of this transformation. In contrast to materialist macro-explanations of religious
radicalization being a result of deprived socio-economic conditions and a merely
psychological reconstruction of the micro-determinants of radicalization, the proposed
project will explore religious intensification as one potential result of a soteriological turn in
the context of migration. Conceptually, this hypothesis relates to sociological debates about
value change and post-materialism as put forward by Ronald Inglehart (Inglehart/Norris
2004) and to Thomas Luckmann´s distinction between different levels of transcendence
(Luckmann 1991).
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Hypothesis 2 [Temporal Redirection]: The counter-world may be projected backwards in time
through the idealization of a distant homeland. Ever since the Israelite Diaspora in Babylon
migrant groups have deplored their displacement and created a sense of community by
reference to an ideal place of origin. Hence, biblical and other religious traditions may supply
specific narratives or patterns of interpretation to make sense of a migration experience with
reference to a distant past. The proposed project is to explore and categorize what might be
called applied or everyday theologies of migration in the light of their specific traditional
background and their actual plausibility structures. In doing so, it will connect with recent
debates on migration and diaspora in religious studies (Vasquez 2008) and cultural
anthropology (Cohen 2008).
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Hypothesis 3 [Reflexive Enhancement]: Religious pluralization and encounter may enhance
spiritual aspirations and the reflexivity of theological reasoning. Modern immigration
societies are often marked by a plural religious field and a well-developed academic theology
(of the established religious traditions). In contrast to public debates being obsessed with an
alleged conservative and narrow-minded scope of immigrant religiosity, these conditions may
create an opportunity structure to deepen the reflexivity of theological reasoning and thus
enhance spiritual aspiration through a deeper understanding of spiritual laws. Along with the
self-organization of religious migrant communities abstract religious diversity is likely to be
translated into concrete inter-religious encounter. Be it spontaneous or institutionalized, interreligious communication is a creative challenge to all religious traditions to explore their
margins and deepen their self-understanding. This is especially true for those groups who
have turned from a religious majority to a religious minority. Conceptually, this hypothesis is
related to debates on religious pluralization and vitalization in the so called Economics of
Religion (Stark/Finke 2000) and it can also be connected to recent discussions about a 'postsecular' capacity of translating religious ideas into more general values (Habermas 2008).
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Hypothesis 4 [Cosmopolitan Enhancement]: Migration bears a chance of building and
enhancing a global network of exchange and meaning (“Sinn”). As a matter of fact,
processes of mass migration are apt to transform the global spiritual landscape. Persisting
simultaneously in different places, religious migrant communities can become important hubs
for cross-border flows of theological concepts as well as religious experts and commodities.
In this regard they can serve not only as engines of religious innovation (Nagel 2012; 2013),
but perhaps even as laboratories for a value based world society (“Weltgesellschaft”). In
contrast to a widespread political suspicion against the transnational scope of migrant
communities the proposed project seeks to investigate their multilocal shape as a resource of
enhancement beyond the boundaries of given nation states. This hypothesis is linked to social
anthropological debates on the transnational circulation of religious goods (Levitt 2007) as
well as neo-institutionalist discussions on the emergence of a world society (Meyer 2010).
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Research Methodology
Being rooted in a social science approach the proposed project primarily aims at original
empirical insights regarding the spiritual laws and counter-worlds underlying contemporary
processes of migration. Given the explorative nature of the research question and hypotheses
as outlined above, the project will rely on open methods of data generation and inductive
strategies of interpretation. It is important to note that the unit of analysis will be religious
imaginaries and narratives of migration whereas the sampling units will be individual persons
as well as groups with a firsthand migration experience. Subsequently, both the collection and
interpretation of data will be organized in two parallel and interrelated tracks:
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In the first track, relevant data will be generated by narrative biographical interviews with
immigrants from different contexts (see below). These interviews will involve as few stimuli
as possible in order to bring about not only issues and contents, but also the narrative
structures through which respondents conceive of their migration history. One stimulus will
be material objects or media which the respondents are asked to bring along and which they
associate with their country of origin. These artifacts are to function as cognitive anchors in
order to avoid too strong a retrospection bias. Another stimulus will be an ego-centered
network map (Scheibelhofer 2006). The map will be used to document relationships to
significant others in four spheres which are organized along a temporal (past and present) an
a local axis (country of origin and country of arrival). The analysis of these data will rely on
narratological approaches as put forward by Fritz Schütze in conjunction with strategies of
discourse analysis (Brown 2003) and network analysis (Wolf 1993).
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In the second track, the empirical investigation will concentrate on migrant groups rather than
individual persons. Data collection will involve focus group discussions with three to five
members of six to eight religious migrant organizations. The added value of these discussion
groups for the overall research design is to disclose collective epistemes and ‘institutional
myths’ connected to the migration context (Meyer 1977). In order to relate the empirical
tracks to each other, one member of each discussion group will be invited for a biographical
interview. Just as the narrative interviews, focus group discussion will involve as few external
stimuli as possible to avoid reactivity and to bring forth the emic notions and concepts of the
group. It will be complemented with an analysis of internal documents, such as sermons,
memoranda and mission statements which should allow further insights into the spiritual laws
and imaginaries upon which the collective identity of religious migrant communities is built.
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The sample will include immigrants from a variety of local, social, religious and situational
contexts. Local contexts mainly refer to different countries of origin, but also to different
forms of settlement in the country of residence whereas social contexts reflect constellations
of demographic attributes, such as gender, education or employment. Religious contexts refer
to different religious affiliations or trajectories including non-religious self-concepts. Special
emphasis will be given to –what I call– ‘experienced minorities’, i.e. the distinction between
respondents belonging to the religious majority or a minority group in their country of origin.
Finally, situational contexts refer to different motivational settings of emigration (e.g. labor
migrants, refugees, expatriates) and the possibility or impossibility to move back to the
country of origin. Since the overall research design of the proposed project is inductive and
explorative, it will rely on a qualitative and typological mode of generalization (rather than
statistic inference). Consequently, the sampling cannot be randomized or reasonably aim to
represent a given population of immigrants. Instead, it involves a continuous and reflexive
process of selection along the criteria of maximum variation across contexts (see above) as
well as theoretical saturation (Glaser/Strauss 2012, 45-52).
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Work Program
The work program of the proposed project will be organized around a number of external and
internal milestones. It would commence with the first residency seminar (1), which provides
an opportunity to discuss the general research design and to make adjustments in order to
achieve better synergies with other projects. Immediately after the seminar relevant groups
will be identified on the basis of the comparative criteria outlined above as well as pragmatic
considerations (A). After a pre-test of the individual interview and group discussion
procedure (B), the first wave of data collection (C/D) as well as the document analysis (I)
and subsequent interpretation can start in the third quarter of the project.
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The analysis of these data in the framework of the Enhancing Life Project will also be part of
a graduate research seminar in the spring term 2016 (4). This seminar can provide a starting
point for the systematization and presentation of interim results (E), which would also feed
into the second residency seminar (2). In the second year of the project there will be a second
wave of interviews and group discussions (F/G). In contrast to the open sampling strategy in
the beginning, this wave would concentrate on contrasting cases in order to expand the
comparative foundation of the project.
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It is followed by another six months of interpretation and a systematic documentation of the
empirical results (H), which will also inform the second (undergraduate) seminar which will
deal with conceptual matters of migration, religion and enhancement in a more
comprehensive manner (5). As the last residency seminar will be a good occasion to present
and discuss some of the final results in the context of the overarching Enhancing Life Project
(3) it is also an important impulse for the compilation and finalization of the book manuscript
in the first half of 2018 (J/6). It is planned to propose the publication to the book series
“Global Diversities” (Palgrave) until the last residency seminar.
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Relation to Enhancing Life
The proposed project seeks to analyze migration as a particular pattern or expression of
spiritual aspirations aiming at the enhancement of human life. In doing so, it will empirically
explore different concepts of spiritual laws and counter-worlds and their explicit and implicit
religious connotations. These may include the hope for a better life or 'promised land' under
conditions of deprivation, longing for an idealized homeland under conditions of 'diaspora' as
well as an explicitly soteriological turn under conditions of saturation or disappointment.
With its focus on the spiritual and religious implications of modern mass migration the
project does not only help to fill an important research gap in the social scientific study of
migration, but complements the portfolio of case studies under the umbrella theme of
Enhancing Life with a highly relevant research topic and social phenomenon. It may
therefore contribute to the overall success of the Enhancing Life Project, increase its visibility
and underline the capacity of its conceptual framework to shed light on actual and urging
development in modern societies.
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Internally, it may contribute to a further development and comparative systematization of
some of the key concepts of Enhancing Life. First, processes of migration form an ideal case
to disentangle the temporal and local dimensions of counter-worlds. The “distinction between
present conditions and possible states of affairs” makes up what might be called the inherent
potentiality of migration between disembedding, liminality and re-embedding. As noted
earlier, the respective counter-world may be subject to change across the different stages of
the migration process: e.g. utopias of the country of arrival as ‘the promised land’ can be
disenchanted; likewise, the actual (or historical) country of origin can be transfigured as
mythical heterotopia. Second, the case of migration offers an opportunity to learn more about
the dialectics of spiritual laws between structuring and orienting human behavior on the one
hand and deep transformations on the other hand. In the country of arrival immigrants may
literally find their worldly and religious rules turned upside down or called into question.
Hence, the migration setting creates a need to move spiritual laws from latency to explicit
reflection and thus fosters theological productivity. Moreover, spiritual laws may be subject
to unconscious transformation along with changing plausibility structures bound to place (e.g.
country of origin vs. country of arrival) or time (e.g. first generation vs. second generation).
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Implications to Other Fields & Overall Significance
Albeit the proposed project is rooted in a social science methodology, its focus on the
religious imaginaries and narratives regarding migration has a lot to offer for an
interdisciplinary dialogue, which goes far beyond migration studies. Within the research
context of migration studies, it may not only bring religion back in, but could make a case
(and provide concrete categories) for a more holistic understanding of migration processes
beyond prevailing rational choice explanations. Moreover, the project strongly builds on and
seeks to (re-)cultivate the exchange between sociology and theology. While this exchange
used to flourish in the founding days of modern sociology it has fallen asleep and given way
to formalistic and technocratic approaches to society and social change. It might therefore
profit considerably from a theological perspective on the religious and cultural deep grammar
of recent developments. Vice versa, theologians may be interested to learn, how their sources
and concepts are processed in ‘real life,’ which might help academic theology to make itself
relevant for and understood by more people.
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Last, but not least, the project may become significant for both academic and public
discussions about religion and migration. Academically, it may help to adjust the materialist
or functionalist bias of current debates and complement them with a more culturalist
approach which pays due attention to religious patterns of interpretation. With regard to a
broader public the eulogic perspective on enhancement can help to overcome the defensive
and deficit-oriented shape of discourses on migration and integration and to implement a
new, more productive, heuristic of hope.