A Church for Us: Itineraries of Burmese Migrants Navigating in Thailand Through the Charismatic Christian Church
The chapter highlights the importance of revitalized Christianity among Burmese migrants for carving out spaces in a hostile environment in the city of Bangkok and adjacent migrant centers in Thailand. This is done through a portrait of the denominational
- PDF / 310,210 Bytes
- 25 Pages / 419.528 x 595.276 pts Page_size
- 78 Downloads / 176 Views
A Church for Us: Itineraries of Burmese Migrants Navigating in Thailand Through the Charismatic Christian Church Alexander Horstmann A Church
for Us
Religion offers a crucial sanctuary for migrants and refugees who, far from their impoverished and violently changed homes, have to find a place in overtly hostile urban environments. Some one million Burmese migrants find themselves in the very vulnerable position of being in one of Thailand’s migrant centers, where they are often subject to harassment from the police, Thai criminal networks or both. Religion, on the other hand, offers a space where Burmese migrants can embark on leisure activities and take a rare break from their daily work routines. In this article, I argue that Burmese migrants, who usually try to be as invisible as possible, can be visible and heard within the protected space of the Church, singing loudly. Singing is for me a metaphor by which to illustrate the extended agency and expression of spirituality in their new lives, carving out a space in the city (Harvey 2008).
A. Horstmann (*) School of Humanities, Tallinn University, Tallinn, Estonia
© The Author(s) 2017 J. Koning, G. Njoto-Feillard (eds.), New Religiosities, Modern Capitalism and Moral Complexities in Southeast Asia, Religion and Society in Asia Pacific, DOI 10.1007/978-981-10-2969-1_6
121
122
A. HORSTMANN
I join together literature that looks not only at the exploitative aspect of the working relations in which migrants find themselves but also at their aspirations and at the possible ways migrants use religion to extend their agency, as well as literature that looks at the way migrants give Christianity a central place in their lives, looking for security and joy. I find inspiration in Georg Simmel’s argument that, while migrants may drop religion temporarily when coming to the city, they often later return to it to reassemble the fragmented pieces of their selves, and that the Church has a firm place in urban centers because it can strategically adapt to the social conditions of the city as well as to the migrant’s position within that city (see Strhan 2013, p.126). I argue that religion should not be seen merely as interior or private but as a tool with which migrants can carve out spaces. This insight is well illustrated in the landmark study by Johnson and Werbner on female migrants who are on what they call sacred journeys (Johnson and Werbner 2010, pp.205–218). Looking at Asian migration pathways, Werbner and Johnson present fascinating ethnographic material that defies the persistent stereotype that presents religious subjects as docile bodies. They argue that female migrants experiment with new lifestyles and religions in the diasporic space (2010, p.206). Engaging in the places where they live and work, female migrants share conviviality and engender novel spaces of belonging through religious worship, ritual performance and new intimate relationships (ibid.). While women sometimes feel depressed and dispossessed, membership and volunteering in a church gives f
Data Loading...
