Debating Religion and Forced Migration Entanglements

This open access book brings into dialogue emerging and seasoned migration and religion scholars with spiritual leaders and representatives of faith-based organizations assisting refugees. Violent conflicts, social unrest, and other humanitarian crises around the world have led to growing numbers of people seeking refuge both in the North and in the South. Migrating and seeking refuge have always been part and parcel of spiritual development. However, the current 'refugee crisis' in Europe and elsewhere in the world has brought to the fore fervent discussions regarding the role of religion in defining difference, linking the ‘refugee crisis’ with Islam, and fear of the ‘Other.’ Many religious institutions, spiritual leaders, and politicians invoke religious values and call for strict border controls to resolve the ‘refugee crisis.’ However, equally many humanitarian organizations and refugee advocates use religious values to inform their call to action to welcome refugees and migrants, provide them with assistance, and facilitate integration processes. This book includes three distinct but inter-related parts focusing, respectively, on politics, values, and discourses mobilized by religious beliefs; lived experiences of religion, with a particular emphasis on identity and belonging among various refugee groups; and faith and faith actors and their responses to forced migration.

Elzbieta M. Gozdziak is Visiting Professor in the Center for Migration Studies, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poland, and Adjunct Lecturer at Georgetown University, Washington, DC. From 2002 to 2018, she was Research Professor at the Institute for the Study of International Migration (ISIM) at Georgetown. In 2016, she was the George Soros Chair of Public Policy at the Central European University in Budapest, Hungary. Previously, she served as an editor-in-chief of International Migration. Her recent books include: African Migration to Thailand: Race, Mobility, and Integration (co-edited with Supang Chantavanich, 2022); Human Trafficking as a New (In)Security Threat (2020); Europe and the Refugee Response: A Crisis of Values? (co-edited with I. Main and B. Suter, 2020); Children and Forced Migration: Durable Solutions during Transient Years (co-edited with Maris O. Ensor, 2017); Contested Childhoods: Growing Up in Migrancy (co-edited with Marie Louise Seeberg, 2016); and Trafficked Children and Youth in the United States: Reimagining Survivors (2016).

Izabella Main is Associate Professor in the Department of Anthropology and Ethnology at Adam Mickiewicz University, Poland, and Director of the Centre for Migration Studies. In 2019 she was a Fulbright Senior Scholar in ISIM at Georgetown University, USA. She authored three monographs and more than 30 chapters and journal articles. She co-edited several volumes: Europe and the Refugee Response: A Crisis of Values? (with Elzbieta M. Gozdziak and Brigitte Suter, 2020); Not Useful Enough: The Struggle of Immigrants in the Local Labor Market (with Natalia Bloch and Karolina Sydow, 2015); In health and illness. Research in medical anthropology and other fields (with Danuta Penkala-Gawecka and Anna Witeska-Mlynarczyk, 2012); and Refugees: The Theory and practices (with Izabela Czerniejewska, 2009).