Finding Belonging, Finding Agency : Unaccompanied Refugee Minors Converting to Christianity in the Church of Sweden
(2020) In Review of Faith and International Affairs 18(3). p.40-52- Abstract
- The arrival 44,617 unaccompanied refugee minors (URM) to Sweden between 2014 and 2016 was met by a large number of civil society volunteers responding to their needs and assisting them in the early stages of their asylum processes, among them the Church of Sweden (CoS). What was not expected was that thousands of these Muslim-background young people would decide to convert to Christianity. Drawing on data collected during fieldwork at two CoS congregations, this article looks at conversion through the lens of two themes, conversion as belonging and conversion as agency, and discusses whether discourses which couple conversion with narratives about acquiring asylum capital are adequate to the complexity of this phenomenon.
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
https://lup.lub.lu.se/record/8a3c5a34-45bd-4631-8e07-265b5343efd7
- author
- Morgan, Jonathan
LU
- organization
- publishing date
- 2020-08-25
- type
- Contribution to journal
- publication status
- published
- subject
- keywords
- Unaccompanied refugee minors, religious conversion, migration, secularism, Sweden, Islam, Christianity
- in
- Review of Faith and International Affairs
- volume
- 18
- issue
- 3
- pages
- 40 - 52
- publisher
- Taylor & Francis
- external identifiers
-
- scopus:85089778681
- ISSN
- 1557-0274
- DOI
- 10.1080/15570274.2020.1795410
- language
- English
- LU publication?
- yes
- id
- 8a3c5a34-45bd-4631-8e07-265b5343efd7
- date added to LUP
- 2020-07-10 14:01:10
- date last changed
- 2022-04-18 23:36:17
@article{8a3c5a34-45bd-4631-8e07-265b5343efd7, abstract = {{The arrival 44,617 unaccompanied refugee minors (URM) to Sweden between 2014 and 2016 was met by a large number of civil society volunteers responding to their needs and assisting them in the early stages of their asylum processes, among them the Church of Sweden (CoS). What was not expected was that thousands of these Muslim-background young people would decide to convert to Christianity. Drawing on data collected during fieldwork at two CoS congregations, this article looks at conversion through the lens of two themes, conversion as belonging and conversion as agency, and discusses whether discourses which couple conversion with narratives about acquiring asylum capital are adequate to the complexity of this phenomenon.}}, author = {{Morgan, Jonathan}}, issn = {{1557-0274}}, keywords = {{Unaccompanied refugee minors; religious conversion; migration; secularism; Sweden; Islam; Christianity}}, language = {{eng}}, month = {{08}}, number = {{3}}, pages = {{40--52}}, publisher = {{Taylor & Francis}}, series = {{Review of Faith and International Affairs}}, title = {{Finding Belonging, Finding Agency : Unaccompanied Refugee Minors Converting to Christianity in the Church of Sweden}}, url = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15570274.2020.1795410}}, doi = {{10.1080/15570274.2020.1795410}}, volume = {{18}}, year = {{2020}}, }