Conversion Narratives of Unaccompanied Refugee Minors in the Church of Sweden
Morgan, Jonathan LU
(2022)
Asylum and Conversion to Christianity
- Abstract
- From 2014 to 2016, 44,617 unaccompanied refugee minors (URM) arrived and sought asylum in Sweden. Since their arrival, the Church of Sweden (CoS) has received hundreds of these young people seeking to join the church and be baptised as Christians. This phenomenon is notable in an institution that is otherwise declining in membership and which is not known for actively recruiting new members. While it is often assumed that these conversions are driven by the desire to secure asylum capital, the devotion that many of these young people exhibit and the personal cost that comes with conversion points to a reality that is more nuanced. Drawing on ethnographic field work carried out over a 2 year period for my PhD research project, this paper... (More)
- From 2014 to 2016, 44,617 unaccompanied refugee minors (URM) arrived and sought asylum in Sweden. Since their arrival, the Church of Sweden (CoS) has received hundreds of these young people seeking to join the church and be baptised as Christians. This phenomenon is notable in an institution that is otherwise declining in membership and which is not known for actively recruiting new members. While it is often assumed that these conversions are driven by the desire to secure asylum capital, the devotion that many of these young people exhibit and the personal cost that comes with conversion points to a reality that is more nuanced. Drawing on ethnographic field work carried out over a 2 year period for my PhD research project, this paper looks at the conversion narratives of URM-background members of a CoS Bible study. In it, I discuss the ways in which the experience of precarity, and western authenticity discourses have influenced the ways in which such narratives are formed. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
https://lup.lub.lu.se/record/c363ad4c-637b-4c51-b7dc-0ca5e7e2fc79
- author
- Morgan, Jonathan
LU
- organization
- publishing date
- 2022-06-07
- type
- Contribution to conference
- publication status
- unpublished
- subject
- keywords
- religious conversion, Migration, Asylum, Narratives, Christianity
- conference name
- Asylum and Conversion to Christianity
- conference location
- Oxford, United Kingdom
- conference dates
- 2022-06-07 - 2022-06-07
- language
- English
- LU publication?
- yes
- id
- c363ad4c-637b-4c51-b7dc-0ca5e7e2fc79
- date added to LUP
- 2022-06-07 13:59:03
- date last changed
- 2022-06-15 12:48:45
@misc{c363ad4c-637b-4c51-b7dc-0ca5e7e2fc79,
abstract = {{From 2014 to 2016, 44,617 unaccompanied refugee minors (URM) arrived and sought asylum in Sweden. Since their arrival, the Church of Sweden (CoS) has received hundreds of these young people seeking to join the church and be baptised as Christians. This phenomenon is notable in an institution that is otherwise declining in membership and which is not known for actively recruiting new members. While it is often assumed that these conversions are driven by the desire to secure asylum capital, the devotion that many of these young people exhibit and the personal cost that comes with conversion points to a reality that is more nuanced. Drawing on ethnographic field work carried out over a 2 year period for my PhD research project, this paper looks at the conversion narratives of URM-background members of a CoS Bible study. In it, I discuss the ways in which the experience of precarity, and western authenticity discourses have influenced the ways in which such narratives are formed.}},
author = {{Morgan, Jonathan}},
keywords = {{religious conversion; Migration; Asylum; Narratives; Christianity}},
language = {{eng}},
month = {{06}},
title = {{Conversion Narratives of Unaccompanied Refugee Minors in the Church of Sweden}},
year = {{2022}},
}