• Login
    JavaScript is disabled for your browser. Some features of this site may not work without it.
    'Thanks to London and to God': living religion transnationally among Brazilian migrants in London and 'back home' in Brazil 
    •   QMRO Home
    • Queen Mary University of London Theses
    • Theses
    • 'Thanks to London and to God': living religion transnationally among Brazilian migrants in London and 'back home' in Brazil
    •   QMRO Home
    • Queen Mary University of London Theses
    • Theses
    • 'Thanks to London and to God': living religion transnationally among Brazilian migrants in London and 'back home' in Brazil
    ‌
    ‌

    Browse

    All of QMROCommunities & CollectionsBy Issue DateAuthorsTitlesSubjectsThis CollectionBy Issue DateAuthorsTitlesSubjects
    ‌
    ‌

    Administrators only

    Login
    ‌
    ‌

    Statistics

    Most Popular ItemsStatistics by CountryMost Popular Authors

    'Thanks to London and to God': living religion transnationally among Brazilian migrants in London and 'back home' in Brazil

    View/Open
    SHERINGHAMThanksTo2011.pdf (9.758Mb)
    Publisher
    Queen Mary University of London
    Metadata
    Show full item record
    Abstract
    This thesis explores the role of religion in the everyday, transnational lives of Brazilian migrants in London and on their return to Brazil. It contributes to an emerging body of work that recognises the importance of religion within transnational processes and foregrounds the experiences of Brazilians in London, a growing yet still largely invisible new migrant group in London. While the study explores the role of religious institutions in the transnational lives of Brazilian migrants, it works with the notion of religion as lived experience to give due weight to the perspectives of migrants themselves. It examines the ways in which migrants negotiate their religious beliefs and practices in different places and create new connections between them. The study draws on a qualitative methodological framework, which included 78 in-depth interviews with Brazilian migrants in London and on their return to Brazil, religious leaders, and migrants’ family members. It also involved extended participant observation in one Catholic and one evangelical Protestant church in London, as well as at community events and in migrants’ domestic spaces in London and five ‘sending’ towns in Brazil. Empirically, the project reveals some of the ways in which religion functions transnationally through examining how religious institutions and their leaders adapt to new contexts, and how religion becomes a crucial resource for migrants at all stages of their migration experience, including on their return. With reference to migrants’ own stories, it explores the ways that they draw on religion to cope with particular challenges related to migration, but also how engagement with the spiritual enables migrants to give meaning to their experiences. The thesis develops the concept of transnational religious spaces to highlight the ways in which religion permeates the spaces of transnationalism and functions within and across multiple scales, including the global, the local, the institutional, the individual, the corporeal and the virtual. These spaces incorporate those who migrate, those who return ‘back home’, and migrants’ families who experience the absence of their loved ones. Yet while transnational religious spaces can enable migrants to create alternative spaces of belonging, I argue that they can also be exclusionary, creating new barriers at the same time as opening up existing ones. I also propose a related concept of religious remittances whereby changing religious practices and beliefs are transferred across borders, adapting to new contexts.
    Authors
    Sheringham, Olivia
    URI
    http://qmro.qmul.ac.uk/xmlui/handle/123456789/2439
    Collections
    • Theses [3371]
    Copyright statements
    The copyright of this thesis rests with the author and no quotation from it or information derived from it may be published without the prior written consent of the author
    Twitter iconFollow QMUL on Twitter
    Twitter iconFollow QM Research
    Online on twitter
    Facebook iconLike us on Facebook
    • Site Map
    • Privacy and cookies
    • Disclaimer
    • Accessibility
    • Contacts
    • Intranet
    • Current students

    Modern Slavery Statement

    Queen Mary University of London
    Mile End Road
    London E1 4NS
    Tel: +44 (0)20 7882 5555

    © Queen Mary University of London.