This session of Religions, Borders and Immigration seminar presents research from the cultural and historical contexts of North and Central America as well as Europe focusing on ethnographic explorations in dialogue with Indigenous histories, New Sancturary movement, and interreligious challenges of migration in Nordic/Scandinavian countries. The seminar is working toward a scholarly essay collection on the intersections of migration, forced displacement, race, culture and religious diversity.
This contribution will discuss the concept of conviviality in current migration scene in the Nordics. We claim that there is within the concept still a lack of consciousness about power and how it is enacted, particularly when those coming are coming without invitation, disregarding the fact that flight is never set in motion by invitation.
We aim to problematise the term, particularly its murkiness when used in practical and academic discourse interchangeably. Furthermore, we will discuss how it may be a useful concept, despite its challenges and pitfalls, maybe even as possible key to decolonise how the Church (of Sweden/of Norway) lives and works in hospitable dialogue.
The U.S. Mexico borderlands is known as one of the most volatile corridors of human migration in modern existence. While the geography of this region holds countless histories and memories of countless migrating communities, the number of spiritual and religious experiences are just as vast. This paper seeks to analyze and explore the historical document known as the Mapa de Cuauhtinchan No. 2 as a retelling of Mexico’s first migration narrative. By exploring the migration of the Chichimec peoples through the two guiding principles of the freedom to move and the freedom to reside, I seek to provide a new dimension in the analysis of the traditional three stages of pre-migration, transit, and post-migration. Furthermore, this paper seeks to explore David Carrasco and Scott Sessions notion of “the changing-place” as a metaphor for understanding the religious dynamics of the Chichimec migration narrative, and how it can be applied for today.
An overview of Religions, Borders, and Immigration seminar and engagement with diverse scholarly perspectives under the auspices of the essay collection