The ongoing realities of migration, immigration, and displacement continue to raise multi-dimensional issues around marginalization, suffering, justice, and the work of care. What is the work of our hands in relation to these realities? The panel discusses themes related to being turned away and being welcomed, identity migration and identity formation, the creation of centers and margins, or other associated themes.
Forced migration involves manifold tensions of negotiating leaving and arriving, aloneness and belonging, grief and resilience, and being and becoming. This project investigates the spiritual, existential, and religious aspects of forced migration, and how these human experiences are culturally embedded, with the goal of amplifying the unique experiences and voices of refugee communities from Asia. The presenter summarizes findings from phenomenological qualitative analysis of selected oral history interviews (n = 17) within Princeton University’s Religion and Forced Migration Initiative. Countries of origin represented include Cambodia, Thailand, and Vietnam, and spiritual/religious affiliations encompass Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, and non-religious. Contextualizing findings within the relational spirituality model and existential positive psychology, attention is paid to (a) spirituality as a source of both strength and struggle; (b) the roles of culturally embedded strengths and capacities (e.g., gratitude, hope) in meaning-making and resilience; and (c) how participants’ spiritual lives may change and evolve throughout their migration journey.
This paper aims to advance theology of migration from a Hong Kongese perspective, highlighting key aspects in the 2020s Hong Kongese migration to the Global North. Employing the notion of family life cycle developed in the field of family therapy, the paper problematises the concept of family and suggests that it is essential to perceive migrant churches at the countries of destination as “extended families”, because of the dysfunction of one’s nuclear family, that is, the ancestry country. I develop what I called an ecclesiology of family in this paper to argue how the concept of church as family in Chinese Christian literature impacts the ecclesiology of churches in the countries of destination. Mindful of the complex political climate in Hong Kong and mental health issues intensified by this climate, such as post-traumatic stress disorder, this paper offers some pastoral advice to theologians/pastors who serve migrant communities.
Drawing from pastoral care encounters and communal responses to weakening states in the northern cone of South America, this paper contends that the increase in survival migration necessitates consideration of several dynamics for the practice of pastoral care as the disintegration of democratic practices and ecological stability become ever more common. This paper examines how trust, betrayal, and care intersect in daily lived practices for survival as people on the move must turn to political agents for access to basic needs. In such interactions betrayal of trust or enaction of violence creates psychospiritual distress and coping, an aspect often ignored in humanitarian responses to survival migrants. Particular modes of communal care counteract betrayal through daily practices of participation and welcome. Two particular faith communities’ interactions with survival migrants in the Comité del Pueblo neighborhood will be analyzed to gain care insights.