Abstract
Particularly when considering locations with vastly multicultural compositions and religious diversity, an understanding of migration patterns and resulting demographics is incomplete without accounting for the belief-structures of those arriving or settled from foreign countries. For those seeking an initial sampling of the complex interplay between religion and relocation, Immigrant Faith provides an examination of broad trends relating to immigrants’ faith-oriented identities and experiences in a group of countries that take in “nearly half of the world’s immigrants” (7).
Drawing on his then-current position as a researcher for the Pew Research Center’s Religion and Public Life Project, Connor takes on the ambitious challenge of analyzing and comparing survey data for different nations while skillfully describing findings in a way that is readable for those without backgrounds in statistics. As such, this book is suitable for students and multi-disciplinary readers; meanwhile, for those more familiar with the subject matter and methods implemented, this book encourages continuing analyses of the nuanced relationship between religion and migration. Connor refers readers to many other works for elaboration on some of the more complex themes and relationships he necessarily notes in passing. The author invites fellow scholars to further investigate related or underlying histories and influences.
The main body of the book is divided into four chapters, whose topics can be viewed as the significant stages of faith-related experience for migrants and their communities. “Moving Faith” explores if, and when, religion has an influence on the choice to emigrate and upon the selection of a destination country. Briefly reviewing some of the myriad of factors affecting these decisions, Connor then highlights significant patterns in the likelihood of members of different religious groups choosing to emigrate from and move to certain regions. He also notes the important influence of a country’s receptiveness towards different religious groups. “Changing Faith” then inverts the relationship, focusing on how migration itself can affect religious identity and activity. While degrees of adaptation were generally expected, the results were often dependent on the selected religious group and the destination country.
“Integrating Faith” analyzes the lasting implications for immigrants’ adjustment based on their religious affiliation and activities. In particular, the author reviews some potential impacts on psychological, economic, and social integration. Again, these effects vary according to religious affiliation, as well as the given country’s legal and social frameworks pertaining to secularity or the predominance of a particular religion. These factors, in interaction with religious affiliation, create what Connor refers to as either bridges or barriers to immigrant integration (75). Finally, “Transferring Faith” focuses on the children of immigrants, otherwise referred to as second-generation immigrants, and how their religious affiliation and activities changed or remained similar to those of their parents. Patterns once more depended on location and the chosen faith.
Along with Connor’s informative figures and quantitative prose, each chapter of Immigrant Faith begins with intriguing narratives of how a stage of immigration was experienced, based on Connor’s personal correspondences with immigrants (145). Connor recognizes that these cases are anecdotal (131) and do not reflect the experiences of all immigrants, nor even of those who share the religious affiliation or country of origin. Instead, they signify the importance of recognizing the vast variations in individual immigrants’ experiences. While a brief complement, these accounts may encourage readers to look beyond broader patterns by comparing statistical findings with in-depth qualitative accounts.
The main boundaries of this work stem from the nature of the resources Connor incorporates. Surveys specific to different national or continental locations may not contain identical approaches and questions in regards to the subject of immigrant religion. In some instances, a shortage of comparative data is apparent, as he concentrates on US figures or compares these with figures from one to four other countries: generally Canada, the United Kingdom, France, or Germany. Another restriction in the scope of selected data pertains to two important religious concepts, the first being “religiosity.” As a measure of “being more religious or less religious” (29), Connor mainly relies on attendance rates. While this can be a useful proxy when considering faith-groups where collective participation is highly valued and possible, it may not be as strongly correlated within others, especially when considering measures of a second term, “religious affiliation.” Categorizing an immigrant’s affiliation to a massive religion is not as informative as recognizing the specific interpretations and adherences with which they associate themselves. While sometimes Catholic and Protestant immigrant experiences are compared, the nuances between other denominations or groups within Christianity and within other world religions do not receive this attention. There also remains the gap for those who identify as “spiritual but not religious” and their role in shifting faith demographics.
Beyond these limits, in exploring the complex intricacies of faith identities and their relationship with migration, Immigrant Faith serves as a solid introduction to related statistical trends within Western Europe, Canada, and the United States. The book invites future comparisons with other popular immigrant-receiving nations, as well as further exploration into why these patterns occur and how they may affect members of the same religion differently, both within Connor’s selected countries and worldwide.