Abstract
This article investigates the relationship between integration processes and religious participation through an analysis of migrant churches established in the city of Milan. While in Europe most public opinion and literature are focused on Islam, and religion is often viewed as an impediment and barrier to integration, this work wants instead to discuss the ways in which religion serves migrants’ needs in the receiving society, acting as a social bridge. Combining qualitative data collected in six Christian migrant churches, three Catholic and three Protestant, the article explains how religious communities have become significant urban hubs for immigrants, providing opportunities to socialize, developing welfare services, supplying places for family activities, as well as moral guidance in a diverse society. By detailing the practical and social functions of churches, this article shows how religion represents an alternative and mediating force, able to support migrants’ integration – a role which is still understudied in Europe.
Introduction
The role of religion in migrants’ life has achieved a new salience in receiving societies. Commenting on the famous statement of Max Frisch: ‘We asked for workers. We got people instead’, Pace and Da Silva Moreira recently added that: ‘We discovered they have a soul’ (2018: 3). In this regard, Foner and Alba (2008) observed that in the USA immigrants’ religiosity was seen substantially in positive terms, as a factor that may soften social tensions and favour the adaptation to the new society. In Europe, however, this is a more controversial issue, both in public opinion and in the academic field. There are two main reasons. The first and more ancient is the conflict between the religious attitudes of immigrants and the secularization of European societies. The second and more recent one is the conflation between immigrants, Islam and terrorist threats. In this sense, the debate is mainly focused on Islam and emphasizes problems and conflicts arising from immigrants’ religious belonging, together with difficulties of integration (Cesari, 2004; Soehl, 2016).
A first consideration, however, concerns the European religious scenario: we see a new and multifaceted spiritual geography (Knott, 2015) and, beyond solely the case of Islam, the settlement of immigrants has also involved a significant phenomenon of pluralization and the de-Westernization of Christianity (Furseth et al., 2014). An archipelago of migrant churches is moulding from below the body of European denominations (Pasura and Erdal, 2016); pluralism is not only a question of a Europe less Christian, but of a Christianity ever less European. In this regard, in the literature, ethnic, or immigrant or migrant church are the most recurrent terms (Suro et al., 2007; Warner and Wittner, 1998), often used interchangeably; the first typically refers to members’ ethnic background, which in turn can be mono- or multi-ethnic, as when a common language attracts more than one group, e.g. the case of Latin Americans. The second term gives instead more emphasis to how these communities are established and led by migrants as compared to historically present and native-focused churches. In this sense, this article uses ‘migrant church’ as a key and transversal feature of a multi-case empirical study that draws from a new ‘super-diverse Christianity’ emerging from the settlement of different migrant groups in Milan.
Secondly, this multifaceted scenario needs to be elaborated in sociological terms, exploring the ways in which religious involvement intersects the migratory experience, including the integration process (Hagan and Ebaugh, 2003). Once settled, migrants may draw on religion to cope with the challenges they face; it serves as a supportive forum, where the spiritual and social coexist to create ties on which to rely (Warner, 2000). But, while the concept of integration is seeing a renewed interest and various domains and indicators have been identified (Penninx, 2013, 2019), religion is rarely considered in this multidimensional framework, although it can be involved in terms of individual well-being (Connor, 2012) and psychological benefits (Gozdziak, 2002), as a strategy to generate social capital (Foley and Hoge, 2007) and provide welfare services (Chafetz and Ebaugh, 2000), as a form of access to structural and economic domains (Connor, 2011) as well as a driver of civic and political participation (Fleischmann et al., 2016; Levitt, 2008).
Thus, this article focuses on Italy, where a new religious pluralism has emerged (IDOS, 2019; Pace, 2013). By considering the case of Christian migrant churches, the article discusses how the religious belonging and practices of immigrants support their integration into the receiving society. We highlight and examine the multiple forms and areas in which these churches intersect and accompany the experience of migrants into the new society and then consider how integration develops in relation to this religious activism. By analysing the implications of sociability as it emerges and evolves, from the case studies presented, the article aims to bring new insights to the scientific debate on immigration, religion and integration, focusing on a country where immigration is a relatively recent phenomenon and Christian minorities are still understudied (among the exceptions, see Butticci, 2016; Gallo, 2016; Ricucci, 2017; Scrinzi, 2016).
The article is structured as follows. The next section provides theoretical accounts of the relationship between immigration, religion and integration. We then present our case studies and research methods. Then, four empirical sections analyse the areas in which religious communities operate. Initially, we explain how Christian immigrants have established their sacred spaces in the city of Milan. Secondly, we analyse how churches provide a reliable setting for establishing relationships, enhancing migrants’ social capital. We discuss how religious participation evolves, providing an informal welfare system to serve believers’ needs. In addition, we examine how religious communities represent spaces where immigrants and their families may negotiate and alleviate the tensions and pressures deriving from the impact with a new society, including the possibility to build a new image and status beyond the stigma and marginalization faced in everyday lives. Finally, we summarize our findings and show possible directions for future research.
The key functions of migrant churches in fostering members’ settlement and integration
About a century ago, Thomas and Znaniecki published The Polish Peasant (1918), where they also laid the foundations for the study of the role of religion within the experiences of migrants. Churches were significant social units to avoid moral disintegration, becoming fundamental hubs with humanitarian and practical purposes. A century later, religion continues to be an enduring presence in migration (Levitt, 2007), contributing actively to new lives (Portes and Rumbaut, 2006). Hirschman (2004) has stated that religions give immigrants a complex of benefits summarized as the ‘three Rs’: refuge, respect and resources, while Hondagneu-Sotelo sees religion ‘as a sanctuary for coping; an arena for mobilization, civic participation, and solidarity; an ethical and moral basis for action; and possible resources for resistance and collective well-being’ (2006: 4).
In Europe a growing literature on religion and migration has emerged, but the implications in relation to integration need to be more closely analysed. The settlement process of immigrant religions requires indeed a more critical and detailed examination in regard to the bridge or barrier role, as questioned by Foner and Alba (2008): complex scenarios emerge in the face of diverse European social contexts (Furseth et al., 2014). Integration per se represents a multifaceted (Penninx, 2019) and contentious concept (Ager and Strang, 2008). Although normative terms often prevail, the idea that integration is a process occurring in different social settings has acquired salience, and authors have distinguished a legal-political dimension, a socio-economic dimension and a cultural-religious dimension (Penninx, 2013). Following these cues, we factor the concept of integration into three aspects: a structural aspect, referring to the socio-economic domain: holding legal status, employment, a home, a decent standard of life; a relational aspect, related to positive interactions with other people, native or not; and a personal aspect, linked to the capacity and will to insert oneself into the new society, in which individual resilience and well-being are also involved (Ambrosini, 2019). Along these lines, the role of religious communities can be also analysed in terms of performance: as actors that mediate members’ needs. Moreover, while ordinary debates tend to look at the institutional domain, i.e. relations within the public sphere (Casanova, 2006), a sociological framework – focused on sociability as it evolves in relation to religion – represents a different perspective to support and improve the study of integration. Ager and Strang (2008) have emphasized the positive effects of social bonds in ethnic groups, as bringing various benefits; similarly, the literature on religious ties provides significant insights.
First, migrants may find in religion an ethnic landmark within urban contexts (Eade, 2012). By rewriting local spaces, through both artefacts and practices, like holy images or worship in the mother tongue, they create a hospitable atmosphere, a familiar space where they can re-conceive themselves after displacement (Tweed, 1997). These ethnic hubs tend to transform and serve as a social forum where facing challenges is incorporated in this new experience (Hagan and Ebaugh, 2003). Theological principles of charity and hospitality promote the search for solutions to face the fragility linked to the restriction of social rights (Menjivar, 2003, 2006). Religious communities can activate practices of solidarity, such as delivering food and clothes, and can also initiate fundraising for members in situations like unemployment and health emergencies (Chafetz and Ebaugh, 2000; Guest, 2003; Mooney, 2009). Such solidarity becomes particularly essential for immigrants in irregular conditions (Hagan, 2008), who can find in these contexts the resources for survival. Configuring themselves as reliable settings for the exchange of information (Foley and Hoge, 2007; Ley, 2008), religious communities are essential to access structural domains such as the labour market. They are also pivotal hubs for sharing functional advice on how to navigate local bureaucracies, providing links to public institutions. Moreover, religious communities become sites of support for parenthood, often interrupted by the migration process. Within religious institutions, immigrants look for safe spaces to reconcile life, family and work (Bankston and Zhou, 1995; Cao, 2005). Thus, these religious spaces de facto develop an informal welfare system, i.e. an alternative and parallel support network that operates between institutional services and individual needs, and sometimes replaces inaccessible public services, as in the case of irregular immigrants.
Attending a shared and recognizable space is also the basis for the reconstruction of a wider sociality beyond the private home (Chen 2006; Min, 1992), where migrants can create a new identity and new forms of social recognition, which can compensate for the subordination in everyday life and the disadvantages related to their class position (Warner, 2000). Through participation and leadership roles, a new dignity and respect may be acquired. Religion serves as an alternative context where one can negotiate and resist the social stigma often faced in ordinary life. Thus, religious involvement also has implications for the migrant’s well-being (Connor, 2012), creating places of gathering to avoid the anomie and latent disorientation consequent to migration. In this sense, communities frequently become landmarks for a new morality, given that migrants look for answers to support the ethical dilemmas experienced in a new society characterized by different social norms and values.
Nevertheless, religious sociability can also generate negative effects – in Portes’s (1998) terms, the downsides of social capital. While the sense of community is necessary for the circulation of resources and to prevent free-riding, at the same time it may create an excess in expectations. The internal cohesion can also produce a stricture to conform, in terms of social control and acceptable behaviour. It is important to avoid a romanticized idea of community being that these realities are internally moulded by members’ needs and activism. Thus, in Italy, where migrant-based associations have many fragilities (Cappiali, 2016; Caselli, 2010), religious spaces are a prototype today of new dynamics of ethnic organization. A process particularly salient in times of restrictive policies and anti-immigrant public discourses: despite political exclusion ‘from above’, one should also consider the emergence of alternative spaces, that ‘from below’ try to counterbalance socio-political disadvantages.
Context, methodology and case studies
Our study analyses six migrant churches in Milan: a city with a population of 268,215 foreign residents in 2019 (19.5% of the total population), representing a relevant hub for both recent and long-established immigrant communities. As regards the selection criteria for the case studies, the research sought to investigate the multiple forms taken by ‘ethnicized’ Christianity. Consequently, Catholic and Protestant churches were selected that showed a prevalent and marked foreign presence. Moreover, Catholic migrants in Italy are mainly based in Lombardy – especially in the city of Milan. The case studies selected thus provide a well-balanced picture of how a relevant part of immigrants experience religion.
The sampling strategy was aimed at maximizing diversity, in terms of prevalent ethnic and social background as well as confession (Catholic and Protestant). As regards the ethnic and social characteristics of community members, most of them reflected the middle-working class status of the Milanese migrant population (and their prevalent ethnic employment niches). The Latino, Salvadorian and Filipino Churches’ female members are mainly employed in the domestic, cleaning and care work sector, while males work in construction, hospitality and in the transport sector. More qualified professions were also observed in the health care sector (e.g. nurses), ICT (e.g. programmers) and in translation and intercultural mediation services. The Korean Church instead is more skewed towards people from a medium-upper class background, as it includes (ex)international students, entrepreneurs, seconded staff of international companies, artists and musicians. The Eastern European Church, instead, has a membership characterized by a more marginal background, as a relevant proportion of its members are either unemployed or are recovered alcoholics and homeless.
Methodologically, the study started with a cycle of at least two rounds of observations (lasting 4–8 hours) planned at every church during the most significant ‘communal’ moments following (and sometimes including) the main religious celebration(s): usually, on Sundays. During observations, the pastor/priest introduced us to the community members as university researchers, and informal and unrecorded collective conversations were carried out around some key issues: the participants’ main socio-demographic characteristics (age, employment, years in Italy), how (and when) they were introduced to the community, their (eventual) responsibilities and role in it, what they appreciated most and the relevance of church membership in their everyday life (e.g. support received in the case of loneliness, unemployment, housing, or leisure time spent together, etc.). Observations and conversations during this first stage allowed us to create more established contacts with key and founding members and those responsible for specific groups and activities, who were interviewed separately. The data presented and discussed in this study are indeed based on a total of 30 semi-structured and recorded interviews with such key respondents. These interviews were specifically aimed at collecting more detailed information on the church organizational structure and history as well as to obtain more comprehensive and accurate data on the topics that emerged as significant during the observation cycles. A thematic analysis of the transcribed interviews followed. This was carried out through the use of software in order to better code and review the main data, which were then clustered as logically correlated and developed into the study’s findings. All the interviews were carried out in Italian, except for one interview that needed translation from Korean provided by a church member. Observations and interviews were realized between May 2016 and 2018. Table 1 presents an overview of the six churches in the study and our methodology.
Overview of the case studies and methodology.
Finding God in the city: Christian immigrants and new sacred spaces
To understand immigrants’ religious involvement, the genesis of migrant churches is focal, given how owning a sacred space is the main condition for developing and sustaining a sense of shared community.
This spatial dimension leads to specific interpretive perspectives for Catholic communities. If immigrants already have local Italian churches they can attend, the request for a separate place of worship represents a variant from ordinary ecclesial patterns. Firstly, migrants search a place where they can practise rituals in their mother tongue. Indeed, Italian parishes possess a wide array of places of worship, which, also due to the secularization of Italian believers, are poorly attended, and often totally abandoned. However, most of these places are not adequate for the relational needs of immigrant believers, who typically activate various communitarian activities (such as having lunch together, playing and singing, etc.). Furthermore, churches are often concentrated in the central area of the city (where there is indeed a historical heritage of religious buildings, but which are today often left unused by Italian churchgoers), and therefore the spaces are frequently disconnected from the ordinary life of migrants.
In addition, while some spaces are wholly ‘ethnicized’ (as they are only attended by specific migrant communities), other places are shared with Italian residents through different schedules for the religious services, but the two groups do not necessarily interact (Ambrosini, 2016). Therefore, for Catholic immigrants, the establishment of new communities involves a negotiation with local Catholic hierarchies, a sometimes complex process and not without resistance:
My dream was that the diocese took charge of giving us a space . . . The consequence was this place where we are now, but only for Salvadorians. But there was a struggle, there is a long, complicated story behind it! Here we arrived in ’98, before we were in another place, which was a room in the official secretariat for foreigners, where we were a small group, only Salvadorians. Then, one day, after we had a fight, a hard confrontation, they called me and they told me ‘come to the archdiocese, we are meeting at this time’ and I told them ‘for what?’ they said ‘a surprise’ . . . (Founding member of the Salvadorian Catholic Church)
Whereas for Catholics the spaces were already originally predestined for religious functions, Protestant churches are instead generated ex-novo, through communitarian fundraising (often facing significant obstacles, including restrictive local bureaucratic-administrative rules 1 ), and also thanks to a collaboration with other communities (see Butticci, 2016; Pace and Butticci, 2010).
Due to the differences in the socio-economic background of believers, the genesis follows different patterns. On the one hand, the Korean Church (active for more than 30 years) owns a building that has different equipped rooms (for worship, music, study, as well as a kitchen, a bar and an external courtyard). On the other hand, the two Pentecostal churches, established more recently and characterized by a working class community of believers, only recently obtained their own spaces of worship, which (like the Korean Church in the past) have been shared (in the case of the Latino Church) or are still shared (in the case of the East European Church) with other foreign religious communities.
In this case, the activism of immigrants in establishing religious communities takes a more radical form. According to a typical denominational pattern, the genesis of Protestant churches follows the ‘divine call’ of a minister. After ‘God’s call’, the construction of a first domestic religious cell takes shape, as the fulcrum of what will later be the church:
When I came here, like all migrants, I started taking ordinary jobs . . . But immediately I started working in a Church, a Church Of God, which has now become a free Church, after leaving the organization. I spoke with the responsible of the Church Of God in Italy, and also in my country . . . And I began the challenge of starting a new Church. As I said, we find a very intimate relationship with God to understand what exactly he wants from us and this is what I understood very well . . . God told me: ‘You must start a Church’. . . And the Church was started, in my home, initially . . . We started with four or five people . . . We started from below, by word of mouth, through prayer and Bible study meetings. (Pastor of the Latino Protestant Church)
Despite various kinds of constraints and negotiations with local institutions, the activism of Christian immigrants has generated new religious spaces, creating communitarian centres where they can gather and develop spiritual and secular activities. After huge effort, immigrants find their God in the city.
Building valuable social capital through church activities
All the churches analysed are characterized by a complex social life beyond the worship. The ‘family metaphor’ and the central theme of ‘sharing’ – spaces, activities and values – frequently appear in the interviews:
So, I mean, this family shares moments just like every family, moments like those of today, we had worship, lunch together, there is a space for children to play and where we take up many initiatives . . . Just for getting together, sharing. (Member of the Korean Protestant Church)
If ‘doing many things together’ qualifies these churches, nevertheless the kind of activities sponsored and their social implications need to be elaborated. The Protestant communities are typically structured in ‘cells’, which are territorial groups often homogeneous by gender and/or age that provide weekly meetings for reading, study, prayer and the exegesis of sacred texts. Through this internal organization immigrants can better face their needs, since they are embedded in territorially contiguous and accessible networks with similar characteristics. In addition, such cells facilitate the establishment of relationships that may be extended more easily to one’s everyday life:
And . . . What do you do in these meetings?
It’s similar to a study of the Sacred Word but in a particular way . . . On the one hand, there is the study of the Word, on the other there are the needs, the problems of the people. We are like a family, so the Church is not just the study of the Bible, but how I apply it to my life. If I have a problem at work, if I have a problem with my son, in my marriage . . . We will help in this situation. When the problem is big they come to me, when problems are small they help each other. This is why I say that we talk as much about ourselves, as well as about the Bible . . . How I translate the Bible into my everyday life, this is the scope of the Wednesday meetings. Friday is a night for prayer, just prayer, for us it’s very important, it’s the conversation that you have with God . . . And also this too is different, because maybe we sing, our meetings are like a party, where people actively participate and they can really live the faith, they are not merely spectators, but active participants. (Pastor of the Latino Protestant Church)
In the case of Catholics similar internal dynamics create a lively social life. Everywhere there are frequent and pervasive performances of conviviality. The focal moment of the Sunday lunch (which in larger communities is usually organized by different groups in turn) is followed by informal moments (conversations between families, playtime for children) or more structured activities (for example choirs, dance groups . . .). Thus, also in the case of Catholics, this internal dynamism, or in other words a form of congregationalism, allows to build and reinforce trust and cooperation among members.
The type of relations developed is also variable according to the social profile of believers. In the case of the Korean Church, for example, attendance offers a network-building opportunity, aimed at professional mobility for people with a higher social background:
Koreans come to Milan to study classical music: there are many professional singers in Korea who come here to the Conservatory to improve their singing skills. They are also interested in the fashion industry, many Koreans come to study at the Politecnico University, or in private schools such as the European Institute of Design, the Marangoni school . . . Here in Milan there are many multinational companies and the head representatives of large industrial groups, Samsung, Hyundai, LG . . . all these big multinationals, and the Church is frequented by these people too. For example, today I saw there was a top manager from Kia, you know . . . Clearly in this Church, beyond religious relationships there is also the opportunity to interact in business relations, do you understand? It is a meeting point . . . (Member of the Korean Protestant Church)
For these believers, social mobility is powered on a transnational scale, through an accumulation of symbolic capital, where Milan represents a crucial junction. The various services offered (such as Italian courses or informal groups) aim at facilitating the believers’ transition to a new work and school environment.
Religious communities have thus become important spaces where newcomers can find mutual recognition and build safe and stable relationships. As we shall see in the next section, the religious participation evolves along and generates significant material resources.
Church, solidarity and integration: An informal welfare ‘from below’
Internal social bonds can also allocate specific resources to support the integration of participants. Indeed, believers regularly share their existential and material difficulties. The churches, by necessity or by choice, are landmarks for people in conditions of marginality; not least, the delivery of services becomes an important resource to meet, involve and aggregate new believers.
While the supportive action of co-ethnic networks is not a surprising phenomenon, churches provide instead a reliable relational environment to avoid the forms of abuse that often characterize such networks (Engbersen et al., 2006). The circulation of material resources (e.g. a job offer, or a house) is therefore linked to the circulation of reputational resources, of which the church is the sponsor, acting as an intermediary between supply and demand of work, or as a ‘broker of trust’ (Ambrosini, 2017).
The respectability guaranteed by church membership becomes the foundation for taking part in this exchange:
What do you think are the main needs expressed by the believers?
Surely the issue of papers, even if now a little less so . . .
And in that case how do you manage to . . .
There are some people in the Church who know a little more about immigration law or who know other people and then we try to help . . . Or about health care, there are some people who have serious problems and they need someone that can care for them at the hospital. People who may have experienced family conflicts, people who need help with childcare . . .
And what about jobs?
It happens that someone comes and asks ‘Do you know anybody willing to work for me?’ Because the idea is that if a person is attending a Church then he or she is an honest person . . . And we obviously favour this kind of situation. It can also happen that someone comes here asking for jobs and the next day he disappears . . . Well, you know, it’s true that we have to help people, but if we don’t know the person very well . . . (Pastor of the Latino Protestant Church)
They [employers] call here if they need a caregiver or a domestic worker and I circulate the info to the various groups, the choir group, the Bible readers . . . I send them a message: there is a job offer . . . are any of you available? Otherwise the Filipinos ask me, I know who is looking for a job and when I hear a job offer appears . . . I put the people in touch. (Member of the Filipino Catholic Church) An informal rental market is a classic pattern, or . . . News about sleeping places, about their price, if they are comfortable . . . Here you can also find temporary rents, if you do not know where you are today and where you will be tomorrow for various reasons, if you need it for the papers or for family reunification purposes . . . Adequate accommodation is not always easy to find . . . They host and they are hosted, paying or paid for a mutual exchange. (Priest of the Latino Catholic Church)
In the case of the East European evangelicals, the ‘mission’ of social rehabilitation (towards extremely disadvantaged people) is so fundamental as to constitute an identity for the church itself:
Some time ago I went to see all the homeless people, alcoholics, we took them to the Church . . . And we had wash them, we prepared them some food . . . We took them to our houses. Now, since we have this place we have some bunk beds, some bedrooms . . . But there was a time when everyone slept on sofas.
You have this strong social vocation . . .
Sure! Not all the Churches go out on the street to assist homeless people . . . Every Church has its identity, I would also say a sort of gift that more . . . strongly manifests itself. A stronger call, which works better than others and . . . ours is a social vocation. (Pastor of the East European Protestant Church)
If housing and jobs are crucial to improve the settlement and well-being of (especially impoverished) migrants, we also observed the circulation of different forms of help, such as fundraising initiatives: a recurrent and rather surprising activity, given that members – normally – aren’t a wealthy population. Despite economic hardships faced in their everyday lives, and their engagement in transnational remittances, immigrants try to sponsor activities or collections for those who are in need; these charitable acts show an unexpected solidarity and generosity among members of community:
We try to support each other, for medical care for example, because medicines cost a lot, and often people don’t have enough money . . . usually the message spreads, and we organize a lunch, a dinner, during which we collect money, we try to give help, of course, what we can do . . . (Member of the Latino Catholic Church)
Another form of support exchanged in the community is childcare: an important issue due to the lack of extended family networks, the difficulty to buy these resources in the market due to high costs and, sometimes, the few places available in public services (Bonizzoni, 2014). The churches try to face these needs providing informal daycare or safe spaces where the mothers can leave the children during their working hours. The family spaces can also provide information and advice on concerns about the new educational system they find in Italy:
We tried to build a kindergarten for mothers, often they don’t know where to leave their children during their working hours, and they don’t have grandparents to leave them with . . . How do they do it? They try to organize their time schedules but it’s difficult . . . I’m also very committed to addressing educational matters, the orientation of children in a new school system they don’t know . . . (Lay leader of the Latino Catholic Church)
Often exposed to difficult relational dynamics, made of repeated reunions and breakups (Bonizzoni, 2015), families often look for environments that may accompany them through these transition phases, between the society and family where they arrive and the one they start from. Churches become the place to find recreational and educational services which compensate for the lack of resources usually available to parents (grandparents and wider networks, the money necessary for courses and other costly activities), as well as places of sociability perceived as safe by believers.
The access to these resources is inherently linked to the trust established by the continuity in church attendance. This becomes a selective filter, both for avoiding the ambiguities that an indiscriminate use could imply and to prevent the main religious identity being overshadowed by material needs:
We try to help as we can, but you know. . . Sometimes someone tells you a touching story, and we give help and then . . . we don’t see them anymore and maybe we see them somewhere else, we cannot trust everyone, but we welcome everyone, we talk to everyone and then we let the relationship grow . . . (Lay leader of the Latino Catholic Church)
There is great attention paid, however, to preventing religious communities being reduced to service centres, respecting instead the original religious mandate. It is a delicate balance, continually subject to tensions and renegotiations among the pressing needs that migrants bring within their religious communities.
Churches as a space of dignity, selectivity and respectability
Churches also represent sites wherein to negotiate and develop new moral processes. Firstly, religious communities become a context in which to forge a sense of self-worth. The chance of being involved in a group (see earlier), and of becoming its leader, are important gratifications against the stressful and very often low-skilled work experienced in their jobs:
As much as I have understood from my experience with them [Filipinos], religious activism is an important feature of their associative life . . . During the week they are very busy in their work but during the weekend they seem to be born-again, they find the spaces that they habitually don’t have . . . How to say . . . Their ‘subconscious’ is reactivated. Everything is well planned, they actively participate and often there are also frictions to coordinate all these activities . . . (Priest of the Filipino Catholic Church)
The religious participation can compensate for the devaluing of qualifications experienced on the labour market, providing instead a site for a new activism. In this way communities may serve as alternative spaces where one can recover the dignity and honour denied in one’s daily life.
Secondly, religious communities also become places where believers look for answers to the ethical dilemmas generated by facing a society characterized by different moral models. Seeking an ethno-religious community isn’t just a cultural option, but also a way to attend social groups that share certain moral values:
Yes, you could say that it feels more intimate here. We are among ourselves . . . And some of our countrymen, for instance, like to drink but they can’t come here with bottles . . . We don’t like this kind of stuff. There’s always some concern towards newcomers because there might be someone from El Salvador that . . . You know, members of the Maras . . . (Member of the Salvadorian Catholic Church)
Worshippers search for an environment that is socially selective and protected from behaviours that are perceived as dangerous or annoying. Churches become contexts in which the ethnic-national features are affirmed, criticized and renegotiated at the same time. This process becomes especially evident for Pentecostal churches, typically characterized by strong elements of moral conservatism:
In addition to sharing the same language, here I can feel free to interact with other people who take our God as point of reference. My leisure time is spent with God, and this is something hard to understand for non-believers. I can’t listen to dance music that doesn’t convey a positive message and I can’t allow myself to dress provocatively or anything of the kind. I don’t drink, I don’t get drunk, I know it’s bad for me and I may lose my senses and I’m not myself so I avoid all of these things. (Member of the Latino Protestant Church)
As can be seen from the words of this worshipper, attending a church represents a discontinuity and a break from behaviours and lifestyles generally associated with the wider ethnic and national community (e.g. dancing and Latin American music) as well as those of the host society that are perceived as incompatible with one’s religious identity. Through religious involvement, migrants try to avoid both the perceived ‘amoral’ ethnicity, and the dangers of the new ‘amoral’ society.
As a corollary, religious settings serve to produce an external image of respectability. Beyond the possibility to create an internal dignity and a specific morality, migrants want to present such an image also outside their churches. This was a process clearly perceptible during the fieldwork. When attending a church they tend to dress very well, sporting nice outfits, and wanting to show a presentable behaviour in public spaces in the environs of their communities. Despite the kind of spaces at their disposal, such as old churches or abandoned commercial spaces, these were always well-kept and clean. This ethos of ‘presentability’ seeks to demonstrate the community as a good place and not a space of marginality; a form of reaction against what many natives tend to think when the debate is one of migrants as a poor and dangerous presence.
Thus, churches have become significant sites wherein to build a respectable image of one’s self. They may also offer a moral compass able to sustain and soften the impact within a new society, namely a way of living ethically, and finally a way also to demonstrate a presentable image externally. While churches represent a space for creating a common sense of belonging, at the same time they can also generate moral answers for balancing the various pressures to which migrants are exposed.
Conclusions: Bridge and barrier implications in migrants’ religious participation
This study deals with six Christian religious communities established by migrants in the city of Milan, where new religious phenomena have been triggered by the migration processes. Our empirical focus allows us to formulate some conclusions linking the main reasons which bring immigrants to establish and attend a religious community with the relative implications in terms of integration.
A first remark regards the appropriation of space: a necessary condition both for the birth and the development of Christian immigrants’ communities. This is a process that for Protestants takes more spontaneous forms, against an unfavourable political context. The same process is instead negotiated with the church authorities as concerns Catholics as well as encouraged and, in some way, controlled, and not without elements of conflict or disagreement. The ability to create a community in a recognizable place, make it welcoming, and to characterize it with symbols able to inspire a sense of belonging, is a crucial step for demonstrating the autonomous activism of immigrant believers: they want to express themselves in their own space, not in a local context where relational models are defined a priori. Recalling Thomas and Znaniecki, this represents, in any case, a defence against loneliness, depression and anomic behaviours. Thus, according to Hirschman (2004), the refuge function of religious communities is at work. From this point of view, religious communities support the relational aspect of integration, even if this is limited to co-ethnic attendees. Here a significant challenge concerns the evolution of this bonding sociality into a bridging one. A sort of crystallization of the refuge function may indeed occur, even if the literature suggests that the religious social capital may evolve over time into a more diversified set of relationships, often as a result of members’ social mobility (Ley, 2008).
Secondly, notwithstanding the lack of means, the communitarian experience is not limited to the worship. All the institutions analysed promote forms of sociality, such as meals, music and convivial gatherings and organize activities for families and minors. In terms of integration, we found that all the communities try somehow to respond to the requests for help that the worshippers continuously make, especially regarding employment. In some cases, such as the Eastern European Protestant Church, communities make the assistance they provide a pivot of their activity. But in general, this social engagement among churchgoers is a characteristic feature of religious communities. A kind of informal welfare is assembled ‘from below’ in order to meet the needs of migrants who struggle to find answers from the official services. Religious communities are the promoters of what may be termed the ‘invisible hand of charity’ (Cnaan and Boddie, 2002), which operates to face the difficulties and marginalities that are not intercepted by the visible hand of market and public policies. Religious congregations make a valuable contribution to the structural aspect of the integration of attendees. Bonds are a source of social connection, in Hirschman’s terms (2004), but also in Milan they supply resources to strengthen immigrants’ integration. Nevertheless, welfare benefits can represent a source of dispute. Firstly, solidarity rests upon a strong level of investment and internal social cohesion. As a consequence, the progressive enlargement of religious communities to new members can pose a series of misunderstandings in relation to the priority of the religious mandate. Secondly, social bonds, while providing pivotal resources can, however, reinforce segregation: for instance, feeding into ethnic occupational niches through ‘word-of-mouth’ based on internal ties of trust.
The support of integration has another, more debatable, side. It concerns the shared preoccupation of instilling a personal moral code among participants. This represents a reaction against the risk of anomie which results from being separated from the homeland’s social context and being relocated in secularized societies that are considered to be permeated by individualistic attitudes. As moral preaching weakens in traditional churches, it becomes strengthened among immigrants. In this matter evangelical conservatism is influential, but similar concerns also characterize Catholic communities, more moderate but perhaps only in terms of language and visibility. The fact of seeing, in a decadent world, the community as a stronghold of moral and family-oriented principles is a leading motif in the self-representation of religiously engaged immigrants.
Those in charge also seem aware of how fighting against prejudice requires churchgoers to be constantly self-disciplined. We join Guzman Garcia’s (2018) observations on ‘spiritual citizenship’, but emphasizing the moral preaching on right behaviours as also a way to resist racism (Scrinzi, 2016). Thus, religious participation strengthens the personal aspect of integration, fostering also the social acceptance of immigrants: following Hirschman (2004), it creates the conditions to enhance respect towards immigrant churchgoers. Here an ambivalence rests on the level of social control, which can become excessive, especially when identities are forged in opposition towards perceived external challenges and dangers. Demands and pressures for conformity as well as strong expectations were observed in the case studies, as members are aware of the risks of corrupting the respectable image so painstakingly achieved.
A correlated issue to elaborate on will be the role of the second generations and their relationship with the communities established by their parents. It will be important to grasp the shift in the model of religious involvement (Ricucci, 2017) and it will be necessary to analyse if migrant churches will continue to be part of their identity, and, at the same time, how they will be able to support their secular inclusion in the Italian society. Recalling Portes and Rumbaut, religious communities in America are pivotal contexts to elaborate a selective acculturation (2006: 316). We wonder if the same role could be detected in Italy and more widely in Europe.
The various dynamics generated by these churches open new and relevant perspectives for studying the immigrants’ integration. A communitarian space developed around religion allows members to experience a sense of cultural continuity, to share common biographies in which there is mutual recognition and expression of a new form of sociality. Setting the stage for such an engaging socio-religious experience, migrant churches facilitate members’ integration through the creation of spaces of well-being, fostering interpersonal relationships characterized by moral and mutual support, as well as providing precious welfare resources: all benefits that are hard to find in a new (and often hostile) context. In this sense, while churches do not represent a panacea for members’ integration, they undoubtedly foster key elements of migrants’ integration process. To conclude, it will be important to consider how religious involvement will inform other migrant activities, such as their civic and political commitment. Currently, an interest in public activities seems far less evident. Moreover, the Italian situation does not provide incentives for political activism, due to voting restrictions even at the local level, and a very complex process of accessing citizenship. In this regard, migrant churches represent an important key to better understand how immigrants are developing their participation and integration into the European society. If religion in general is not only religion, this is even more true for immigrants.
Footnotes
Acknowledgements and funding
The authors wish to thank the ‘Confronti e Migrazioni Study Centre’ and the research group, promoted and sustained by funding from the Waldensian Church and aimed at studying Italy’s new religious pluralism. We would like to thank our colleagues for the fruitful exchange of views and the Study Centre for the financial support provided to us during the development of our study.
