Professor Patricia Ehrkamp in the Department of Geography at the University of Kentucky and Caroline Nagel in the Department of Geography at the University of South Carolina will explore citizenship as a fluid and often contested set of norms and expectations that establish belonging in society. Their research centers on the role that immigrant faith communities play in articulating and enacting particular conceptions of citizenship. Faith communities are central to the lives of many immigrants, and this research investigates how faith communities may be instrumental in shaping immigrants' understandings of rights, responsibilities, and societal norms. This project will employ in-depth, qualitative case studies of Christian, Hindu, Buddhist, and Muslim places of worship. Data collection will take place through intensive interviews with faith community leaders and focus groups with ordinary members that include both immigrants and non-immigrants of faith communities. Interviews will take place in three metropolitan areas in the American South -- Charlotte, NC, Atlanta, GA, and Greenville-Spartanburg, SC. The South, and especially the Carolinas and Georgia, have experienced some of the highest rates of growth of the foreign-born population of any region in the United States. By focusing on these Southern metropolitan regions, and the ethnic and religious diversification taking place within them, this study offers insights into the social transformations being experienced in America's new immigrant gateways.
This research will advance theoretical perspectives on citizenship by focusing on the ways that ordinary people negotiate citizenship in their everyday lives, and will open up the study of citizenship by investigating how people's faith and spiritual beliefs inform citizenship practices. This study will also contribute to regional studies scholarship by documenting the ways in which new immigrant groups are reconfiguring regional narratives and racial hierarchies in the South. Finally, this project will help to reframe public and academic debates about immigrants and citizenship and to move such debates beyond perennial concerns with immigrants' language skills and rates of naturalization. Toward this end, research findings will be disseminated on a project website and through a traveling photo exhibit of religious diversity in the South. This photo exhibit will utilize the talents of undergraduate photography students. The research will also provide support and research training for two doctoral students.
The goal of this research was to understand how Christian faith communities in the U.S. South mediate immigrant integration and membership in American society. For this research we visited 43 churches, interviewed 66 faith-community leaders (i.e. pastors, lay ministers, and church officials), and conducted 8 focus groups with immigrant and non-immigrant congregants. Through this research we gained a broad understanding of the ways that churches in the South are responding to growing numbers of immigrants in the region. While not all churches seek immigrant members, immigrant outreach is increasingly common both in well-established, Catholic and mainline Protestant churches and in newer, evangelical congregations. The novelty of this situation cannot be overstated given long-standing patterns of racial segregation in Southern churches. The desire of predominantly white churches to reach out to immigrants reflects a spirit of post-Civil Rights 'racial reconciliation' and an eagerness to be more relevant and to ‘make a difference’ in their local communities, which are becoming visibly more diverse through immigration. Some churches (especially Catholic ones) have become multicultural by default as a result of local demographic changes, while for many mainline Protestant congregations, outreach reflects a more conscientious effort to boost membership in dwindling congregations. In their outreach work, Protestant churches, in particular, are guided by histories of overseas evangelization, and there is a close relationship in many churches between foreign missionizing and immigrant outreach work. Common to both Protestant and Catholic churches are contemporary ideals of diversity, for which holy scripture provides abundant justification. Such ideals intersect with 'secular' conceptions of diversity and multiculturalism. The research reveals multiple models through which churches are working to incorporate immigrants and to diversify congregations. Many of the churches we visited have hired a pastor (often from an immigrant background) to lead outreach work among immigrants. In other cases, a church will invite a semi-independent immigrant congregation to use church facilities. Still others Christian faith communities have embarked on ‘church planting’, whereby church members start a mission church in an immigrant neighborhood and offer financial support to that church. Less common are churches that try to integrate immigrants into the main worship service, usually through the use of headsets and streamed translation. This model seemed most viable in large, non-denominational congregations with contemporary worship style. Our research uncovered some of the dilemmas and tensions that arise in congregations as immigrants become more visible in congregational life. We found that while many pastors are eager to welcome immigrants, existing congregants may be less eager to do so; responses within a single congregation can range from enthusiasm to indifference to hostility. The immigrant congregants and ministers described the warm welcome they have received from white churches; yet we also heard of cases of half-hearted efforts to welcome immigrants, resistance to bilingualism, and deep-seated (though usually unrecognized) racism among white congregants. Another contentious issue has been the presence of undocumented immigrants in politically conservative churches. Pastoral leaders were unequivocal about their spiritual responsibility to serve all immigrants, regardless of legal status. But few pastors were involved in public advocacy work on behalf of undocumented immigrants; most preferred to keep quiet the presence of undocumented immigrants, both to avoid attracting the attention of law enforcement officials and to avoid offending congregants. Churches, in this sense, are important sites of welcome for undocumented immigrants, but they seem unwilling or unable to challenge the punitive atmosphere toward undocumented immigrants in many Southern states. Overall, we found that immigrant outreach is more a specialized ministry in churches than an integral part of the church life—a pattern exemplified by the creation of separate services for immigrants. Pastors describe separate services in terms of respect for immigrants and their ‘cultures’; but by having separate services, opportunities for immigrants and non-immigrants to come face to face and to encounter one another are actually quite limited. Pastors are aware of this dilemma, but there is not much will to challenge the status quo or to alter worship traditions to accommodate newcomers. Thus, churches, while offering inclusive conceptions of societal membership and providing the means by which immigrants can participate more fully in society, tend to provide only tentative opportunities for the encounters and interactions across social differences that would seem essential to integration. This research illustrates how immigrants’ membership in society is shaped in everyday contexts and spaces. The research points to the significance of citizenship not only as a formal relationship between the individual and the state but as a set of ideas and norms about societal membership and the terms by which people may claim belonging and the rights and privileges attendant upon it. Faith communities' participation in citizenship and integration politics has ambiguous outcomes for immigrant integration and citizenship, fostering inclusion while preserving modes of exclusivity.
