Introduction Refugees and Religion

Abstract

In recent decades, millions of people have fled war, famine, and disaster. Humanitarian aid provided by missionary networks or professional relief organizations has become increasingly important. Under hostile circumstances that make it impossible to return home, stateless migrants and refugees often depend on religious congregations and missionary networks, with their ability to reach areas and fulfill needs unreached and unmet by other humanitarian organizations, to prepare and develop the routes and imaginaries that they travel (Levitt 2007). In this book, we follow up exciting work on migration and religion by Peggy Levitt and others to show the centrality of religion in the home- and placemaking of vulnerable refugees who have fled humanitarian crises and natural disasters (cf. Lubkemann 2002). Our thesis is that religion is believed to provide a sanctuary and space of relief for vulnerable people, to be a “compass” and itinerary” in the words of Thomas Tweed (2006), and to be a lens for understanding the kinetics of homemaking in often hostile environments. But religion is more than just a relief from suffering or a source of hope. Rather than enabling avoidance or denial, it can be an integral part of refugees’ public space making (Horstmann 2014).