Charting New Paths of Religion in African Migration Frameworks of Aspiration, Capabilities, and Integration
Main Article Content
Keywords
migration aspirations, migration capabilities, integration, Ghanaian immigrants, Pentecostalism, Canada
Abstract
Since the 1990s, research on religion and migration from Africa and its diasporas has focused on outcomes in destination countries, often neglecting the generative conditions shaping mobility and immobility. This article advances a new research agenda centred on migration aspirations, capabilities, and integration, expanding the scope to include aspiring migrants and non-migrants. Drawing on Pentecostal-Charismatic Christianity in Ghana and the experiences of Ghanaian Christian immigrants in Canada, it argues that religion is not merely a facilitator of migration but a transformative force that redefines migration itself. Religious ideas, rituals, and networks shape who migrates, who remains, and how migrants integrate into new societies. Beyond physical movement, African migration encompasses emotional, psychological, and spirited mobilities shaped by dreams, prophecies, and divinely attributed intuitions. Overall, this article moves beyond traditional congregational studies of ‘immigrant religion’ to highlight a broader spectrum of religious phenomena in migratory and diasporic contexts.
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References
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Adogame, Afe, and Jim Spickard. 2010. Religion Crossing Boundaries: Transnational Religious and Social Dynamics in Africa and the New African Diaspora. Religion and the Social Order 18. Brill.
Adogame, Afe. 1998. “A Home Away from Home: The Proliferation of the Celestial Church of Christ (Ccc) in Diaspora-Europe.” Exchange 27 (2): 141–60, https://doi.org/ 10.1163/157254398X00042.
Adogame, Afe. 2013. The African Christian Diaspora: New Currents and Emerging Trends in World Christianity. Bloomsbury.
Aechtner, Thomas. 2012. “Standing at The Crux: Pentecostalism and Identity Formation in an African Diaspora Christian Community.” In Global Pentecostal Movements: Migration, Mission, and Public Religion, edited by Michael Wilkinson. Brill.
Appiah-Nyamekye, Josephine S., and Edem Selormey. 2018. “African Migration: Who’s Thinking of Going Where?” Afrobarometer, June 25, 2018. https://ammodi.com/2018/ 06/25/african-migration-whos-thinking-of-going-where/comment-page-1/.
———. 2018. “In Search of a Better Country: Migration and Prosperity Hermeneutics in Contemporary African Pentecostalism.” PentecoStudies 17 (2): 158–79.
Asamoah-Gyadu, J. Kwabena. 2005. “An African Pentecostal on Mission in Eastern Europe: The Church of the ‘Embassy of God’ in the Ukraine.” Pneuma 27 (2): 297–321. https://doi.org/10.1163/157007405774857328.
Au, Connie. 2020. “Globalization and Asian Pentecostalism in the Twenty-First Century.” Pneuma 42 (3/4): 500–20. https://doi.org/10.1163/15700747-bja10022.
Black, Richard, Peter Quartey, Eleonora Castagnone, Tiziana Nazio, Bruno Schoumaker, and Andonirina Rakotonarivo. 2018. “Ghanaian Migration: Economic Participation.” In Migration between Africa and Europe, edited by Cris Beauchemin. Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-69569-3_11.
Boccagni, Paolo, and Loretta Baldassar. 2015. “Emotions on the Move: Mapping the Emergent Field of Emotion and Migration.” Emotion, Space and Society 16 (August): 73–80. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.emospa.2015.06.009.
Bulkeley, Kelly. 2008. Dreaming in the World’s Religions: A Comparative History. New York University Press.
Burgess, Richard, Kim Knibbe, and Anna Quaas. 2010. “Nigerian-Initiated Pentecostal Churches as a Social Force in Europe: The Case of the Redeemed Christian Church of God.” PentecoStudies 9 (1): 97–121. https://doi.org/10.1558/ptcs.v9i1.97.
Burgess, Richard. 2009. “African Pentecostal Spirituality and Civic Engagement: The Case of the Redeemed Christian Church of God in Britain.” Journal of Beliefs & Values 30 (3): 255–73. https://doi.org/10.1080/13617670903371563.
———. 2020. “Megachurches and ‘Reverse Mission.’” In Handbook of Megachurches, edited by Stephen Hunt. Brill.
Cadge, Wendy, and Elaine Ecklund. 2007. “Immigration and Religion.” Annual Review of Sociology 33 (1): 359–79. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.soc.33.040406.131707.
Carling, Jørgen, and Kerilyn Schewel. 2018. “Revisiting Aspiration and Ability in International Migration.” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 44 (6): 945–63. https://doi.org/ 10.1080/1369183X.2017.1384146.
Carling, Jørgen. 2002. “Migration in the Age of Involuntary Immobility: Theoretical Reflections and Cape Verdean Experiences.” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 28 (1): 5–42. https://doi.org/10.1080/13691830120103912.
Connor, Phillip. 2014. Immigrant Faith: Patterns of Immigrant Religion in the United States, Canada, and Western Europe. New York University Press.
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De Haas, Hein. 2021. “A Theory of Migration: The Aspirations-Capabilities Framework.” Comparative Migration Studies 9 (8): 1–35. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40878-020-00210-4.
Ebaugh, Helen Rose, and Janet Saltzman Chafetz. 2000. Religion and the New Immigrants: Continuities and Adaptations in Immigrant Congregations. AltaMira Press.
Epstein, Seymour. 2010. “Demystifying Intuition: What It Is, What It Does, and How It Does It.” Psychological Inquiry 21 (4): 295–312. https://doi.org/10.1080/1047840X.2010.523875.
Esipova, Neli, Rajesh Srinivasan, and Julie Ray. 2016. “Global Desires to Migrate.” In Adjusting to a World in Motion: Trends in Global Migration and Migration Policy, edited by Douglas J. Besharov and Mark H. Lopez. Oxford University Press.
Foner, Nancy, and Richard Alba. 2008. “Immigrant Religion in the U.S. and Western Europe: Bridge or Barrier to Inclusion?” International Migration Review 42 (2): 360–92. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1747-7379.2008.00128.x.
Freston, Paul. 2010. “Reverse Mission: A Discourse in Search Of Reality?” PentecoStudies 9 (2): 153–74. https://doi.org/10.1558/ptcs.v9.i2.8948.
Gerloff, Roswith. 1995. “The Holy Spirit and the African Diaspora Spiritual, Cultural and Social Roots of Black Pentecostal Churches.” EPTA Bulletin 14 (1): 85–100. https://doi.org/ 10.1179/jep.1995.14.1.006.
Gu, Shafei, and Eric Fong. 2022. “Migration from Muslim-Majority Countries: A Tale of Two Patterns.” Population Research and Policy Review 41 (4): 1853–72. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11113-022-09700-y.
Hanciles, Jehu. 2008. Beyond Christendom: Globalization, African Migration, and the Transformation of the West. Orbis.
Haugen, Heidi Østbø. 2013. “African Pentecostal Migrants in China: Marginalization and the Alternative Geography of a Mission Theology.” African Studies Review 56 (1): 81–102. https://doi.org/10.1017/asr.2013.7.
Herberg, Will. 1955. Protestant, Catholic, Jew: An Essay in American Religious Sociology. Doubleday & Co.
Hollifield, James F., Philip L. Martin, Pia M. Orrenius, and François Héran, eds. 2022. Controlling Immigration: A Comparative Perspective. Stanford University Press.
Hucks, Tracey E. 2012. Yoruba Traditions and African American Religious Nationalism. University of New Mexico Press.
Hunt, Stephen, and Nicola Lightly. 2001. “The British Black Pentecostal ‘Revival’: Identity and Belief in the ‘New’ Nigerian Churches.” Ethnic and Racial Studies 24 (1): 104–24. https://doi.org/10.1080/014198701750052523.
Hunt, Stephen. 2002. “‘Neither Here nor There’: The Construction of Identities and Boundary Maintenance of West African Pentecostals.” Sociology 36 (1): 147–69. https://doi.org/10.1177/0038038502036001008.
Kalu, Ogbu. 2008. African Pentecostalism: An Introduction. Oxford University Press.
Kazeem, Yomi. 2019. “Three in Four Africans Applying for Student Visas in Canada This Year Have Been Rejected.” Quartz, September 14, 2019. https://qz.com/africa/1708714/canada-rejects-most-african-student-visa-applicants/.
Kivisto, Peter. 2014. Religion and Immigration: Migrant Faiths in North America and Western Europe. Immigration and Society. Polity Press.
Koikkalainen, Saara, and David Kyle. 2016. “Imagining Mobility: The Prospective Cognition Question in Migration Research.” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 42 (5): 759–76. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369183X.2015.1111133.
Kwateng-Yeboah, James. 2022. “Religion in the Aspirations-(Cap)Abilities Framework of Migration: A Case of Ghanaian Emigration and Integration in Canada.” PhD diss., Queen’s University. http://hdl.handle.net/1974/30249.
———. 2025. “Migratory Dreams, Prophecies, and Intuitions: Experiential Religion in Ghanaian Migration Aspirations.” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, February, 1–20. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369183X.2025.2460602.
Li, Peter S. 2003. “Deconstructing Canada’s Discourse of Immigrant Integration.” Journal of International Migration and Integration / Revue de l’integration et de La Migration Internationale 4 (3): 315–33. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12134-003-1024-0.
Ludwig, Frieder, and J. Kwabena Asamoah-Gyadu, eds. 2011. African Christian Presence in the West: New Immigrant Congregations and Transnational Networks in North America and Europe. Religion in Contemporary Africa Series. Africa World Press.
Manglos-Weber, Nicolette D. 2021. “The Contexts of Spiritual Seeking: How Ghanaians in the United States Navigate Changing Normative Conditions of Religious Belief and Practice.” Sociology of Religion 82 (2): 133–55. https://doi.org/10.1093/socrel/sraa058.
Mensah, Joseph. 2009. “‘Doing Religion’ Overseas: The Characteristics and Functions of Ghanaian Immigrant Churches in Toronto, Canada.” Societies Without Borders 4 (1): 21–44. https://doi.org/10.1163/187219108X300037.
———. 2014. “The Black, Continental African Presence and the Nation-Immigration Dialectic in Canada.” Social Identities 20 (4–5): 279–98. https://doi.org/10.1080/ 13504630.2014.997200.
Migali, Silvia, and Marco Scipioni. 2019. “Who’s About to Leave? A Global Survey of Aspirations and Intentions to Migrate.” International Migration 57 (5): 181–200. https://doi.org/10.1111/imig.12617.
Newberg, Eric N. 2021. “Global Poverty and Transnational Pentecostalism in the Middle East.” Spiritus: ORU Journal of Theology 6 (1): a7. https://doi.org/10.31380/2573-6345.1194.
Nyanni, Caleb Opoku. 2021. Second-Generation African Pentecostals in the West: An Emerging Paradigm. Wipf and Stock Publishers.
Obadare, Ebenezer, and Adebanwi Wale. 2010. “The Visa God: Would-Be Migrants and the Instrumentalization of Religion.” In Religion Crossing Boundaries: Transnational Religious and Social Dynamics in Africa and the New African Diaspora, edited by Afe Adogame and James V. Spickard. Brill.
Olupona, Jacob, and Regina Gemignani. 2007. African Immigrant Religions in America. New York University Press.
Onyinah, Opoku. 2004. “Pentecostalism and the African Diaspora: An Examination of the Missions Activities of the Church of Pentecost.” Pneuma 26 (2): 216–41. https://doi.org/10.1163/157007404776110965.
Parsitau, Damaris Seleina, and Philomena Njeri Mwaura. 2010. “Gospel without Borders: Gender Dynamics of Transnational Religious Movements in Kenya and the Kenyan Diaspora.” In Religion Crossing Boundaries: Transnational Religious and Social Dynamics in Africa and the New African Diaspora, edited by Afe Adogame and Jim Spickard. Brill.
Pew Research Center Report. 2018. “The Age Gap in Religion Around the World.” Pew Research Center, June 13, 2018. https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2018/06/13/the-age-gap-in-religion-around-the-world/.
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Sen, Amartya. 1999. Development as Freedom. Alfred A. Knopf.
Smith, Timothy L. 1978. “Religion and Ethnicity in America.” The American Historical Review 83 (5): 1155–85. https://doi.org/10.2307/1854689.
Stewart, Dianne M. 2005. Three Eyes for the Journey: African Dimensions of the Jamaican Religious Experience. Oxford University Press.
Taves, Ann. 2009. Religious Experience Reconsidered: A Building-Block Approach to the Study of Religion and Other Special Things. Princeton University Press.
Ter Haar, Gerrie. 1998. Halfway to Paradise: African Christians in Europe. Cardiff Academic Press.
———. 2009. How God Became African: African Spirituality and Western Secular Thought. University of Pennsylvania Press.
Tettey, Wisdom. 2007. “Transnationalism, Religion, and the African Diaspora in Canada: An Examination of Ghanaians and Ghanaian Churches.” In African Immigrant Religions in America, edited by Jacob Olupọna and Regina Gemignani. New York University Press.
Ugba, Abel. 2009. Shades of Belonging: African Pentecostals in Twenty-First Century Ireland. Religion in Contemporary Africa. Africa World Press.
Van Dijk, Rijk A. 1997. “From Camp to Encompassment: Discourses of Transsubjectivity in the Ghanaian Pentecostal Diaspora.” Journal of Religion in Africa 27 (2): 135–59. https://doi.org/10.2307/1581683.
Vertovec, Steven. 2007. “Super-Diversity and Its Implications.” Ethnic and Racial Studies 30 (6): 1024–54. https://doi.org/10.1080/01419870701599465.
Warner, R. Stephen, and Judith G. Wittner. 1998. Gatherings in Diaspora: Religious Communities and the New Immigration. Temple University Press.
Adogame, Afe, and Jim Spickard. 2010. Religion Crossing Boundaries: Transnational Religious and Social Dynamics in Africa and the New African Diaspora. Religion and the Social Order 18. Brill.
Adogame, Afe. 1998. “A Home Away from Home: The Proliferation of the Celestial Church of Christ (Ccc) in Diaspora-Europe.” Exchange 27 (2): 141–60, https://doi.org/ 10.1163/157254398X00042.
Adogame, Afe. 2013. The African Christian Diaspora: New Currents and Emerging Trends in World Christianity. Bloomsbury.
Aechtner, Thomas. 2012. “Standing at The Crux: Pentecostalism and Identity Formation in an African Diaspora Christian Community.” In Global Pentecostal Movements: Migration, Mission, and Public Religion, edited by Michael Wilkinson. Brill.
Appiah-Nyamekye, Josephine S., and Edem Selormey. 2018. “African Migration: Who’s Thinking of Going Where?” Afrobarometer, June 25, 2018. https://ammodi.com/2018/ 06/25/african-migration-whos-thinking-of-going-where/comment-page-1/.
———. 2018. “In Search of a Better Country: Migration and Prosperity Hermeneutics in Contemporary African Pentecostalism.” PentecoStudies 17 (2): 158–79.
Asamoah-Gyadu, J. Kwabena. 2005. “An African Pentecostal on Mission in Eastern Europe: The Church of the ‘Embassy of God’ in the Ukraine.” Pneuma 27 (2): 297–321. https://doi.org/10.1163/157007405774857328.
Au, Connie. 2020. “Globalization and Asian Pentecostalism in the Twenty-First Century.” Pneuma 42 (3/4): 500–20. https://doi.org/10.1163/15700747-bja10022.
Black, Richard, Peter Quartey, Eleonora Castagnone, Tiziana Nazio, Bruno Schoumaker, and Andonirina Rakotonarivo. 2018. “Ghanaian Migration: Economic Participation.” In Migration between Africa and Europe, edited by Cris Beauchemin. Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-69569-3_11.
Boccagni, Paolo, and Loretta Baldassar. 2015. “Emotions on the Move: Mapping the Emergent Field of Emotion and Migration.” Emotion, Space and Society 16 (August): 73–80. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.emospa.2015.06.009.
Bulkeley, Kelly. 2008. Dreaming in the World’s Religions: A Comparative History. New York University Press.
Burgess, Richard, Kim Knibbe, and Anna Quaas. 2010. “Nigerian-Initiated Pentecostal Churches as a Social Force in Europe: The Case of the Redeemed Christian Church of God.” PentecoStudies 9 (1): 97–121. https://doi.org/10.1558/ptcs.v9i1.97.
Burgess, Richard. 2009. “African Pentecostal Spirituality and Civic Engagement: The Case of the Redeemed Christian Church of God in Britain.” Journal of Beliefs & Values 30 (3): 255–73. https://doi.org/10.1080/13617670903371563.
———. 2020. “Megachurches and ‘Reverse Mission.’” In Handbook of Megachurches, edited by Stephen Hunt. Brill.
Cadge, Wendy, and Elaine Ecklund. 2007. “Immigration and Religion.” Annual Review of Sociology 33 (1): 359–79. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.soc.33.040406.131707.
Carling, Jørgen, and Kerilyn Schewel. 2018. “Revisiting Aspiration and Ability in International Migration.” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 44 (6): 945–63. https://doi.org/ 10.1080/1369183X.2017.1384146.
Carling, Jørgen. 2002. “Migration in the Age of Involuntary Immobility: Theoretical Reflections and Cape Verdean Experiences.” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 28 (1): 5–42. https://doi.org/10.1080/13691830120103912.
Connor, Phillip. 2014. Immigrant Faith: Patterns of Immigrant Religion in the United States, Canada, and Western Europe. New York University Press.
Cox, Harvey. 1995. Fire from Heaven: The Rise of Pentecostal Spirituality and the Reshaping of Religion in the Twenty-First Century. Addison-Wesley.
De Haas, Hein, Stephen Castles, and Mark J. Miller. 2020. The Age of Migration, Sixth Edition: International Population Movements in the Modern World. The Guilford Press.
De Haas, Hein. 2021. “A Theory of Migration: The Aspirations-Capabilities Framework.” Comparative Migration Studies 9 (8): 1–35. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40878-020-00210-4.
Ebaugh, Helen Rose, and Janet Saltzman Chafetz. 2000. Religion and the New Immigrants: Continuities and Adaptations in Immigrant Congregations. AltaMira Press.
Epstein, Seymour. 2010. “Demystifying Intuition: What It Is, What It Does, and How It Does It.” Psychological Inquiry 21 (4): 295–312. https://doi.org/10.1080/1047840X.2010.523875.
Esipova, Neli, Rajesh Srinivasan, and Julie Ray. 2016. “Global Desires to Migrate.” In Adjusting to a World in Motion: Trends in Global Migration and Migration Policy, edited by Douglas J. Besharov and Mark H. Lopez. Oxford University Press.
Foner, Nancy, and Richard Alba. 2008. “Immigrant Religion in the U.S. and Western Europe: Bridge or Barrier to Inclusion?” International Migration Review 42 (2): 360–92. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1747-7379.2008.00128.x.
Freston, Paul. 2010. “Reverse Mission: A Discourse in Search Of Reality?” PentecoStudies 9 (2): 153–74. https://doi.org/10.1558/ptcs.v9.i2.8948.
Gerloff, Roswith. 1995. “The Holy Spirit and the African Diaspora Spiritual, Cultural and Social Roots of Black Pentecostal Churches.” EPTA Bulletin 14 (1): 85–100. https://doi.org/ 10.1179/jep.1995.14.1.006.
Gu, Shafei, and Eric Fong. 2022. “Migration from Muslim-Majority Countries: A Tale of Two Patterns.” Population Research and Policy Review 41 (4): 1853–72. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11113-022-09700-y.
Hanciles, Jehu. 2008. Beyond Christendom: Globalization, African Migration, and the Transformation of the West. Orbis.
Haugen, Heidi Østbø. 2013. “African Pentecostal Migrants in China: Marginalization and the Alternative Geography of a Mission Theology.” African Studies Review 56 (1): 81–102. https://doi.org/10.1017/asr.2013.7.
Herberg, Will. 1955. Protestant, Catholic, Jew: An Essay in American Religious Sociology. Doubleday & Co.
Hollifield, James F., Philip L. Martin, Pia M. Orrenius, and François Héran, eds. 2022. Controlling Immigration: A Comparative Perspective. Stanford University Press.
Hucks, Tracey E. 2012. Yoruba Traditions and African American Religious Nationalism. University of New Mexico Press.
Hunt, Stephen, and Nicola Lightly. 2001. “The British Black Pentecostal ‘Revival’: Identity and Belief in the ‘New’ Nigerian Churches.” Ethnic and Racial Studies 24 (1): 104–24. https://doi.org/10.1080/014198701750052523.
Hunt, Stephen. 2002. “‘Neither Here nor There’: The Construction of Identities and Boundary Maintenance of West African Pentecostals.” Sociology 36 (1): 147–69. https://doi.org/10.1177/0038038502036001008.
Kalu, Ogbu. 2008. African Pentecostalism: An Introduction. Oxford University Press.
Kazeem, Yomi. 2019. “Three in Four Africans Applying for Student Visas in Canada This Year Have Been Rejected.” Quartz, September 14, 2019. https://qz.com/africa/1708714/canada-rejects-most-african-student-visa-applicants/.
Kivisto, Peter. 2014. Religion and Immigration: Migrant Faiths in North America and Western Europe. Immigration and Society. Polity Press.
Koikkalainen, Saara, and David Kyle. 2016. “Imagining Mobility: The Prospective Cognition Question in Migration Research.” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 42 (5): 759–76. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369183X.2015.1111133.
Kwateng-Yeboah, James. 2022. “Religion in the Aspirations-(Cap)Abilities Framework of Migration: A Case of Ghanaian Emigration and Integration in Canada.” PhD diss., Queen’s University. http://hdl.handle.net/1974/30249.
———. 2025. “Migratory Dreams, Prophecies, and Intuitions: Experiential Religion in Ghanaian Migration Aspirations.” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, February, 1–20. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369183X.2025.2460602.
Li, Peter S. 2003. “Deconstructing Canada’s Discourse of Immigrant Integration.” Journal of International Migration and Integration / Revue de l’integration et de La Migration Internationale 4 (3): 315–33. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12134-003-1024-0.
Ludwig, Frieder, and J. Kwabena Asamoah-Gyadu, eds. 2011. African Christian Presence in the West: New Immigrant Congregations and Transnational Networks in North America and Europe. Religion in Contemporary Africa Series. Africa World Press.
Manglos-Weber, Nicolette D. 2021. “The Contexts of Spiritual Seeking: How Ghanaians in the United States Navigate Changing Normative Conditions of Religious Belief and Practice.” Sociology of Religion 82 (2): 133–55. https://doi.org/10.1093/socrel/sraa058.
Mensah, Joseph. 2009. “‘Doing Religion’ Overseas: The Characteristics and Functions of Ghanaian Immigrant Churches in Toronto, Canada.” Societies Without Borders 4 (1): 21–44. https://doi.org/10.1163/187219108X300037.
———. 2014. “The Black, Continental African Presence and the Nation-Immigration Dialectic in Canada.” Social Identities 20 (4–5): 279–98. https://doi.org/10.1080/ 13504630.2014.997200.
Migali, Silvia, and Marco Scipioni. 2019. “Who’s About to Leave? A Global Survey of Aspirations and Intentions to Migrate.” International Migration 57 (5): 181–200. https://doi.org/10.1111/imig.12617.
Newberg, Eric N. 2021. “Global Poverty and Transnational Pentecostalism in the Middle East.” Spiritus: ORU Journal of Theology 6 (1): a7. https://doi.org/10.31380/2573-6345.1194.
Nyanni, Caleb Opoku. 2021. Second-Generation African Pentecostals in the West: An Emerging Paradigm. Wipf and Stock Publishers.
Obadare, Ebenezer, and Adebanwi Wale. 2010. “The Visa God: Would-Be Migrants and the Instrumentalization of Religion.” In Religion Crossing Boundaries: Transnational Religious and Social Dynamics in Africa and the New African Diaspora, edited by Afe Adogame and James V. Spickard. Brill.
Olupona, Jacob, and Regina Gemignani. 2007. African Immigrant Religions in America. New York University Press.
Onyinah, Opoku. 2004. “Pentecostalism and the African Diaspora: An Examination of the Missions Activities of the Church of Pentecost.” Pneuma 26 (2): 216–41. https://doi.org/10.1163/157007404776110965.
Parsitau, Damaris Seleina, and Philomena Njeri Mwaura. 2010. “Gospel without Borders: Gender Dynamics of Transnational Religious Movements in Kenya and the Kenyan Diaspora.” In Religion Crossing Boundaries: Transnational Religious and Social Dynamics in Africa and the New African Diaspora, edited by Afe Adogame and Jim Spickard. Brill.
Pew Research Center Report. 2018. “The Age Gap in Religion Around the World.” Pew Research Center, June 13, 2018. https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2018/06/13/the-age-gap-in-religion-around-the-world/.
Pugliese, Anita, and Julie Ray. 2023. “Nearly 900 Million Worldwide Wanted to Migrate in 2021.” Gallup, January 24, 2023. https://news.gallup.com/poll/468218/nearly-900-million-worldwide-wanted-migrate-2021.aspx.
Sen, Amartya. 1999. Development as Freedom. Alfred A. Knopf.
Smith, Timothy L. 1978. “Religion and Ethnicity in America.” The American Historical Review 83 (5): 1155–85. https://doi.org/10.2307/1854689.
Stewart, Dianne M. 2005. Three Eyes for the Journey: African Dimensions of the Jamaican Religious Experience. Oxford University Press.
Taves, Ann. 2009. Religious Experience Reconsidered: A Building-Block Approach to the Study of Religion and Other Special Things. Princeton University Press.
Ter Haar, Gerrie. 1998. Halfway to Paradise: African Christians in Europe. Cardiff Academic Press.
———. 2009. How God Became African: African Spirituality and Western Secular Thought. University of Pennsylvania Press.
Tettey, Wisdom. 2007. “Transnationalism, Religion, and the African Diaspora in Canada: An Examination of Ghanaians and Ghanaian Churches.” In African Immigrant Religions in America, edited by Jacob Olupọna and Regina Gemignani. New York University Press.
Ugba, Abel. 2009. Shades of Belonging: African Pentecostals in Twenty-First Century Ireland. Religion in Contemporary Africa. Africa World Press.
Van Dijk, Rijk A. 1997. “From Camp to Encompassment: Discourses of Transsubjectivity in the Ghanaian Pentecostal Diaspora.” Journal of Religion in Africa 27 (2): 135–59. https://doi.org/10.2307/1581683.
Vertovec, Steven. 2007. “Super-Diversity and Its Implications.” Ethnic and Racial Studies 30 (6): 1024–54. https://doi.org/10.1080/01419870701599465.
Warner, R. Stephen, and Judith G. Wittner. 1998. Gatherings in Diaspora: Religious Communities and the New Immigration. Temple University Press.
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Apr 28, 2025
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Charting New Paths of Religion in African Migration: Frameworks of Aspiration, Capabilities, and Integration. (2025). Utambuzi: Journal for the Study of the Religions of Africa and Its Diaspora, 8(1), 69-81. https://doi.org/10.36615/x39wjx76
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Author Biography
James Kwateng-Yeboah, Saint Mary's University, Halifax
James Kwateng-Yeboah is an Assistant Professor of Christianity in the African Diaspora in Canada at Saint Mary's University, Halifax. His research employs quantitative and qualitative methods to examine the nature and role of religion in migration and development processes.
How to Cite
Charting New Paths of Religion in African Migration: Frameworks of Aspiration, Capabilities, and Integration. (2025). Utambuzi: Journal for the Study of the Religions of Africa and Its Diaspora, 8(1), 69-81. https://doi.org/10.36615/x39wjx76