Piller AMLI2021
Channel: Language on the Move
Date: 17/06/2021

Plenary lecture about "Religious conversion and migrant integration" by Professor Ingrid Piller for "Approaches to Migration, Language, and Identity" Conference 2021

https://amli2021.org/

Religious conversion and migrant integration 

This lecture examines the intersection of conversion to Christianity and migrants’ social and linguistic integration. The lecture is based on research conducted jointly with Yining Wang. Conversion to Christianity is growing among Chinese migrants to Australia. We investigated the conversion journeys of a group of first-generation Chinese Australians as they intersect with their experiences of English language learning, hybrid identity formation, settlement, and parenting. Based on qualitative open-ended interviews with seven highly educated women who had migrated to Australia as adults and converted to Christianity within the first few years of settlement, we trace conversion as a key aspect of their social integration into the new society. The women experienced migration as an existential crisis of economic insecurity, loss of status, language barriers, marital problems, and parenting dilemmas. In the absence of the social networks they had lost through migration, they turned to churches for practical support. The support and community offered by church groups led them to accept a new belief system and completely transformed their lives. The long-term consolidation of the benefits of conversion were achieved through bilingual and bicultural practices and hybrid and adhesive identities, resulting in personal well-being and a high level of social integration. Christian beliefs also became a kind of objective standard that allowed them to bridge generational, linguistic, and cultural gaps with their second-generation children. We close with a discussion of the lessons that this research holds for secular institutions as they try to improve the social integration of newcomers.