Religion, Home-Making and Migration Across a Globalising City
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This article was downloaded by: [Tsukuba University] On: 24 April 2013, At: 23:24 Publisher: Routledge Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK Culture and Religion: An Interdisciplinary Journal Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rcar20 Religion, home-making and migration across a globalising city: Responding to mobility in London John Eade a a University of Roehampton, 80 Roehampton Lane, London, SW15 5SL, UK Version of record first published: 05 Dec 2012. To cite this article: John Eade (2012): Religion, home-making and migration across a globalising city: Responding to mobility in London, Culture and Religion: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 13:4, 469-483 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14755610.2012.728142 PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE Full terms and conditions of use: http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. The publisher does not give any warranty express or implied or make any representation that the contents will be complete or accurate or up to date. The accuracy of any instructions, formulae, and drug doses should be independently verified with primary sources. The publisher shall not be liable for any loss, actions, claims, proceedings, demand, or costs or damages whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with or arising out of the use of this material. Culture and Religion Vol. 13, No. 4, December 2012, 469–483 Religion, home-making and migration across a globalising city: Responding to mobility in London John Eade* University of Roehampton, 80 Roehampton Lane, London, SW15 5SL, UK During the last 60 years three forms of mobility have played a crucial role in the process of home-making across London – global migration, suburbanisa- tion and gentrification. While these mobilities have been extensively analysed in terms of secular processes, the role of religion is becoming ever more evident and this paper seeks to contribute to this growing understanding by analysing the involvement by different Christian churches in the making of multiple homes across the metropolis. Various aspects of this home-making process are explored – the ways in which Anglican churches have responded to global migration and gentrification, as well as the challenges of increasing ethnic and ritual diversity for Methodist and Catholic congregations. Religion is intimately involved in diverse crossings of spatial and cultural boundaries and the construction of multiple dwellings (immediate and virtual). While global migration, suburbanisation and gentrification operate here in specific local contexts across a particular city, these modes of mobility operate around the globe and encourage comparison with American and Australian cities. Keywords: home-making; migration; globalisation Introduction: religion and multiple home-making in a rapidly globalising city In the extensive literature which has investigated the impact of immigration on W. European societies since the Second World War, there has been a growing appreciation of the religious diversity generated not only by non-Christian Downloaded by [Tsukuba University] at 23:24 24 April 2013 congregations but also by those belonging to mainstream Christian and Pentecostal churches. This diversity is demonstrated most strikingly in such rapidly globalising European cities as London, Amsterdam, Brussels, Paris and Barcelona where the interweaving of ethnic and racial difference has become increasingly complex under the impact of global migration. Research has focussed predominantly on the ways in which ethnic and racial minorities are drawing on religious traditions to establish homes in impoverished localities within these and other urban societies. However, attention is now being paid to the movement of those from ethnic and racial minorities into more prosperous suburban neighbourhoods dominated by white majority residents and the ways in which the *Email: [email protected] ISSN 1475-5610 print/ISSN 1475-5629 online q 2012 Taylor & Francis http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14755610.2012.728142 http://www.tandfonline.com 470 J. Eade suburban landscape is being changed by the appearance of religious centres supported by these new settlers. This process contributes to the questioning of assumptions about the highly secularised character of European society and the growing awareness of the similarities between these suburbs and what has been happening in American and Australian cities (see, for example, Waghorne 1999; Watson 2009; Stevenson et al. 2010; Dwyer, Gilbert and Shah 2012). London provides a very useful location for examining these processes. Its economic success as a ‘global city’ has been accompanied by increasingly diverse immigration flows, which over the last 30 years have brought its cultural diversity closer to levels attained by N. American cities.1 This diversity is expressed by the wide array of religious centres built not only in the inner London boroughs where most migrants have settled but also in the spread of mosques, temples and gurudwaras across the wealthier suburban neighbourhoods reflecting social mobility and the arrival of more affluent migrants. The appearance of purpose-built religious centres in the outer suburbs attests to the development of social mobility among earlier settlers from S. Asia in particular and the arrival of more affluent migrants from other global regions as well as London’s position within a wider regional context since some of these religious centres attract a widely dispersed car-owning clientele from the surrounding towns as well as the metropolis (see Shah, Dwyer and Gilbert 2012). The image of British suburban life as stable, homogeneous and highly materialistic, which has been popularised by television, novels and social commentaries (see Shah, Dwyer and Gilbert 2012), is belied not only by a history of dynamic and diverse class community- making but also by growing cultural diversity driven by global migration. Religion is playing a significant role in that diversity and adding to the comparisons which can be made between London and other globalising cities. These two prime modes of migration involving ethnic minorities – settlement in large numbers across inner London and the movement of wealthier members into the suburbs and beyond – are complemented by a third process where young white middle class gentrifiers have moved into working and lower middle class neighbourhoods in the inner boroughs. This has brought relatively wealthy young Downloaded by [Tsukuba University] at 23:24 24 April 2013 white settlers in close proximity with poorer minority ethnic residents. Although some may be escaping from suburbs where they had been brought up, this movement back into the inner city may not end there – for some it is ‘a staging post on a journey likely to proceed to towards parenthood and suburban or rural and semi-rural living’ (Hardill, Graham and Kofman 2001, 234). While many gentrifiers come from various areas of rural and urban Britain, others belong to the ranks of white European and other affluent migrants working in London’s highly globalised service sector. Their shared cosmopolitan lifestyles are reflected in the shops, restaurants, cafes, schools and houses which have radically altered these former largely working and lower middle class neighbourhoods. Because research has focussed on the socio-economic dimensions of gentrification and the secular interests of gentrifiers (see Butler and Hamnett 2009), a contrast has emerged between the religious landscape of poor neighbourhoods with high concentrations Culture and Religion 471 of ethnic minorities and, in sometimes close proximity, the secularised wealthy locales of the (predominantly white) gentrifiers. Just as assumptions about the highly secularised character of suburbia have been challenged by the religious diversity associated with the arrival of middle class members of Britain’s minorities, so the assumption that gentrification necessarily encourages religious decline in these wealthier neighbourhoods of inner London needs to be questioned. As we shall see gentrifiers are contributing to the revival of religious congregations in some localities at least; religion is not just a matter for ethnic and racial minorities in these localities. These three modes of mobility involve a complex interweaving of fixity and process, where local urban ‘communities’ are created through multiple allegiances and narratives. Here the focus will be on the diverse strategies which local religious congregations are developing to maintain a sense of home in a rapidly changing city. As Tweed points out, religions ‘are not reified substances but complex processes’, which are characterised by confluences and flows (Tweed 2008, 59). The relationship between religion and space can, therefore, be understood in terms of dwelling and crossing where religion entails ‘finding a place and moving across space’ (2008, 59). This relationship between dwelling and crossing operates within a particular metropolitan and national context but as we have already indicated, the interweaving of global and local also results in changing urban