Case Study of a Faith-Based Organisation on the African Migration Route
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RELIGIOUS SPACE, TRANSNATIONAL SPACE, HUMANITARIAN SPACE: CASE STUDY OF A FAITH-BASED ORGANISATION ON THE AFRICAN MIGRATION ROUTE by My Ngo (BA, MA) This thesis is presented for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy of the Swinburne University of Technology Swinburne Institute for Social Research 2015 2 Abstract This thesis examines the role of religion in humanitarian aid provision in the context of irregular migration. My research explores one particular instance of how humanitarianism works from a faith-based approach, using a case study of the official Protestant church in Morocco and its work with irregular sub-Saharan African migrants. Religion has become an important, if contested, discourse in politics. Faith-based organisations (FBOs) are important actors in the public sphere, and are themselves shaped by wider global processes such as migration. Although religion has often been discussed as a factor in displacement and migration, there is a distinct lack of studies on how religious beliefs and practices provide the basis for diverse humanitarian responses, including the ways in which local faith communities (LFCs) respond to the arrival of migrants. This research aims to fill this gap by examining a case study that draws on notions of constructions of the sacred and the secular in the public sphere and organisational culture. The research methods included participant observation, in-depth interviews and analysis of documents, in line with an ethnographic approach that highlights everyday practices. The thesis demonstrates how the role of “religion” in humanitarianism is a negotiation marked by contradictions, tension and ambiguity, reflecting the wider ambivalent role of religion and the secular in the public sphere and putting into question the idea of distinct divisions between religion and the secular, and religion and politics. It also considers how such binaries can render invisible “other” actors in the public sphere. Study of a Southern faith-based actor like the Comité d’Entraide Internationale (CEI) contributes to a greater understanding of some of the smaller actors who engage in “other” modes of humanitarian action that often go unrecognised in the literature, and enlarges the definition of humanitarianism. Transnational religious communities in the global South can emerge out of migration to become actors themselves responding to irregular migration in the humanitarian field. 3 For my parents, and in memory of my brother 4 Acknowledgements Firstly, I would like to thank my supervisors Dr Angela Spinney, Dr Linda Briskman and Dr Darren Cronshaw for their support, empathy and constructive feedback. I would also like to thank Swinburne University of Technology for an Australian Postgraduate Award scholarship, without which I would not have been able to do the PhD. I also thank the Swinburne Institute for Social Research and the Centre Jacques Berque in Morocco for supporting my research. I would also like to thank Cassandra Ball AE for her professional editorial services, which included copyediting and proofreading as covered by Standards D and E of the Australian standards for editing practice. Completing this thesis has been a long and difficult lesson in discipline, faithfulness and detachment. I would like to thank the following people for their companionship along the way and without whom completion would not have been possible: My heartfelt gratitude to everyone whom I met, talked with and interviewed for this research while in Morocco. This thesis is the result of my interactions and relationships with all of you. To the people I met in Morocco who have become very dear friends: Sabahat Adil, Caroline Abadeer, Anne-Marie Teeuwissen, Mary Montgomery, Nazarena Lanza, Fatima Zahrae and Armaan Sidiqqui. Thank you for the intellectual stimulation, spiritual connection and friendship. May we all meet again someday in a café in Rabat drinking nuss nuss … To my friends who have been present over the years, and who are more like kindred spirits: Christiane Craig, Hang Peterkin, Shruti Joshi and Chris Box. To the World Community for Christian Meditation, for letting me stay in their community house, Meditatio House, towards the last three months of the writing stage of my thesis. Thank you for providing a warm and challenging environment to grow spiritually, and for leading on a new kind of lay monasticism and contemplative life that the modern world sorely needs. My gratitude is beyond words. Lastly, I would like to thank my family for their strength, kindness and love. And Soc Duong Ung, for teaching me many things, but especially the meaning of devotion. 5 Declaration This thesis contains no material which has been accepted for the award to the candidate of any other degree or diploma, except where due reference is made in the text. To the best of my knowledge this thesis contains no material previously published or written by another person except where due reference is made in the text. Where the work is based on joint research or publications, this thesis discloses the relative contributions of the respective workers or authors. My Ngo 2015 6 Table of contents Abstract ................................................................................................................................................. 3 Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................................... 5 Declaration ............................................................................................................................................ 6 List of acronyms ................................................................................................................................. 12 CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION 15 Research question ............................................................................................................................... 18 Addressing a gap in the literature..................................................................................................... 18 Theoretical framework ...................................................................................................................... 20 Terms and definitions ........................................................................................................................ 21 What is religion? .............................................................................................................................. 21 What is the secular? ......................................................................................................................... 23 Outline of thesis .................................................................................................................................. 25 CHAPTER 2. BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY 27 Literature review: anthropology of humanitarianism and faith-based organisations ................. 27 Conceptions of religion and the secular ........................................................................................... 30 Research frameworks ........................................................................................................................ 33 Religious roots of humanitarianism .................................................................................................. 35 Definitions and varieties of humanitarianism .................................................................................. 37 Local faith communities..................................................................................................................... 38 Categorising migrants ........................................................................................................................ 40 Survival migration ........................................................................................................................... 40 The “migration–asylum nexus” ....................................................................................................... 41 Transit migration ............................................................................................................................. 42 Irregular migration ........................................................................................................................... 43 A visit to Takadoum ........................................................................................................................... 44 CEI drop-ins: a description ............................................................................................................... 49 Rabat ................................................................................................................................................ 49 Casablanca ....................................................................................................................................... 50 Oujda ............................................................................................................................................... 51 Conclusion ........................................................................................................................................... 52 CHAPTER 3. METHODOLOGY 53 Epistemological framework: social constructionism ....................................................................... 53 Research perspectives ........................................................................................................................ 55 7 Discursive