Religion and transnationalism: biographies of South Korean migrants – an empirical perspective

2014

As a result of studying interviews with Korean migrants (miners and nurses who moved to Germany and [some of them] further on to North America) we show how this group finds or “comes to religion”. After presenting a concept of religion, following the model of Ulrich Oevermann, parts of autobiographical narratives are analyzed and the complicated, intertwining and often conflicting relationships between religion and transnationalism are studied; we ask, among other things, if religion is becoming a compensation for moving back and forth between the home country and the country of residence. This discussion leads to further considerations concerning the connection between religion, church rel…