Modes of incorporation and transnational Zimbabwean migration to Britain

Abstract

In the last decade, the phenomenal growth of Zimbabwean congregations in Britain, responding to conditions in both the hostland and homeland, has received little scholarly attention. This article, drawing from an in-depth study of Zimbabwean Christians and the modes-of-incorporation framework, examines the ways in which the context of reception in the hostland shape, alter and influence the development of religious transnationalism among migrants. As this article will argue, Zimbabweans' mode of incorporation into Britain was mediated by a hostile reception from authorities, considerable prejudice and hostility from the host society and a weak pre-existing co-ethnic community. These conditions in the hostland reinforce migrants' transnational religious ties to the homeland. In addition, the article illustrates the contradictory ways in which respondents reproduce, contest and construct their transnational gendered identities.

Keywords:

• Religious transnationalism
• modes of incorporation
• Zimbabwean Christian migrants
• gendered identities
• Britain
• homeland

Acknowledgements

The Economic and Social Research Council funded this research: grant number PTA-026-27-2212. I would like to express my thanks to the editors and two anonymous reviewers for their helpful suggestions.

Notes

1. Most of the names of respondents have been changed to ensure participants’ anonymity.

2. In October 2009, I attended one of the Apostle Walter Masocha's church services in Yorkshire.

3. The Zimbabwean Catholic community does not have its own ethnic parish but is embedded within the local Catholic parish where Father Patrick, an Irishman, is the parish priest.

4. The reference ‘Shona people’ is misleading as there are people from the Ndebele ethnic group as well.