Religion in Spaces of Transit: African Christian Migrant Churches and Transnational Mobility in Morocco

ABSTRACT

This article discusses how religious place-making contributes to the mobility and transnational connection of migrants during their periods of transit and fragmented journeys. Based on ethnographic research conducted in Pentecostal Charismatic Christian churches in Rabat and Casablanca, it describes how the establishment of religious places by West and Central African Christian migrants is an outcome of the blockades and ruptures that many of them experience in the buffer zone that Morocco has become. Moreover, this article demonstrates how the religious and social practices within these migrant spaces contribute to the development of mobility in terms of both the sending and receiving nations, as well as the believer’s integration into transnational Charismatic Christian territories. In this context of forced immobility and limited religious freedom, the transnational and decentralised dimensions of Pentecostal Charismatic Christianity have been particularly suitable for stranded Christian African migrants who aim to remain their agency and achieve in a better future, potentially through emigration to Europe.

KEYWORDS:

• Place-making
• transit
• African migration
• Morocco
• border
• transnational religion

Acknowledgements

I thank the two reviewers for their comments and Sally Sutton and Damian Barnett for their help during the preparation of the manuscript.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 According to the national census of 2014 approximately 0,2 per cent of the total population in Morocco were foreigners (86206 persons), among them 40 per cent were European citizens (De Bel-Air, 2016). Even if we add the 50.000 migrants who became residency during the operation of regularization (among them 80 per cent were nationals from non-Arabic speaking African countries) and the estimated 15.000 undocumented African migrants who according to Sidiguitiebe (2016) live in the country, the number of foreign citizens in Morocco remains under 1 per cent of the total population.

2 Speaking in tongues is a phenomenon of speaking in an unknown language, especially in religious worship. It is practiced especially by Pentecostal and Charismatic Christians.

3 Among them 10 nationals from Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), one from the Republic of Congo, four from Ivory Coast, one from Cameroon, and one from Nigeria. Apart from one female pastor from Ivory Coast, all the church leaders were male.

4 Three from Ivory Coast, one from the Republic of Congo and one from Senegal. Three of the congregants were women and two were men.

5 One exception is Coyault (2014) who conducted a survey on the Protestant Christian migrants in Morocco, among them also adherents of Pentecostal Christian churches and the PhD-project of Julie Picard (2014) on religious place-making in Cairo, Egypt.

6 In order to preserve the anonymity of my informants, I chose here pseudonyms.

7 The capital of the DRC.

8 In 2010, the Moroccan government accused numerous French and North American clergymen for proselytism activities among Moroccan orphans and expelled them from the country, while in 2017 a Moroccan man was arrested after he entered a Christian church in Marrakech.

9 ‘I came like everyone else to seek life’ is a common way among African migrants to talk about transit migration. More details on these representations, see Berriane 2018: 94–95.

10 She was the only female leader I could meet. In the other churches, female congregants (especially the pastors’ wives) are also involved in the different worship and services but never lead a church.

11 Bantu language spoken in the two Congo states

12 This integration was emphasised by all my informants.

13 Most of the churchgoers who were involved in the church’s organisation such as the protocol or the intercession prayers were women.

14 Intercession prayers are intended to make Jesus intervene and help to solve specific problems encountered by the believers.

15 I was able to attend this religious seminar that took place the 24th of October 2016.

16 One of the main languages of the Republic of Congo and the DRC.

Additional information

Funding

This article was supported by several institutions and funding agencies, notably through a grant from the German Historical Institute Paris with funding from the Max Weber Foundation in Paris which enabled me to conduct the necessary fieldwork. The preparation and completion of the draft was made possible by the Centre Marc Bloch Berlin, Franco-German Centre for Social Science Research with funding from the German Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF).

Notes on contributors

Johara Berriane

Johara Berriane is researcher at the Centre Marc Bloch in Berlin. Her main research interests are the nexus of mobility and religion (Islam and Christianity) in African cities.