Project Description

This project will fill a gap in our knowledge regarding the role that Pentecostalism plays when religious immigrant minorities interact with the Swedish secular society. Focusing on Pentecostal migrants, whose number is growing in urban settings, the overall goal is to understand better the historical, religious, social, moral and legal transformations in Swedish society in relation to the integration of religious immigrant minorities. Theoretically, the project explores the fluidity of attachments and categories in cosmopolitan societies, which generate a range of social and cultural innovations, using the Pentecostal milieu as an empirical representative example. This fluidity has legal consequences, raising questions about the protection of minorities. In short: how does the Swedish context influence Pentecostal subjectivities and religious practices, and what challenges does the rise of migrant Pentecostalism pose to Swedish society?

A statistical, geographic and demographic survey of Pentecostal growth in the Greater Stockholm area underpins in depth qualitative studies of three cases: one African, one Latin American, and one Arabic. In the latter, some converts seek asylum in Sweden from religious persecution in their country. The Arabian Pentecostals will be compared to their Muslim counterparts. These datasets will be analysed from a comparative and multidisciplinary perspective using historical, theological, sociological, anthropological and legal perspectives.