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Central and Eastern European Migration Review
Received: 18 March 2018, Accepted: 14 December 2018
Vol. 7, No. 2, 2018, pp. 105–110
doi: 10.17467/ceemr.2018.15
* AGH University of Science and Technology, Poland. Address for correspondence: kaleszcz@agh.edu.pl.
** University of Warsaw, Poland. Address for correspondence: urbanskas@is.uw.edu.pl.
*** Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Poland. Address for correspondence: katarzyna.zielinska@uj.edu.pl.
© The Author(s) 2018. Open Access. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium,
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indicate if changes were made.
SPECIAL SECTION
Religion and Gender in Migration
to and from Central and Eastern Europe
– Introductory Reflections
Katarzyna Leszczyńska*, Sylwia Urbańska** ,
Katarzyna Zielińska***
Since the beginning of the 1980s, the previously one-dimensional economic approach that was once dominant
in migration studies has been critically reviewed and, as a result, migration has become problematised. The
incorporation of other dimensions in the analysis of the processes of migration allowed for more complex
diagnoses of global inequalities and related socio-cultural phenomena. As a result, gender became one of the
key categories providing an in-depth understanding of the phenomenon of migration (see Anthias and Lazaridis
2000; Hondagneu-Sotelo 1994). The inclusion of this aspect in analyses has revealed the tremendous diversity
of experiences of male and female migrants, and uncovered new global phenomena related to migration, such
as global import of care or care chains (Ehrenreich and Hochschild 2003; Parreñas 2001). Furthermore, it has
also shown that migration is shaped, at every stage and to the same extent as economic concerns, by diverse
socio-cultural dimensions. As a result, since the 1990s, intersectional perspectives on migration have become
increasingly popular in research, examining such dimensions as gender, ethnicity, class, race and sexuality.
Nowadays, critical and intersectional approaches have even come to represent the paradigmatic core of migra-
tion research.
At the same time, it is important to note that other potentially productive analytical categories have not
attracted much interest from researchers studying aspects of migration. For a significant period in the devel-
opment of this field, one such category was religion.1 As Louise Ryan and Elena Vacchelli point out, contem-
porary migration studies tend to marginalise the significance of religion in their analyses and interpretations
of the daily lives of migrant women and men (Ryan and Vacchelli 2013). They note that the main reason for
the absence of references to religion in these studies is the cultural context of secularism, in which contempo-
rary researchers of migration (usually from the Global North) are raised and in which they work. Religion in
106 K. Leszczyńska, S. Urbańska., K. Zielińska
this context acquires a dual meaning – on the one hand, its importance is interpreted as marginal in under-
standing the experiences of migration, while on the other, it tends to be analysed critically as a source of
oppression of migrants (especially women) and of restrictions on human actions, and thus as an important
cause of forced migrations. This approach to religion in studies on migration – often reductionist, stereotypical,
one-dimensional – is also associated with the analysis of intercultural relations in the context of multicultural-
ism. Such analyses therefore tend to focus especially on conflicts, tensions and prejudices that are generated
within religious fields and of which the actors are religions in the broadest terms (i.e. religious discourses,
institutions, or identities) (see: Goździak and Shandy 2002; Krotofil 2013: 53; Urbańska as well as Goździak
and Márton, in this volume).
Another important reason for the paucity of references to religion in studies on migration is the fact that
such studies largely focus on the macro-dimension of migration policies, systems and institutions, as well as
the economic motives of migrants’ actions, which are usually secular in nature (see Bonifacio and Angeles
2010: 2). However, even in research into the socio-cultural dimensions of migration, there has only been spo-
radic interest in the question of how spirituality, religion and the related institutional affiliation and social
networks mediate the experience of migration at its various stages. This failure to recognise religion in studies
on migration is, according to Sylwia Urbańska, symptomatic and paradoxical, because many scholars conduct-
ing fieldwork in migrant communities benefit from the assistance of ethnic religious organisations – churches,
mission and diaspora organisations etc. (Urbańska 2016: 53), but treat them more as a source of information
in the preparation of their field research and as contact points, rather than as a distinct field worthy of in-depth
research.
It appears that only the post-secular turn observed in the social sciences since the early 2000s (cf. Braidotti
2008) and the increasingly strong presence of an intersectional perspective in migration research from the
1990s onwards have permitted the development of research and theoretical perspectives in studies on migration
that have attention for gender and religion. As a result, in recent years we have seen attempts by authors of
studies on migration to reflect on the ways in which both gender and religion – understood in organisational
terms, but also as values, norms and practices – influence and differentiate migration experiences. Such works
include those of Glenda Tibe Bonifacio and Vivienne S. M. Angeles (2010) and Charles Hirschman (2004),
who stress that religion is one of the key dimensions of migrants’ experiences, i.e. that the processes of migra-
tion can only be understood within the framework of religion and gender. Women today comprise almost half
of the global migrant population (Donato and Gabaccia 2016), and have different social experiences than men,
depending on their role, status, and social expectations as well as on religion. Many studies have demonstrated
that religion is an important element of women’s identity, who tend not only to be more religious than men,
but also to be more attached to the religious community and involved in the processes of religious socialisation
of the younger generations (see: Francis and Penny 2014; Levitt 2008; Ozorak 1996; Walter and Davie 1998;
Traversa 2012). The models of practices within religious structures also vary, although these differences are
not dichotomous, but intersectional, and therefore connected to class, age or ethnicity. This diversity becomes
particularly significant in research on migration if one takes into account the fact – discussed by Urbańska in
this volume – that the majority of migrant women in Western societies originate from the cultures of the Global
South and of Central and Eastern Europe, both of which are areas characterised by a greater attachment to
religion and statistically greater religiosity than the societies of the Global North. Religion as an important
element of the social identity and belonging, value systems, and actions of migrants – and especially women
– is subject to a transnational dynamic and transformations. Above all, there exists a relationship between
religion and the social environment (including the state, economic institutions, law, other religions, etc.), and,
as Talal Asad writes, it is this relationship to the social world that also needs to be analysed (Asad 1993; see
also: Bonifacio and Angeles 2010). Migration creates new room for change for ‘doing gender’, in identity-
Central and Eastern European Migration Review 107
related, institutional or structural terms. These transformations are the result of globalisation, differentiation,
or the growing complexity of the contemporary world (see: Traversa 2012). The category of religion also
reveals previously unexplored new dimensions of motivations for migration, thus expanding the push-pull
theory of the causes of migration. As Catharina P. Williams shows (2008: 345–349), religion is an important
factor in making the decision to migrate (e.g. legitimising migration decisions, since for one gender it is iden-
tified as the space of moral risk), but also a way of coping with the challenges, stress and costs of migration
(e.g. prayer as a coping mechanism). Researchers also analyse the way in which religion mediates in the pro-
cess of integration with the host society (especially where the dominant religion is different from the religion
of the migrants). Adding to this the category of gender clearly demonstrates the differences in women’s and
men’s use of both religious meanings and religious organisations in coping with the migration experience (cf.
Bonifacio and Angeles 2010). This topic is developed in detail by Urbańska in her article in this issue, As-
sessing the Significance of Religion Perspectives in the Gender and Migration Studies: New Avenues for Schol-
arly Inquiry. This integration of the categories of gender and religion (also supplemented by other dimensions,
such as ethnicity and generation) is especially visible in research in the context of Western Europe and the
United States (see e.g. Bonifacio and Angeles 2010; Ebaugh and Chafetz 2000), particularly in migrant Muslim
communities (e.g. Bendixen 2010; Chafic 2010; Pristed Nielsen 2010; Stambouli and Ben Soltane 2010), or
various churches, denominations and religious movements from the Far East (e.g. Hüwelmeier 2010; Yang 2002).
Studies focusing on the experiences of migrants from/to Central and Eastern Europe examined from a gen-
der perspective and also considering their embeddedness in the religious field are few and far between. Among
the few examples are Krystyna Błeszyńska and Marek Szopski’s analysis of the gender dimension of the re-
ligiosity of Polish migrants in California (2010), and a study of the links between religion and emancipation
of female Polish immigrants in Iceland (Koralewska 2016). It is worth noting that religion in these studies is
usually understood as one of the dimensions of ethnicity or in relation to ethnicity, rather than autonomously,
as a separate cultural space that triggers, directs, enables or determines social actions. The few existing per-
spectives of this kind can be found in anthropological research (see the studies on the Vietnamese community
in Germany by Gertrude Hüwelmeier (2010) and in Poland by Grażyna Szymańska-Matusiewicz (2013), as
well as on Macedonians in Italy by Karolina Bielenin-Lenczowska (2015) and Polish women in the Polish
Catholic Mission in Italy by Agnieszka Małek (2008)). In this sense, the aim of the articles presented in this
section, considering the Central and Eastern European perspective, is at least in part to fill this gap. They
examine the mutual relations between various dimensions of religion, gender and migration, identifying the
first category as central, and separate from other systems (the aforementioned ethnicity and ideology).
This relationship, taking into account the fluidity and transformations in migration within the scope of the
orders of gender and religion, is the subject of the analyses presented in this volume. Aleksandra Kaczmarek-
Day’s article ‘White Dress, Guests and Presents’: Polish Migrant Families’ Practice of the First Communion
and Negotiation of Catholic Identities in Wales presents the results of research on the religious practices of
Polish Catholics in Wales accompanying the rituals of the First Communion, the modifications to these prac-
tices and their dependence on the social environment. She particularly emphasises the role of women/mothers
in producing new models of actions in religious rituals. The different practices become not only an expression
of ethnicity, but especially a form of questioning religious customs. This reflects their liberalisation and sim-
ultaneous individualisation in the migration process.
Religions themselves – religious institutions and organisations, which play an important role in the pro-
cesses of integration and adaptation of migrants – are not neutral in terms of gender, and apply different rules
for women and men. The teachings of religions with regard to gender can be understood in reference to two
dimensions. The first is the symbolic dimension, encompassing discursive definitions of femininity and mas-
culinity within theology and religious doctrine. The second is the structural dimension, defined by religious
108 K. Leszczyńska, S. Urbańska., K. Zielińska
law (e.g. Catholic canonical law) as well as by various informal rules taking into account the place of women
and men in organisational structures. Whereas symbolic constructs are relatively constant, as they are usually
linked to religious tradition and theology, which in monotheistic religions are slow to change, religious struc-
ture and organisation are characterised by significant variability and are dependent on the cultural context
– or, more broadly, on the social environment in which they exist. As a result, in religious organisations that
operate in new migration contexts, circumstances favourable to the negotiation of gender roles and the consti-
tution of new gendered rules and division of duties often occur. Such mechanisms lie at the basis of the re-
definitions of the roles of women and men in Muslim migrant communities in Poland, most of whom migrated
to Poland from Arab countries, as discussed by Maria Stojkow in her research report Polish Ummah? The
Action Taken by Muslim Migrants to Set up Their World in Poland. Grażyna Szymańska-Matusiewicz follows
a similar path in her contribution to this special section, Political Power, Religion and Gender: the Case of the
Vietnamese in Poland. Szymańska-Matusiewicz’s article, the result of many years of anthropological obser-
vation, illustrates the religious gender practices and power relations that regulate the functioning of the Viet-
namese communities at two Buddhist pagodas in Poland. Szymańska-Matusiewicz places her analysis in
a wider comparative context, outlining the broader historical-political context and comparing the results with
data from other countries, such as the USA and Germany.
In view of the increasingly evident presence of anti-immigrant sentiment in Europe, the significance of
such feelings for the social construction of the collective identities of host countries is becoming an important
topic in migration research. Reflections on this topic are all the more valuable when the comparison concerns
culturally and religiously homogeneous countries like Poland and Hungary. Elżbieta M. Goździak and Péter
Márton examine this subject in the article Where the Wild Things Are: Fear of Islam and the Anti-Refugee
Rhetoric in Hungary and in Poland, which compares the discourses on the refugee crisis in the two countries.
The authors show that the discursive construction of the Other, which by definition threatens the existing
gender order due to its cultural and religious difference, serves to consolidate strongly gendered articulations
of Polish and Hungarian collective identity.
While they by no means constitute an exhaustive study of all the issues concerning migration, religion and
gender in Central and Europe, we believe that the articles in this section explore and highlight certain interest-
ing topics. We hope that the section will mark an important contribution to the continuing debate and inspire
additional research in this field.
Notes
1 In the USA, research has been conducted on ethnic parishes since the 1950s, examining the role of religious
organisations at the level of local communities in the integration (or the lack thereof) of migrants into wider
society. However, these studies remain at the level of ethnographic descriptions, and do not engage in theoret-
ical reflection on the connection between these areas.
Funding
The article and the editing of the thematic section in this issue of CEEMR were made possible by a SONATA
BIS grant from the Polish National Science Centre, Gender as a Factor Distinguishing Religious Organisa-
tions. Social Practices of Gender and Their Interpretations in Polish Catholic Mission Organisations in Eng-
land, Sweden and Belgium, no. 2014/14/E/HS6?00327.
Central and Eastern European Migration Review 109
Conflict of interest statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
ORCID IDs
Katarzyna Leszczyńska https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9859-8941
Sylwia Urbańska https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5632-8043
Katarzyna Zielińska https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8356-8800
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How to cite this article: Leszczyńska K., Urbańska S., Zielińska K. (2018). Religion and Gender in Migra-
tion to and from Central and Eastern Europe – Introductory Reflections. Central and Eastern European
Migration Review 7(2): 105–110.
