Gatherings in Diaspora: Religious Communities and the New Migration. - Review - book review

Sociology of Religion, Summer, 2000 by Nancy L. Eiesland

Gatherings in Diaspora: Religious Communities and the New Migration, edited by R. STEPHEN WARNER and JUDITH G. WITTNER. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 1998, 409 pp. $24.95 (pbk.).

Seldom do volumes highlight the sources of their inspiration in such a straightforward manner as does Gatherings in diaspora. In the introductory chapter, "Immigration and the Religious Communities in the United States," Warner delineates his reasons and processes for gathering the scholars whose writings constitute the edited volume. Warner has a larger project in mind -- no small feat given the size of this one -- of which The New Ethnic and Immigrant Congregations Project (NEICP) is a part: namely, a general theory of American religious communities. In his efforts toward the larger work, he discovered a "hole" in the literature documenting the new demographically driven diversification of religious life. Thus the NEICP project, funded by the Lilly Endowment and the Pew Charitable Trusts, was designed to fill that gap. Contributors to Gatherings in diaspora investigate the diverse religious communities of post-1965 immigrations.

I identify this account of the origins for Gatherings in diaspora because it aids the reader in understanding the divergence among the chapters and the overarching theoretical framing into which Warner and Wittner fit the various accounts. To be clear, I applaud Warner for recognizing that there was a gap in the literature; we have had quite enough accounts of religious life in the United States that purport to speak about all religious communities, but limit their research subjects to historically mainstream and/or solely white and black religious groups. However, the editors' efforts to promote projects that will lead to generalization on the American religious landscape and some of the authors' desire to write what Lila Abu-Lughod identifies as "ethnographies of the particular" constitutes one of the major tensions in the book. [1] Ethnographies that highlight the historicity, lack of typicality, and internal tensions make generalizations across or among divergent cases quite difficult.

In part, I hoped that the editors would have spent additional time exploring the tensions between generalizations and particularity in a project and book with such rich resources for both. In her conclusion, Wittner identifies this strain when she notes that she hopes both to abstract and to "discover the specific details of daily life that make religious communities what they are" (p. 367). Exactly how one draws connections without constructing the typical, abstracting from history, or smoothing over contests of meaning within religious organizations are dilemmas facing many researchers who have turned to ethnographic approaches. Additional attention to this difficulty is not given in this volume, but so many other intellectual values are realized that the book more than repays careful reading and provides enormous resources for good teaching.

The attempt to generalize across the cases makes for sometimes seemingly arbitrary division of chapters under the book's subheadings: Religion and the Negotiation of Identities; Transnational Identities and Religious Hosts; Institutional Adaptations; and Internal Differentiations. Throughout the articles, however, issues of identity, relations to host communities, adaptations/resistances, and internal conflict are apparent. For example, Sheba George gives a nuanced account of teenage girls at St. George Orthodox Church as they relate to the rituals of older immigrant men from Kerala in south India. She highlights the tensions regarding the negotiation of new gender identities. Shoshanah Feher gives a careful description of the anxieties and responses to youth among parents and adults in one group of Iranian Jews in Los Angeles. She underscores the dilemmas of having or not having proximal hosts during particularly high-tension times of immigration. As adults realize the at-risk status of some of the youth, t hey attempt to make stronger connections with other Jewish groups in the area.

Some chapters do seem to fit particularly well under their subheadings. Randal Hepner's account of the organizational rationalization and training for upward mobility of the Rastafarians in New York City shows the reader how "marginal" religious organizations support their members in attaining mainstream values. Hepner writes about his research, "In New York City Rastafari churches and political associations provide opportunities for individuals to develop organizational and public-speaking skills, and to deepen their knowledge of politics, history, and world affairs" (p. 213). Likewise, Lu[acute{i}]s Le[acute{o}]n's fascinating account of Victory Outreach accentuates the ways in which these new religious organizations fulfill the long-standing role of religious groups that provide an alternative career route for individuals who are unable to find work in the formal, non-religious economy. The account makes one hope that scholars will continue the research in this fast growing denomination now with more than 235 congregations and 310 rehabilitation homes worldwide, Journalists certainly are following its growth. [2]