Jonathan J . Morgan

The Church of Sweden is becoming increasingly multicultural, not least
because of the arrival of hundreds of unaccompanied refugee minors
(URM) seeking to belong and be baptized into the church since 2014.
While there has been speculation about the pull factors which attract
them to the church, little is known about the ways in which these young
people narrate their own identity processes and decisions to convert. Still
less is known about the impact that these young people are having on the
church itself. With reference to empirical data gathered at the end of 2017
and beginning of 2018, this article examines the two directional change
that is taking place within the Church of Sweden. Firstly, paying attention
to the narratives of URM converts, I describe the common pathways taken
by URMs into membership in the church and the sense of belonging
that they find there. I then look at the impact that the presence of these
young people is having on the church, paying particular attention to the
role of priests and the re-emphasis on the centrality of Scripture.

The arrival 44,617 unaccompanied refugee minors (URM) to Sweden between 2014 and 2016 was met by a large number of civil society volunteers responding to their needs and assisting them in the early stages of their asylum processes, among them the Church of Sweden (CoS). What was not expected was that thousands of these Muslim-background young people would decide to convert to Christianity. Drawing on data collected during fieldwork at two CoS congregations, this article looks at conversion through the lens of two themes, conversion as belonging and conversion as agency, and discusses whether discourses which couple conversion with narratives about acquiring asylum capital are adequate to the complexity of this phenomenon.

Between 2014-2016, Sweden received an influx of some 44, 617 unaccompanied refugee minors (UMs), under 18-year-olds who enter the country and seek asylum without a parent. Taking a short-term ethnographic approach, this study looks at identity (re)construction and fictive kinship among Afghan unaccompanied refugee minors who convert to Christianity in the Church of Sweden, challenging some of the pre-conceived outsider categorisations of this phenomenon. By taking an exploratory stance, I seek to understand conversion processes from the perspective of the UMs themselves, as they narrate their own identity processes and attribute meaning to them. I utilise Butler’s performativity and the concept of fictive kinship as lenses for understanding constructions of identity and belonging with particular focus on process and practice. The data reveals the curiosity-driven nature of UM conversions, the sense of belonging which plays an important role in UM identity formation, and the ways in which participants transition from community-coerced religious practices to individual, self-directed spiritual journeys.

From 2014 to 2016, 44,617 unaccompanied refugee minors (URMs) arrived in Sweden and sought asylum. The Church of Sweden has received hundreds of these young people seeking to join the church and be baptised as Christians. Conversion to Christianity among asylum seekers in Europe is a well-documented phenomenon that is often dismissed as merely a strategy to boost asylum chances. This dissertation challenges such views, revealing the intricate reality behind these conversions.
Grounded in three years of ethnographic fieldwork, and drawing on participant observation and first-hand narrative accounts, this study follows a Bible study group in the Church of Sweden made up predominantly of URM-background Hazaras from Afghanistan. The study draws on Wenger's situated learning theory and Honneth's recognition framework to provide a conception of religious conversion that is highly contextual and emerges from social practice. Mapping the participants’ trajectories in terms of belonging, behaving, and believing, it proposes that belief should be understood as practical knowledge constituted through social participation, rather than according to a form of dogmatic cognitivism. This finding is at odds with the Swedish migration agency's working definition of religion.
The dissertation furthermore addresses the nested precarities that characterise the lives of asylum seeking youth, and the invisibility that accompanies the bureaucratic processes in which they are caught up. This is juxtaposed with the visibility and recognition that the participants encounter in the community of the church.