Publication Type

Journal Article

Version

publishedVersion

Publication Date

10-2010

Abstract

Studies of the Hong Kong‐Vancouver transnational migration network seldom pay close attention to religion in the everyday lives of Hongkonger migrants. Based on 9 months of ethnographic fieldwork at St. Matthew's Church, a Hong Kong church in Metro Vancouver, this paper examines the tacit assumptions and taken‐for‐granted quotidian practices through which a Hongkonger church is made. I argue that St. Matthew's Church has been constructed as a Hong Kong Cantonese‐Christian family space through the everyday use of language and invocations of a common educational background. This argument extends the literature on Hongkonger migration to Metro Vancouver by grounding it in a religious site whose intersections with Hong Kong migration to Vancouver consolidates the church as a religious mission with a specifically Hongkonger migration narrative. This consolidation is problematised as I show that contestations in church life by migrants from the People's Republic of China over language and asymmetrical educational backgrounds both reinforce and challenge the church as a Hongkonger congregation. Through an examination of these everyday interactions at St. Matthew's Church, this paper advances the geography of religion as I demonstrate that specific geographical narratives and networks shape quotidian practices in religious sites.

Discipline

Asian Studies | Religion

Research Areas

Humanities

Publication

Population, Space and Place

Volume

17

Issue

6

First Page

756

Last Page

768

ISSN

1544-8444

Identifier

10.1002/psp.640

Publisher

Wiley: 24 months

Additional URL

https://doi.org/10.1002/psp.640

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