Collaborative Research: Places of Worship and the Politics of Citizenship: Immigrants and Communities of Faith in the New South

肯塔基大学地理系的帕特里夏·埃尔坎普教授和南卡罗来纳大学地理系的卡罗琳·内格尔教授将探讨公民身份是一套流动的、经常受到争议的规范和期望，它们确立了社会的归属感。他们的研究集中在移民信仰社区在阐明和制定特定的公民概念方面所扮演的角色。信仰社区是许多移民生活的中心，这项研究调查了信仰社区如何有助于塑造移民对权利、责任和社会规范的理解。该项目将对基督教、印度教、佛教和穆斯林礼拜场所进行深入、定性的案例研究。数据收集将通过与信仰社区领导人和有普通成员的焦点小组的密集访谈进行，其中包括信仰社区的移民和非移民。采访将在美国南部的三个大都市进行--北卡罗来纳州夏洛特、佐治亚州亚特兰大和南卡罗来纳州格林维尔-斯帕坦堡。南方，尤其是卡罗莱纳州和佐治亚州，经历了美国所有地区中外国出生人口增长率最高的一些地区。通过关注这些南方大都会地区，以及其中发生的种族和宗教多样化，这项研究为我们提供了对美国新移民门户所经历的社会转型的洞察。这项研究将通过关注普通人在日常生活中协商公民身份的方式来推进公民身份的理论视角，并将通过调查人们的信仰和精神信仰如何影响公民身份实践来开启公民身份的研究。这项研究还将通过记录新移民群体在南方重新配置区域叙事和种族等级的方式，为区域研究学术做出贡献。最后，该项目将有助于重新构建关于移民和公民身份的公共和学术辩论框架，并使这类辩论超越对移民语言技能和归化率的长期担忧。为此，研究成果将在一个项目网站上传播，并通过关于南方宗教多样性的巡回图片展进行传播。这次图片展将利用本科摄影专业学生的才华。该研究还将为两名博士生提供支持和研究培训。

Professor Patricia Ehrkamp in the Department of Geography at the University of Kentucky and Caroline Nagel in the Department of Geography at the University of South Carolina will explore citizenship as a fluid and often contested set of norms and expectations that establish belonging in society. Their research centers on the role that immigrant faith communities play in articulating and enacting particular conceptions of citizenship. Faith communities are central to the lives of many immigrants, and this research investigates how faith communities may be instrumental in shaping immigrants' understandings of rights, responsibilities, and societal norms. This project will employ in-depth, qualitative case studies of Christian, Hindu, Buddhist, and Muslim places of worship. Data collection will take place through intensive interviews with faith community leaders and focus groups with ordinary members that include both immigrants and non-immigrants of faith communities. Interviews will take place in three metropolitan areas in the American South -- Charlotte, NC, Atlanta, GA, and Greenville-Spartanburg, SC. The South, and especially the Carolinas and Georgia, have experienced some of the highest rates of growth of the foreign-born population of any region in the United States. By focusing on these Southern metropolitan regions, and the ethnic and religious diversification taking place within them, this study offers insights into the social transformations being experienced in America's new immigrant gateways. This research will advance theoretical perspectives on citizenship by focusing on the ways that ordinary people negotiate citizenship in their everyday lives, and will open up the study of citizenship by investigating how people's faith and spiritual beliefs inform citizenship practices. This study will also contribute to regional studies scholarship by documenting the ways in which new immigrant groups are reconfiguring regional narratives and racial hierarchies in the South. Finally, this project will help to reframe public and academic debates about immigrants and citizenship and to move such debates beyond perennial concerns with immigrants' language skills and rates of naturalization. Toward this end, research findings will be disseminated on a project website and through a traveling photo exhibit of religious diversity in the South. This photo exhibit will utilize the talents of undergraduate photography students. The research will also provide support and research training for two doctoral students.