Since the peace agreement has put an end to the 30-year-long civil conflict in the province of Aceh in Indonesia, poverty, parental loss, lack of opportunities and an old tradition have caused a growing number of Acehnese girls and boys to spend between three and ten years in residential Koranic schools [dayah or pesantren]. There, they process their experience of the conflict, be it direct or indirect. In this article, thanks to ethnographical data, the author explores this labour of transformation. An idea of resilience which is culturally based in local societies is analysed. Key issues are the difference between personal and social resilience, plus the transformations that a resilient process enhances in the very culture from which it stems. The dayah have proved very effective structures in facing the needs of the poorest Acehnese children. Nevertheless, the author argues, they tend to shape the children according to a general model that can create exclusion and crystallize pre-existing psychic suffering. This paper indicates that different visions of trauma and memory characterize different parts of the same society, and that selecting one or another is a political choice that is embedded in international policies.
Typically, scholars approach migrants’ religions as a safeguard of cultural identity, something that connects migrants to their communities of origin. This ethnographic anthology challenges that position by reframing the religious experiences of migrants as a transformative force capable of refashioning narratives of displacement into journeys of spiritual awakening and missionary calling. These essays explore migrants’ motivations in support of an argument that to travel inspires a search for new meaning in religion.
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