Mary and Migrant Communities

Abstract

<p>This chapter focuses on the meaning of Mary for migrant communities, and for African migrants in Europe in particular. These women appear to be well informed about European pilgrimages and, once in Europe, develop a programme of religious travel. Their mobility has become a kind of lifestyle that serves to frame their new lives as migrant mothers. The central question to be answered is: How do women as pilgrims and souvenir shoppers intensify their Marian devotion in post-migration life and in what kind of religious fusion and empowerment does that result? This central question is answered with an analysis of the data collected during multi-sited ethnographic fieldwork in France (Paris, Lourdes) and Italy (San Damiano) between 2009 and 2015.</p>

How pilgrimage souvenirs turn into religious remittances and powerful medicine

“…Instead of witchcraft being replaced by Christianity, witchcraft became a major aspect of African Christianity (see also Merz 2008;Meyer 1999). African Christians adopted the Christianity-versus-witchcraft opposition to distinguish benevolent from destructive divine powers, a duality we now see recurring in the Parisian context: migrant women employ Mary's power to combat African witchcraft (see also Notermans 2019).…”