Religious Coping and Challenges Among Displaced Muslim Female Refugees

Abstract

With millions of women experiencing forced displacement, attention is needed toward migrant women’s lived experiences. Religion is an understudied but central component of coping for many migrant women. Through the use of qualitative and quantitative methods, an exploratory study was conducted with 36 forced migrant Shia Muslim women residing in a predominantly Sunni Muslim country of first asylum. Using the brief Multidimensional Measure of Religiousness/Spirituality and drawing from feminist theory, intersectionality, and the ecological framework, we describe women’s experience with religion and spirituality across a variety of domains. Open-ended semistructured interviews were analyzed using a thematic analysis approach. Participants were highly religious across all domains measured. Key themes emerged related to how religion helps women manage stress, including: (1) trusting God to solve problems and (2) relying on prayer and other religious practices to cope. Despite these strengths, women also described major challenges to religious practice, where the third identified theme emphasized that fear and persecution limit religious practice. This article builds understanding of forced migrant women’s experiences, with implications for social work practice and immigration policy. Service organizations can recognize and support religious coping, particularly among religious minority refugee women. Additionally, practitioners and policy makers can promote religious tolerance and understanding within diverse host communities.

Everyday Agency: Rethinking Refugee Women’s Agency in Specific Cultural Contexts

“…Our study shows that religious coping is agentive. Existing case studies of refugee coping in the context of culture and religion support our finding that religion has a positive effect on forced migrants’ mental wellbeing ( McMichael, 2002 ; Shoeb et al, 2007 ; Pahud et al, 2009 ; Darychuk and Jackson, 2015 ; El-Khani et al, 2017 ; Hasan et al, 2018 ; Shaw et al, 2019 ). The practical implications of religious coping and indigenous healing methods have been studied ( Goździak, 2002 ), while research shows that elements of Arabo-Islamic culture, which overlap with the concepts presented in our findings support resilience and post-traumatic growth ( Abi-Hashem, 2008 ; Punamäki, 2010 ).…”

Conceptualizing religious asylum: Security, religiosity, and subjective well-being of Christian asylum-seekers in Hong Kong

“…The idea of security as a determinant of well-being is widely accepted and is based on the notion of protection from harm—which is fundamentally linked to an individual’s perception of the self (Chase, 2013). Previous research has found that religiosity is positively related to the mental well-being of both migrants and non-migrants (AbdAleati et al, 2016; Berzengi et al, 2017; Eppsteiner and Hagan, 2016; McLellan, 2015; McMichael, 2002; Schweitzer et al, 2007; Shaw et al, 2019). In the present study, asylum-seekers’ sense of self was mostly re-established through religion.…”

“…This system forms the cornerstone of an asylum-seeker’s individual sense of uniqueness and is an important aspect of their identity (Damon, 1983). Asylum-seekers are drawn to the churches because they symbolize a physical and social space that ties them to their homeland and provides a sense of security, reducing negative sentiments (Shaw et al, 2019). Although their asylum-seeking journeys are physically and temporally suspended in limbo, their religious journeys keep moving forward.…”

Research on forced migration from the perspective of the psychology of religion: Opportunities and challenges

“…From the newcomers' psychological perspective, after their arrival and initial relief, which may be manifested in their sense of thankfulness to God, a new kind of stress develops-related to acculturation processes and other problems faced in the destination country, specifically economic hardship, discrimination, and the general sense of disappointment (Oktem, 2019). The positive role of religious coping in the psychological wellbeing of forced migrants after their resettlement has been confirmed by a series of case studies (Brune et al, 2002;Darychuk & Jackson, 2015;El-Khani et al, 2017;Hasan et al, 2018;Mayer, 2007;McMichael, 2002;Pahud et al, 2009;Shaw et al, 2019;Sleijpen et al, 2016). Goździak (2002Goździak ( , 2009 presents the practical implications of religious coping and religiously based indigenous healing methods.…”