Article
Boundary Formation and Cultural Construction: How do Chinese andIndian Immigrant Converts Understand Religious Identity?
Sociology
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
1-1-2016
Publisher
Rabbi Myer and Dorothy Kripke Center for the Study of Religion and Society at Creighton University
Disciplines
Abstract
Most scholars study immigrants' religious lives in a vacuum, paying little attention to the religious lives of people who switch from one religious tradition to another. This article relies on interviews with Chinese and Indian immigrant converts in the U.S. to provide a unique comparative perspective on the religious lives of Asian immigrant converts, with a specific focus on their identity construction processes. Findings indicate that Chinese and Indian immigrants establish different types of boundaries, but form similar cultural content within their identities. I debunk the assumption in existing theories that religious conversion is an either/or transition.
Citation Information
Di, Di. “Boundary Formation and Cultural Construction: How do Chinese and
Indian Immigrant Converts Understand Religious Identity?” ournal of Religion & Society 18 (2016). Published online at (http://moses.creighton.edu/jrs/).
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License