Amenable Religiosity: Narratives of Enacting Religion in the Quest for Socioeconomic Survival As Transnational Migrants in Finland.

Transnational migrants in a highly developed host country assumes individual responsibilities to provide and protect personal and extended needs. In that context, religion has been shown to be relevant for socioeconomic progress in host countries with highlights on the important roles of religious institutions, network and faith. Less studied is how individuals transact religious membership, rules and ethics to achieve personal goals. The emerged religiosity is nuanced, invoking a reversed colonial imagery of “They said, "Let us pray." We closed our eyes. when we opened them, we had the Bible and they had the land!".

This paper is a narrative of how African immigrants in Europe navigate and negotiate individual obstacles using religious resources and thoughts, they inevitably also negotiate and navigate religious ethos, institutions and dogmas. Their stories suggests that transnational migration is a context that demands a more reflexive understanding of religion. In the migration context, the risks and the stakes are higher, the gods are farther and the devil is closer’. The stories were collected from 5 male African migrants living in Finland, in 2024. In-depth interviews were conducted to explore how individuals navigate tense sociopolitical immigration context as transnational migrants. Content analysis was utilized for data analysis.