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Sacred Resistance:

Exploring the Roles of Religious Organizations in the Refugee Movement “Lampedusa in Hamburg”

2013-2014

By: Vera Ericson von Bahr

Supervisor: Simon Sorgenfrei Södertörn University

Master’s dissertation 30 credits

Study of Religion | Spring semester 2020

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Abstract

This study explores the roles of religious organizations in the refugee movement “Lampedusa in Hamburg”, in Hamburg, Germany during 2013 and 2014. “Lampedusa in Hamburg”

consisted of approximately 300 refugees who had come from Libya, and decided to fight for their right to stay in Germany. Early on, religious organizations became important supporters to the movement, by providing the members food and shelter. By analyzing archival material and interviews with two religious representatives, this thesis investigates the involvement of religious organizations, their collaborations, and the outcomes produced by their work during the protests, using theories connected to secularization and religion and migration. The analysis shows that the involvement of religious organizations in the “Lampedusa in Hamburg”- movement is an example of how faith-based actors in the West are standing up against authorities and objecting migration policies. Their work, collaborations and impact were clearly shaped by national ties with the German state and their position in society.

Further, local dynamics formed the roles of the religious organizations, especially in the case

of the St. Pauli church – one of the most central religious actors – located in St. Pauli, a block

with a long history of protests. During the Lampedusa in Hamburg-movement, processes

operating at global, national, and local scales met, exposing the complexities of the roles that

religious organizations take on, as they become involved in migrant processes in Western

Europe today.

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Acknowledgements

Before starting my exploration, I would like to thank my informants, Ali Awudu and Sieghard

Wilm, for sharing their memories of the protests with me. My thanks also go out to the staff at

the St. Pauli archive, and PhD. student Philipp Seuferling, who introduced me to literature and

proofread my translations from German. Thank you also to three additional scholars: my

father, Staffan Ericson, who helped me see parts of my text, with which I had struggled, from

a new perspective. Alina Just and Christoph Grüll, who met with me during my time in

Hamburg, and shared their expertise on the St. Pauli area and religion and migration in

Germany. Lastly, I would like to express my gratitude to my supervisor, Simon Sorgenfrei,

who helped guide me as I navigated a large material, and provided insightful readings

throughout the entire process.

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Table of Contents

ABSTRACT ... 2

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ... 3

TABLE OF CONTENTS ... 4

1.

INTRODUCTION ... 6

PURPOSE ... 7

2.

SETTING THE SCENE – A BRIEF INTRODUCTION TO LIHH ... 8

“LAMPEDUSA IN HAMBURG”– THE STORY ... 8

HOLY AID: THE RELIGIOUS ORGANIZATIONS SUPPORTING LIHH ... 12

3.

METHOD AND MATERIAL ... 17

THE ARCHIVAL MATERIAL ... 17

THE INTERVIEWS ... 19

LANGUAGE ... 22

ARCHIVAL ETHNOGRAPHY, REFLECTIONS ... 22

4.

PREVIOUS RESEARCH AND THEORY: FRAMING THE ROLES OF RELIGIOUS ORGANIZATIONS IN LIHH ... 25

PREVIOUS RESEARCH ... 25

SECULARISM AND SECULARIZATION ... 28

RELIGION AND MIGRATION ... 32

5.

CHAPTER ONE: THE NEW ROLES OF RELIGIOUS ORGANIZATIONS ... 34

CHANGES AFFECTING THE ROLES OF RELIGIOUS ORGANIZATIONS ON A GLOBAL LEVEL ... 34

“THE NATO-STATES AND THE EUROPEAN UNION ARE ALL RESPONSIBLE FOR OUR SUFFERING” ... 37

“ST.PAULI IST NICHT DEUTSCHLAND”–ST.PAULI IS NOT GERMANY ... 40

“ST.PAULI IS THE IDEAL NEIGHBORHOOD TO DO SOMETHING LIKE THIS.”– FINAL REFLECTIONS ... 45

6.

CHAPTER TWO: THE COLLABORATIONS DURING LIHH ... 47

THE RELIGIOUS ORGANIZATIONS AND SECULARS SUPPORTERS ... 48

THE CHURCH AND THE STATE ... 52

BEING RELIGIOUS, POLITICAL OR BOTH ... 53

THE (UN)IMPORTANCE OF BOUNDARIES FINAL REFLECTIONS ... 55

7.

CHAPTER THREE: THE OUTCOMES OF THE WORK OF RELIGIOUS ORGANIZATIONS ... 57

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THE OUTCOMES OF SACRED SQUATTING” ... 57

A MISPLACED ALLIANCE?-THE COLLABORATION WITH THE CHURCHES ... 63

“A WHOLE NEW CONGREGATION EMERGES”– OUTCOMES FOR RELIGIOUS ORGANIZATIONS ... 65

DIFFERENT POSITIONS, VARYING OUTCOMES -FINAL REFLECTIONS ... 68

8.

CHAPTER FOUR: THE CONCLUSIONS OF A STUDY ON RELIGIOUS ORGANIZATIONS IN LIHH ... 69

BIBLIOGRAPHY ... 73

ARCHIVAL MATERIAL ... 75

INTERVIEWS ... 77

ONLINE NEWSPAPER ARTICLES ... 77

LINKS ... 78

APPENDIX ... 79

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1. Introduction

On a rainy Sunday night, in the first weekend of June 2013, Pastor Sieghard Wilm stood outside his church, the St. Pauli Kirche, in Hamburg Germany. In front of him were over 30 men, wet and cold from the rain, holding the few things they had managed to bring with them.

The men were refugees, and former migrant workers in Libya, who had been forced to seek refuge after NATO’s military intervention in 2011. They were also part of a group, consisting of ca 300 refugees, who had met on the streets of Hamburg. The group was called

“Lampedusa in Hamburg”, and its goal was to fight for the members’ right to stay in

Germany. During the following year, “Lampedusa in Hamburg” would catch the attention of the whole city.

The “Lampedusa in Hamburg”-group members hoped to find support from the German federal state and the city state of Hamburg, but their struggle to stay in Germany turned out to become one against Hamburg’s authorities. Actors from civil society joined the fight and became group supporters, participating in demonstrations and providing aid and facilities at times when the Hamburg senate did not. Among them were religious

organizations, churches and mosques, that not only became involved, but were placed at the very center of conflicts. On that rainy Sunday night in June 2013, Pastor Wilm decided to open the doors to the St. Pauli church. More men came, and during the following months, approximately 80 of the “Lampedusa in Hamburg”-group members slept in the church together.

“Lampedusa in Hamburg” was the result of conflicts on global and local levels;

reaching from Libya to Italy to the small churchyard of the St. Pauli church. The members

took part in a local, political struggle but simultaneously objected national and international

migration politics. This study will explore the roles of religious organizations in “Lampedusa

in Hamburg”, telling the story of a block with a history of protest, but also of how religion,

and more specifically religious organizations, can play a crucial role in migration processes in

Europe today.

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Purpose

The purpose of this thesis is to examine the role of religious organizations in the refugee movement “Lampedusa in Hamburg” (LiHH), during 2013-2014. In the light of theories connected to secularization, religion and migration, and in the context of the Hamburg area St. Pauli’s history, this thesis will aim to analyze how the roles of the religious actors were formed by processes operating at global, national and local scales. Further, its aim is to engage with and contribute to research on religion and migration. The thesis will thus seek to investigate the questions:

- How can the involvement of religious organizations in the LiHH-protests be

understood in relation to political and religious change, on local, national and global levels?

- How did the collaboration between religious organizations and secular actors unfold during the LiHH-protests?

- Which arguably positive and negative outcomes were produced by the collaboration between the LiHH-members and the religious organizations?

A few words should, already at this stage, be said about the meaning of the place which is in many ways the focus of this study. The “local” mentioned in the first research question refers to the St. Pauli block, in which the St. Pauli church is located. As will be further discussed, St.

Pauli has a special history of protest – political and ideological forces have since decades

shaped the identity of the block and its relationship to the city state of Hamburg. Investigating

the LiHH-protests, and the St. Pauli church’s reaction, facilitates an exploration of what

happens when political and religious forces meet, in a context where their roles are strongly

established and charged with historical meaning – but have also undergone processes of

change.

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2. Setting the scene – a brief introduction to LiHH

An exploration of the work done by religious organizations during the LiHH-movement requires some background knowledge about the LiHH-group and its supporters. In this section, I begin by briefly presenting the history of the group and the religious organizations that are the focus of my study.

“Lampedusa in Hamburg” – the story

The men who were part of LiHH

1

had already been through much when their fight to stay in Hamburg began. They had left their home countries behind and become migrant workers in Libya, where they worked in factories, with construction, as hairdressers, in stores and so on.

In a pamphlet distributed by the LiHH-group, the members describe that many of them appreciated life in Libya – their work contributed to the Libyan society, and they managed to support their families at home. After the civil war in Libya in 2011,

2

was spurred on by a NATO intervention, the men saw no other option but to seek refuge: “With the beginning of the war and the NATO-bombings our lives were lost.” The LiHH-members write.

3

Together with thousands of others, they managed to cross the Mediterranean, and landed on Lampedusa. When they arrived at the Italian island, located between Sicily and North Africa, they came to a society in great distress, lacking the resources needed to care for the many who had come for protection.

4

The Italian government recognized the men as refugees, and provided them with temporary work permits. However, they were soon encouraged to leave Italy behind and travel further up North; some even received a small amount of money from Italian authorities to cover ticket fees.

5

About 300 of the men who were forced to leave Libya as victims of a global conflict, travelled towards Hamburg, where they soon became part of a local struggle.

1 The abbreviation “LiHH” is borrowed from scholars Susi Meret & Elisabetta Della Corte (2016) “HH” is the official abbreviation for Hamburg.

2 Following the uprising against dictator Muammar al-Qaddafi

3 Lampedusa in Hamburg. Demonstration, 17. August, 14 Uhr, Hamburg-Hauptbahnhof, Glockengießerwall [pamphlet]. 2013.

4 Simone Beate Borgstede, “’We are here to stay’ – Reflections on the struggle of the refugee group

‘Lampedusa in Hamburg’ and the Solidarity Campaign, 2013-2015.”, in Migration, Squatting and Radical Autonomy, ed. Pierpaolo Mudu & Sutapa Chattopadhyay (Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, 2017), 162.

5 Borgstede, “’We are here to stay’,” 162.

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The forming of the group LiHH started in Hamburg’s “Winter emergency program” (Winternotprogramm), meant to protect homeless people during the coldest months of the year.

6

There, the refugees met again, and not only shared past experiences, but an uncertain future ahead. They knew that by April, they would once again find themselves on the streets. Days before the Winter emergency program ended, one of the members walked around in the German city, and passed by a demonstration.

7

The demonstration was carried out by the Caravan (Karawane für die Rechte der Flüchtlinge und MigrantInnen Hamburg) – a network of groups and individuals fighting for the rights and self-empowerment of refugees and migrants.

8

The LiHH-member spoke with one of the leaders, and they decided to work together. When the Winter emergency program ended, a first meeting had taken place, and LiHH had been formed.

9

Throughout the protests, the Caravan remained one of the most important supporters of the group.

10

Not long after the men came to Hamburg, they realized that their chances of staying in Germany were slim. They had hoped that their Italian working permits would give them the opportunity to settle down in the country, but were instead told that the papers were valid only in Italy, the country in which they had entered the EU.

11

The German authorities referred to the Dublin regulation (known as the Dublin II and later the Dublin III), which determines in which country a migrant’s asylum application is to be tried (usually the EU- state in which the migrant first arrived).

12

Even though the men had received refugee status and temporary permits to live and work in Europe, neither the Italian nor German government considered it their obligation to help. LiHH thus brought up questions of responsibility, and exposed flaws in European migration policies. As Susi Meret and Elisabetta Della Corte describe in an article about LiHH’s resistance: “/…/ LiHH introduced a new set of questions

6 Birgit Niess, Lampedusa in Hamburg: Wie ein Protest die Stadt bewegte. Eine Ethnografie. (Göttingen:

Universitätsverlag Göttingen, 2018), E-book, 41.

7 Niess, Lampedusa in Hamburg, 41.

8 Susi Meret & Elisabetta Della Corte, ”Spaces of Resistance and Re-Actuality of Gramsci in Refugees’

Struggles for Rights? The ‘Lampedusa in Hamburg’ between Exit and Voice”, in Solidarity without Borders : Gramscian Perspectives on Migration and Civil Society Alliances. Reading Gramsci, ed. García Agustín, Óscar, and Jørgensen, Martin Bak (London: Pluto Press, 2016), E-book, 211.

9 Niess, Lampedusa in Hamburg, 41.

10 Susi Meret & Elisabetta Della Corte, ”Spaces of Resistance,” 211-212.

11 Borgstede, “’We are here to stay’,” 162.

12 Benjamin Doerfel, Denis Fengler & Hanna-Lotte Mikuteit, ”Die Hintergründe zu den Flüchtlings- Demonstrationen,” Hamburger Abendblatt, 2013-10-16,

https://www.abendblatt.de/hamburg/polizeimeldungen/article120938572/Die-Hintergruende-zu-den- Fluechtlings-Demonstrationen.html ;

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to the asylum debate: how should the movements of people with papers from a European country in crisis that cannot grant their rights be dealt with?”

13

In May 2013, the group officially began their fight to stay in Germany, by trying to contact the authorities. They wrote an open letter to the Hamburg senate, and went down to the city hall to demand a meeting with Hamburg’s mayor.

14

They asked for a collective solution that would grant every member the right to stay in Germany, by referring to

paragraph 23 in the Foreign Law Resident Act, stating that in some cases, groups can receive collective resident permits.

15

Acts like these soon woke the interest of large parts of the city’s civil society. Indeed, one of the most unusual things with the LiHH-movement, was the immense support the group mobilized. An article in the newspaper Hamburger Abendblatt estimated the number of supporting groups to LiHH to 110.

16

Supporters ranged from political organizations, to school classes, churches, mosques, activists and so on.

17

Nevertheless, the LiHH-group was self-organized, and its speakers – who announced decisions, proposals and opinions on the members’ behalf – were part of those who had come from Lampedusa to Hamburg. The group had its own webpage, and the speakers figured as contact persons, with their names written on pamphlets and other material, sometimes with their phone numbers attached.

18

However, supporters like the Caravan had valuable assets otherwise unavailable to the LiHH-members; such as an established network in Hamburg, administrational knowledge and German language skills, that increased the members’ chances of making their voices heard in a new political system.

19

During the summer of 2013, which following the many solidarity initiatives for the LiHH-refugees came to be called the “African summer” ,

thousands of supporters in Hamburg mobilized, and demonstrated side by side with the LiHH- group every week.

20

In October 2013 the protests intensified, after a dialogue between the Hamburg senate, LiHH and a few of its supporters ended without an agreement. Just days after, the

13 Meret & Della Corte, ”Spaces of Resistance,” 217.

14 Meret & Della Corte, ”Spaces of Resistance,” 213.

15 Meret & Della Corte, ”Spaces of Resistance,” 217.

16 Alexander Schuller, ”Wer sind die Unterstützer der Afrikaner?,” Hamburger Abendblatt, 2013-10-31.

17 See for example, Sieghard Wilm, “Was ich tue, tue ich als Christ,” Hamburger Abendblatt, 2013-06-07, Gastbeitrag.

18 See for example, Lampedusa in Hamburg. Demonstration, 17. August, 14 Uhr, Hamburg-Hauptbahnhof, Glockengießerwall [pamphlet]. 2013.

19 See for example, Meret & Della Corte, ”Spaces of Resistance,” 211-212.

20 Borgstede, ”’We are here to stay’,” 163.

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police started patrolling the St. Pauli area.

21

The target of the controls were the LiHH-

members that had been staying in the St. Pauli church since June, since they, in the eyes of the senate were illegally residing in Germany. The critique towards the Hamburg authorities was massive. The LiHH-group and its supporters accused them of engaging in racial profiling – meaning that the police approached people in the area, based on nothing but the color of their skin.

22

Demonstrations grew more violent, and one supporting group even issued an

ultimatum directed towards the state. The group, called “Aktivistinnen für Bleibiebrecht statt Repression und rassistische Kontrollen” (eng. Activists for the right to stay instead of

repression and racist controls) stated: “If a political solution can’t be reached, this city and its senate will experience no more peaceful days.“

23

Indeed, the LiHH-protests continued, and during the following year, protesters continued to gather on the streets.

In late October 2013, after a new round of dialogues took place following the intensification of the protests, the Hamburg senate presented a final offer to the LiHH-group:

the members had to have their cases tried individually, and for that, they needed to reveal their identities and background stories.

24

They offered the men a so called Duldung, an insurance of legal permission to stay in Germany during the time it would take to try their cases. By presenting the Duldung the Hamburg senate once and for all rejected the group’s request for a collective solution. Susi Meret and Elisabetta Della Corte describe: “For the LiHH refugees, the Duldung means restarting the asylum procedure and renouncing the papers issued by Italy. In the probable case that the German authorities will refuse asylum, a deportation procedure to the country of origin is begun.”

25

The LiHH-members reactions towards the Duldung varied, but many felt it brought with it a great deal of insecurity. A LiHH-member told scholar Birgit Niess at the time, that “With a Duldung, you’re with one leg here in Germany and with one leg in your home country. You don’t know if you will be deported or if you will stay.”

26

21 Doerfel, Fengler & Mikuteit, ”Die Hintergründe zu den Flüchtlings-Demonstrationen”.

22 Christian Unger & Benjamin Doerfel, “Wann darf die Polizei Afrikaner kontrollieren?,” Hamburger Abendblatt, 2013-10-21.

23 dfe, coe, mik, vldoe, ”Streit um Flüchtlinge eskaliert: Krawalle im Schanzenviertel,” Hamburger Abendblatt, 2013-10-16.

24 sba, rek & dpa, ”Rund 700 Teilnehmer bei Demonstration in der Innenstadt,” Hamburger Abendblatt, 2013-10-23, https://www.abendblatt.de/hamburg/hamburg-mitte/article121152624/Rund-700-Teilnehmer- bei-Demonstration-in-der-Innenstadt.html

25 Meret & Della Corte, ”Spaces of Resistance,” 215.

26 Niess, Lampedusa in Hamburg, 282 (English quote, not translated).

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The attitude towards the Duldung would eventually split the members of LiHH- group into two strands. Representatives of two of the most influential religious organizations:

St. Pauli church and the Nordkirche, encouraged the men to accept the senate’s offer. Another big part of the group, that had its meeting spot at a tent put up close to Hamburg’s central station, however, held their line and did not accept.

27

This study focuses mostly on the time leading up to the Duldung and the months following the senate’s offer, since the religious organizations involved were the most active during this period. However, even though 2013- 2014 were its most turbulent years, the LiHH-group exists still today, in a less active state.

28

In her dissertation about the LiHH-protests, published in 2018, Birgit Niess writes that many LiHH-members still live in Hamburg. Further, she describes that even though a few of them managed to receive resident permits, many are still waiting for decisions, or fighting for legal permission to stay. Many members are, however, also likely to have left Hamburg and

Germany.

29

Holy aid: the religious organizations supporting LiHH

As I have presented a brief history of the LiHH-movement, it is time to direct attention to the focus of this study: the religious organizations involved in the protests. During 2013-2014, churches, mosques and other religious organizations were essential supporters of the LiHH- group. One of the most central actors in the LiHH-protests overall, was the St. Pauli church, located in the harbor area St. Pauli.

Walking the streets of St. Pauli one quickly becomes aware that the area is not like other parts of Hamburg. The neon lights from the sex shops on the famous street

Reeperbahn intrigue tourists from all over Germany and Europe. The smell of alcohol meets the smell of harbor and passing the Reeperbahn you soon find yourself in front of the river Elbe, with its many docks and cranes. Up on the hill, facing the river, stands the St. Pauli church. From outside, the church looks like most brick churches, with a large tower rising over the treetops. Its inside, however, shows that the St. Pauli church belongs to a block with a special identity. On the church hall’s walls, traditional portraits of former pastors hang next

27 See for example, Borgstede, “’We are here to stay’,” 165; dpa, “Flüchtlinge fühlen sich von Kirche im Stich gelassen,” Hamburger Abendblatt, 2013-11-19.

28 Sieghard Wilm, Interview 2020-02-24.

29Niess, Lampedusa in Hamburg, 336-337.

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to contemporary items representing the neighborhood. A modern painting portrays a man passing a window, and a woman sitting inside, posing, wearing only her underwear. While watching it, it is difficult not to think of the sex shops and strip clubs located just a few streets away from the church building. Over a door next to the painting, a banner is hung, stating

“Refugees welcome”, a message ever so important for the church’s work in 2013-2014.

St. Pauli church, February 2019 (photo taken by author)

When a group of LiHH-members turned to the St. Pauli church in 2013, asking for permission to spend the night, Pastor Sieghard Wilm and his congregation decided to let them in.

30

The men came from different backgrounds, and not much information can be found about their religious affiliation. However, a newspaper article from the time, states that

approximately half of them were Muslim.

31

For about six months, the almost 80 men slept in the church together, and when the cold winter nights approached in November, barracks were put up for them on the churchyard.

32

In the beginning, the church had not prepared for its many guests, but its decision to let the LiHH-members in soon generated an immense support.

30 Sieghard Wilm, Interview 2020-02-24.

31 Evelyn Finger, “Letzte Zuflucht,” Die Zeit, 2013-07-18.

32 Sascha Balasko, ”Pastor greift Flüchtlingsorganisation an,” Hamburger Abendblatt, 2014-12-29.

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Just days after the church opened its doors, the St. Pauli neighborhood mobilized. Neighbors brought food, organized washing circles, and doctors living in the area visited the church after work to provide medical care to the members.

33

A bouncer from one of the clubs on

Reeperbahn came to the church at night, to make sure that the men were protected from right wing-populists.

34

In an article published five days after the refugees were let into the church, Pastor Sieghard Wilm wrote about the first days as a time of improvisation, but also of enormous support: “/…/but we always felt, that we were supported – by God, by our neighbours, by so many supporters, school classes, kindergartens, business people, artists – from so many different social classes. I am overwhelmed.”

35

However, the church was still in need of further aid, and its representatives would not be disappointed. More people joined, and soon even the very famous football club FC St. Pauli became involved, thus becoming one of the LiHH group’s most powerful supporters.

36

Even though initiatives to help the LiHH-refugees existed in areas all over Hamburg, the St. Pauli church became one of the protests’ most important spots, especially during the initial phase of the movement.

37

The support mobilized by the church and the work it carried out together with the neighborhood residents was later described as “the miracle of St. Pauli”.

38

To grasp this “miracle”, one must keep in mind the special history of St. Pauli, and its historically complex relationship to the city state of Hamburg.

Without a doubt St. Pauli is an area with a strong identity. It is a part of the city that has offered space and protection for those who have not been accepted elsewhere, and the long history of protests and multiculturalism shapes the area still today.

39

Throughout history, the St. Pauli residents have stood up to the authorities, in matters concerning everything from the privatization of power supply, to the G20-summit held in Hamburg 2017. When I asked Pastor Sieghard Wilm if the support given by the church and its community during the LiHH- protests should be seen in the light of St. Pauli’s history, his answer was yes. The LiHH-group

33 Finger, “Letzte Zuflucht”; Sieghard Wilm, Interview 2020-02-24.

34 Finger, “Letzte Zuflucht”.

35 Wilm, “Was ich tue, tue ich als Christ”.

36 Sieghard Wilm, Interview 2020-02-24.

37 See for example, Borgstede “’We are here to stay’,” 170-172; Meret & Della Corte, “Spaces of Resistance,” 215.

38 Domradio, “’So darf man niemanden behandeln’ - Ein Interview mit Fanny Dethloff (Beauftragte für Migrations-, Asyl- und Menschenrechtsfragen der ev.-luther- Kirche in Norddeutschland),“ Domradio.de, 2013-10-21.

39 Borgstede, “’We are here to stay’,” 170-171.

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seemed to have triggered something in the area, or as Wilm described it, a “genetic code” was being called on.

40

In close contact with the St. Pauli church was the Nordkirche, an organization consisting of the Evangelical Lutheran Churches in Northern Germany, with over 2 million members.

41

The Nordkirche is split into three main branches (german Sprengel), of which Hamburg and Lübeck is one. Involved in the LiHH-protests were – in one way or another – also the Nordkirche’s Hamburg diaconia (Diakonischen Werk Hamburg), synod, bishops, as well as a church advice center (where for example legal advice is offered) called Fluchtpunkt – all parts of the Nordkirche.

42

Weeks before the refugees turned to the St. Pauli church, a cooperation was started with the LiHH-group and Kirsten Fehrs, bishop of the Hamburg &

Lübeck-branch of the Nordkirche.

When the LiHH-members first got in touch with the Nordkirche, it was with the hope of finding housing.

43

Their first demonstration took place during the German Evangelic Church Day, down at the Hamburg harbor in St. Pauli, where Bishop Fehrs was present. Fehrs had heard from a colleague, in contact with the Caravan, about the self-organized refugee- protest group that had taken form in Hamburg. As part of the Church day, an artistic performance took place, where a small ship filled with statues reached Hamburg’s harbor.

The statues symbolized refugees, crossing the ocean on overcrowded boats. Fehrs’ presence directed attention towards refugee policies, and further on, towards the LiHH-group.

44

Shortly after, a dialogue between the Hamburg senate and the Nordkirche and its Hamburg diaconia, was started, with the goal of finding a solution for the LiHH-members’ accommodation.

45

Further on, several other religious organizations in Hamburg were engaged in the protests. One that became involved early on, was the Mosque Rahma (Muslim Family Association – Mosque Rahma), a mosque located in the Western part of Hamburg. The mosque housed a large number of group members several weeks before Pastor Wilm and his church did. Not only did they let the men reside in their facilities, but cooked for them during many months. The leaders of the Mosque Rahma were at first startled when they found the many men outside their building. They knew that by letting them in, they risked getting in

40 Sieghard Wilm, Interview 2020-02-24.

41 “Evangelical Lutheran Church in Northern Germany,” Lutheran World, accessed 2020-17-03, https://www.lutheranworld.org/content/evangelical-lutheran-church-northern-germany

42 Niess, Lampedusa in Hamburg, 215.

43 Niess, Lampedusa in Hamburg, 101.

44 Niess, Lampedusa in Hamburg, 43.

45 Niess, Lampedusa in Hamburg, 106.

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trouble with Hamburg’s authorities. However, they felt the only right thing was to let the LiHH-members stay ”/.../ you see your brothers standing at your door, with no place to sleep, you cannot simply throw them out.“, the treasurer at the mosque, Ali Awudu, told me.

46

Since the mosque’s abilities to receive funding differed greatly from the St. Pauli church’s, the church shared part of their donations with them. Further on, the mosque cooperated with another church in their nearby area.

47

In the hundreds of articles covering LiHH, only a few mention the mosques that provided aid.

The St. Pauli church and the Mosque Rahma are the religious organizations given the most attention in this thesis, and further, the Nordkirche is also present in my analysis. These religious actors played a crucial part in LiHH, in terms of providing housing, food and support directly to the LiHH-members. Simultaneously, they mobilized supporters within their communities, who came together in and around their neighborhood’s religious spaces. In the following section, I will present the material and methods used in this study, to explore the roles of the religious organizations.

46 Ali Awudu, Interview 2020-02-24.

47 Ali Awudu, Interview 2020-02-24.

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3. Method and Material

My first meeting with LiHH took place in spring 2019, as I learned about the protest group that had caught the attention of Hamburg in a newspaper article online. The story of the LiHH-movement immediately woke my interest. Having lived in St. Pauli some years before, the area and its history – of which I knew little at the time – had since long been a source of fascination. I travelled to Hamburg for a short visit, and had the opportunity to meet with Sieghard Wilm, pastor of the St. Pauli church, whose recollections of the events ensured me that I wanted to study the protests, focusing on the religious actors. Some months later, I returned to Hamburg to attend a film screening in the church, where short

documentary films from the project “Remembering Lampedusa” were shown. I then paid my first visit to the St. Pauli archive, where I found a great amount of material covering the LiHH-group. I began planning a month of fieldwork, and in February 2020 I traveled to Hamburg to begin my study. To explore the roles of faith-based actors in the LiHH-protests, I used a methodological triangulation, consisting of textual analysis of archival material stored in the St. Pauli archive, and interviews with two representatives of religious organizations. In the following section, I will present the material and methods used in this study.

The Archival Material

During my month of fieldwork in Hamburg, I began working with textual documents covering LiHH, stored in the St. Pauli archive in St. Pauli. The archive is a registered association (German e.V), small but withholding a big collection of thematically organized files and books about the St. Pauli area. In the archive, I collected text from the folders

“Geflüchtete und Flüchtlingspolitik 2013/2014” (Refugees and refugee politics, 2013/2014)

and “Kirchen - St. Pauli Kirche “ (Churches - St. Pauli Church). The material consisted

mostly of newspaper articles from local magazines, but also pamphlets and flyers printed by

the LiHH-group and the St. Pauli church. While searching through the folders, I noted events

and descriptions by actors involved in the protests that somehow touched upon the roles of

religious organizations, their cooperation with state actors and other supporters, as well as

signs of the outcomes of their work.

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Before I began to analyze the material, I formed a timeline of the events described in the documents, by collecting them in an Excel workbook.

48

There, I created six columns and categories in which I broke down each event and its source: “Event”, “Date”,

“Actor” (what happened, when did it happen and who did it?) and “Publication”, “Author”

and “Title” (where and when was it written about, who wrote it and what was the document’s title?). Since the articles at the St. Pauli Archive were not all organized in chronological order (most of them were indeed – but there were also exceptions), and newspapers sometimes report on or return to events long after they have occurred, this method proved quite useful, especially during the initial phase of my research. It enabled me to sort the collected events by different columns; their dates, the actors present, and so on. Having noted 56 events from a total of 35 documents, my first timeline was complete, one that would later be supplemented by descriptions in previous research. This method, was however, used with caution. The timeline that I created is built upon several processes of selection. Firstly, even though the St.

Pauli Archive’s collection of reports about LiHH is wide-ranging, there was of course additional articles covering the protests that the archive did not have access to. Secondly, many more events were described in the texts than those written down by me, as I carried out my work with a specific focus.

Parts of the material I found in the St. Pauli Archive did not describe important events, but other aspects crucial for my analysis. Hence, I decided to collect all interesting themes and citations in a document called “Quotes and notes”. Using quotes from religious actors interviewed back in 2013, was of most importance. Even though I could speak directly with some of the religious representatives involved, what they expressed in the “heat of the moment”, before their experiences turned into memories, would enrichen the analysis. To be able to navigate between my two documents, I organized the “quotes and notes” under the titles of the texts in which they were mentioned. Thereby, I could easily search for an article title in both documents, to see if a quote or note was connected to a certain event.

My month of fieldwork in Hamburg gave me the opportunity to collect material in the context of the protests, and thus also spontaneously encounter people with memories of the LiHH-movement. Through these short conversations with Hamburg residents – that often took place in the St. Pauli archive – I learned more about the protests and how they engaged the people of Hamburg and the St. Pauli area.

48 Storing, and thereby coding material in Excel is a method I learned from Swedish author and journalist Ingrid Carlberg, during a lecture at Södertörn University, 2019-12-05.

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The interviews

Complementary to the archival material, I conducted interviews with representatives of two of the religious organizations involved. The first of them was with Sieghard Wilm, pastor of the St. Pauli church. In an interview with Wilm published in the national newspaper die Zeit, Sebastian Kempkens writes: “Wilm is no ordinary pastor, he is not afraid of political

intervention.”

49

In the article, Wilm is describes “liberal”, in contrast to the stricter Christian background from which he comes. After much luck, Wilm finally got to the place he wanted:

the big brick church in the center of St. Pauli.

50

Early on, it became clear to me that Pastor Wilm would be key person in my study, since he was a leader of the St. Pauli congregation. Wilm doubtlessly had much knowledge about the events and had, through his experiences in 2013 and 2014, become acquainted with many of the people involved.

51

During 2013 and 2014, Wilm took part in a great number of interviews regarding the protest, with local, national and international magazines and TV-stations.

52

He thus became a frequent commentator on events during the protests, and in all the previous research done on LiHH, he or his congregation is mentioned.

Furthermore, Wilm was helpful and encouraging towards my project, from its beginning.

I also had the opportunity to speak with a representative of Hamburg’s Muslim community:

Ali Awudu, treasurer at the Mosque Rahma, located in Western Hamburg. The mosque provided housing and other aid to a big group of LiHH-members. Contrary to Pastor Wilm and the St. Pauli church, the Mosque Rahma remained relatively “under the radar” during the LiHH-protests, and for many reasons (further discussed in my analytical chapters) did not receive as much attention in the media. Both men have explicitly given me permission to use their names in this thesis.

The interviews I conducted were qualitative, and mostly, but not exclusively, semi-structured. My first two (out of three) meetings with pastor Wilm were unstructured conversations, where he told me about his congregation and his experience of the protests. In

49 Sebastian Kempkens, "’Gottesdienst hat viel mit Disco zu tun’,” Die Zeit, 2020-03-03, https://www.zeit.de/hamburg/2020-02/sieghard-wilm-st-pauli-meine-freiheit-kirche.

50 Ibid.,

51 Characteristics defining key persons described in: Anna Davidsson Bremborg, ”Interviewing”, in The Routledge Handbook of Research Methods in the Study of Religion, ed. Michael Stausberg & Steven Engler, (Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, 2011), E-book, 312.

52 Sieghard Wilm, Interview 2020-02-24.

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a chapter on interviewing from The Routledge Handbook of Research Methods in the Study of Religion (2011), Anna Davidsson Bremborg describes unstructured interviews as those where the researcher takes a step back, making the informant comfortable to speak freely about the topics he or she chooses.

53

In my first meetings with Wilm, I asked some questions, but focused on listening. I took notes both during our talk and after, but did not record nor came with a prepared interview guide.

Being back in Hamburg to conduct my fieldwork, I once again spoke with Wilm. This time, our interview was semi-structured, meaning that the questions I asked were more specific, and revolved around his thoughts on certain topics, such as his experience of the relationship between religion and politics, as well as the history of St. Pauli.

54

I conducted one similar semi-structured interview with Ali Awudu, treasurer at the Mosque Rahma.

However, in that case, the questions I asked were more focused on the work the mosque carried out during the LiHH-protests, since the lack of descriptions of it was striking in my other material. I also spoke with Ali Awudu about his experience of cooperation with other actors involved in the LiHH-protests. To both of my semi-structured interviews, I brought a prepared interview guide, but did not follow it exclusively (many times, I responded to the men’s answers with supplementary questions). During my semi-structured interviews, I recorded the conversations and took notes. Afterwards, I transcribed the recordings.

That the two religious organizations devoted the most focus in this study are the St. Pauli church and the Mosque Rahma, is a decision made for several reasons. Investigating the roles of religious organizations in LiHH would be impossible without addressing the St.

Pauli church. It was one of the most important actors in the protest over all, in terms of mobilizing support and funding to the LiHH-members. Consequently, the church was frequently reported on in the media, creating an extensive material describing its work.

Further, since the St. Pauli church is located in an area with a long history of protests,

analyzing the St. Pauli church’s role facilitates an exploration of how religious organizations are affected by local dynamics.

I prioritized including a mosque that worked with the situation, since so little of the archival material reported on the Muslim communities’ work. Even though the Mosque Rahma is not located in St. Pauli, it was one of the most important supporters to many of the LiHH-members during several months – and thus makes out a natural part of an investigation

53 Davidsson Bremborg, “Interviewing,” 313.

54 Davidsson Bremborg, “Interviewing,” 312.

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of the roles of faith-based actors in the LiHH-protests. Speaking to representatives of one mosque and one church, also exposed differences between the roles that the religious organizations took on, depending on their societal position and relationship to the state.

The vast difference in accessible information about the two organizations in the written material, is however, inevitably mirrored in this thesis. The exploration of the

mosque’s work in the protests, rests solely on my interview with Ali Awudu, while the St.

Pauli church is mentioned in a great deal of the articles I found in the St. Pauli archive. Had I had more time and the opportunity to conduct a more extensive study, it would have been interesting to speak with additional members of the two religious communities about their memories of the protests, as well as with representatives of the religious organizations besides the Mosque Rahma and the St. Pauli church that worked with the LiHH-members.

55

Needless to say, this thesis focuses on the roles of religious organizations in LiHH, and the material thus does not directly include the most central actors of the protests:

the LiHH-members. The decision to explore the organizational dimensions of religion, rather than the experience of the men who stayed in the St. Pauli church and the Mosque Rahma, was made after much consideration. Obvious restrictions like a limited time frame, as well as the fact that the events took place over six years ago and many of them no longer live in Hamburg, made a focus on the LiHH-members more difficult. Also, the material I found describing the roles of religious organizations during the protests was both extensive and unexplored in the context of secularization and religion and migration. I did however get the opportunity to speak with one of the group members briefly, and his descriptions very much broadened my understanding, not least of the St. Pauli area. It is my hope that the LiHH- members would see this thesis as one exploring aspects of the support they received, and not an attempt to tell their story for them. Luckily, well written descriptions of the protests with the LiHH-members in focus are presented elsewhere, for example in Birgit Niess’

dissertation.

55 A number of additional churches and at least one mosque worked directly with the refugees. Examples are the Christianskirche in Ottensen & the Martin Luther Kirche, as well as mosque outside the city of Hamburg (epd, “Alle Flüchtlinge der St. Pauli-Kirche in Winterunterkünften,” Hamburger Abendblatt, 2013-11-29, https://www.abendblatt.de/hamburg/article122399791/Alle-Fluechtlinge-der-St-Pauli-Kirche- in-Winterunterkuenften.html ; suk. “Glinde nimmt elf Flüchtlinge auf,” Hamburger Abendblatt, 2013-10- 19)

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Language

All the interviews were held in German, a language which I do not speak fluently, but at an intermediate level. At first, I was nervous that my German skills would only complicate the interviews, but I was in fact positively surprised. Firstly, speaking German enabled the interviewees to talk freely about their experiences in the language most comfortable to them, something that, according to Davidsson Bremborg increases the chance of collecting rich data.

56

Secondly, speaking German necessitated an enhanced thoughtfulness and prudence from my part, both in terms of preparation and execution. During the interviews, my limited German skills forced me to thoroughly take my time when formulating a new question, and already early on in the process, it became clear to me that, just as Davidsson Bremborg notes:

“When the interviewer is comfortable with silence, the interviewee often continues and deepens the answer without having been interrupted by a new question.”

57

Simultaneously, since my lack of fluency in German was clear to the interviewees, it provided me with a good reason to ask the them to further develop their reasoning, on occasions where I wanted them to specify or exemplify more general answers.

Since almost all textual material used in this thesis was written in German in its original form, I spent much time on translation. To manage to get through the material in the St. Pauli archive, I was forced to work at quite a high speed. When in Hamburg, I therefore decided to write down quotes and important texts in German, to ensure my haste would not result in incautious translations. When the time came to analyze the material, I translated the quotes to English, both those collected from texts and interviews. All citations from

newspapers, flyers and interviews in this thesis are thus translated, from German to English by me, if not stated otherwise. The original German quotes are attached in the appendix of this thesis, and if any confusion would arise to the reader, I am more than willing to discuss my translations.

Archival ethnography, reflections

The St. Pauli archive was not only a place where I found material about LiHH and St. Pauli’s history, and I was offered guidance in approaching and understanding the material. The archive is also an important spot in the neighborhood, where an ambitious work is carried out to preserve and mediate knowledge about the block. For my background on St. Pauli, I almost

56 Davidsson Bremborg, “Interviewing,” 316.

57 Davidsson Bremborg, “Interviewing,” 315.

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exclusively used books from the archive’s collection, and primarily one published by the archive itself. I had the opportunity to discuss with the knowledgeable staff the history of St.

Pauli, and their memories of the protests in 2013. Further, the St. Pauli archive invited me to a panel talk on the topic “Racist police controls in St. Pauli”. The St. Pauli archive was thus on many levels a great source to my understanding of the context in which the protests took place. One could therefore argue that the archive shaped my work, in more ways than may first appear. Such an impact can be understood through the concept and methodology of archival ethnography.

As noted by Kelly Ritter among others, classical ethnographic research shares many characteristics with archival research. Both the archival researcher and the ethnographer study cultures and stories of human beings, even though the archival researcher can seldom meet the people in focus of the study.

58

Scholars from both fields have debated the difficulties of collecting and selecting material to thereafter present a story of a culture based on it.

59

One of the ways for archival researchers to avoid, or at least decrease the risk of blindly joining the historical tradition of “narrative recovery” is according to Ritter, to start regarding the

archives as sites of interests.

60

Ritter describes archival ethnography as an approach to archival research which takes into consideration not only the material within an archive, but also the people and stories behind it. Archivists create stories of their communities; hence researchers build their studies not only on material from the past, but on a mediated version in the present.

61

Ritter writes: “Consequently, the archival ethnographer also assumes the values and position of the original archivist, knowing only what remains, never what was lost.”

62

The archivists in the St. Pauli archive were without a doubt valuable sources of my knowledge on many levels, and did in deed impact my work. Thus, just like countless scholars have shown how reflexivity is necessary when being pursuing ethnographic fieldwork, reflecting upon the work done by the St. Pauli archive, and its effect on my study, is important in a project like mine.

The material that the St. Pauli archive holds is brought in by members of the community and the staff. My experience from spending a month in the archive was that the

58 Kelly Ritter, “Archival Research in Composition Studies: Re-imagining the Historian’s Role,” In Landmark Essays on Archival Research, ed. Lynée Lewis Galliet, Helen Diana Eidson & Don Gammil Jr.

(New York: Routledge, 2016), 284.

59 Ritter, “Archival Research in Composition Studies,” 284-285.

60 Ritter, “Archival Research in Composition Studies,” 282-283.

61 Ritter, “Archival Research in Composition Studies,” 282-283.

62 Ritter, “Archival Research in Composition Studies,” 290-291.

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archivists, together with scholars and organizations, carried out a detailed work, that aimed at bringing forward different stories of the neighborhood. For example, the conception of St.

Pauli as home of antifascism and acceptance was put in a different light on the panel talk about police controls in St. Pauli, which was organized at the archive during my fieldwork. In the discussion, multiple black people shared stories of experiencing racism in the area, and expressed that out of Hamburg’s many neighborhoods, St. Pauli was not one where they would want to live. The talk eventually came to somewhat change my conception of the area, since the stories told by the panel, differed greatly from the image of St. Pauli as one where everyone is accepted. It is just one out of many examples of what I experienced as efforts by the staff of the St. Pauli Archive to mediate stories of the neighborhood from different perspectives. However, even though the archive’s material and organized activities have a wide-ranging focus, it must be underlined that the descriptions written by me are built upon the stories collected and mediated by the St. Pauli archive. Just like Ritter writes, I as an outsider, can only access what is collected by the archivists, and not what was excluded in their process of selection.

As I have now presented the material and methods used in my study, the

exploration of it can soon begin. First, I must, however, give background to some of the

theoretical approaches that enabled me to analyze the roles of religious organizations in

LiHH.

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4. Previous research and theory: framing the roles of religious organizations in LiHH

In this section, I will briefly provide background to the research already done on LiHH, as well as common themes in studies on religion and migration. Thereafter, I will present theoretical tools and concepts that will be further developed in my analysis, focusing on secularization and religion and migration.

Previous research

The most thorough piece of research written on the subject of LiHH is Birgit Niess’

dissertation Lampedusa in Hamburg – Wie ein Protest die Stadt Bewegte (2018). Niess’ study is ethnographic, exploring LiHH’s progress, as well as the impact it had on Hamburg. The study is chronologically organized, starting off at the very beginning of the protests and ending with them entering a less active state.

63

During the years 2013 and 2014, Niess followed the LiHH-group closely. With the experiences of the LiHH-members in focus, she analyzes the development of the movement. With the help of several theoretical concepts – such as Acts of Citizenship, breaks (Brüche) and borders (Grenzen) – Niess seeks to

understand what it was about LiHH that got the city and its civil society so engaged, created conflicts between powerholders and succeeded to avert the decision to make the refugees leave.

64

Even though they are not her explicit focus, the religious actors – being so very central to the conflicts – are also part of Niess’ analysis. For example, she examines the relationships between civil society actors, including the St. Pauli church and the Nordkirche.

65

Also, she discusses how rhetoric of humanitarianism built bridges between the Hamburg senate and the churches involved, even though they were used by church representatives to do the opposite.

66

Niess’ descriptions and discussions of the religious actors enabled me to gain larger insights in the LiHH-group’s support, since the inherent complexities were not always

63 Niess, Lampedusa in Hamburg, 25-26.

64 Niess, Lampedusa in Hamburg, 20.

65 See for example, Niess, Lampedusa in Hamburg, 239-242.

66 Niess, Lampedusa in Hamburg, 110-113.

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mediated through the material I collected during my fieldwork in Hamburg. Furthermore, her study has been essential to my overall background knowledge of the protests.

Simone Beate Borgstede’s chapter “’We are here to stay’ – Reflections on the struggle of the refugee group ‘Lampedusa in Hamburg’ and the Solidarity Campaign, 2013- 2015.” (2017), places the LiHH-protests in the context of Hamburg’s, and more specifically St. Pauli’s history. In her text, Borgstede analyzes the LiHH-protests in the light of the area’s previous experience of “/…/squatting, ‘right to the city’ initiatives and similar solidarity networks/…/”.

67

Borgstede concludes that even though other parts of the city also became involved, the history of protesting significant for block helped mobilize the community of St.

Pauli.

68

She further argues that the LiHH-protests and the “right to the city-movement” have much in common.

69

Her chapter has been of great importance to my work, most importantly for my understanding of how the St. Pauli church’s work might have been affected by its neighborhood’s history.

In “12 Spaces of Resistance and Re-Actuality of Gramsci in Refugees’

Struggles for Rights? The ‘Lampedusa in Hamburg’ between Exit and Voice” (2016) Susi Meret and Elisabetta Della Corte investigate the turn of events from a Gramscian perspective.

By using a Gramscian framework, the two authors explore the group’s development and its struggle against the hegemonic powers, investigating “/…/where and how transformative efforts arise, develop, and often also fail in the permanent struggle for economic, social and political hegemony”.

70

In their analysis, Meret and Della Corte show that LiHH is an example of a subaltern group that has brought global conflicts concerning migration into local areas, carrying out a struggle for their own rights against the dominating power. Often, the two authors argue, such movements generate great support from the civil society, as was clear in the case of LiHH.

71

In their text, Meret and Della Corte problematize the work of the St. Pauli church, arguing that it evolved into a “misplaced alliance”, one between a subaltern group and the elites in a society, that obstructs the fight of the subaltern.

72

Their discussions were

67 Borgstede, ”’We are here to stay’,” 162.

68 Borgstede, ”’We are here to stay’,” 172.

69 I Borgstede, ”’We are here to stay’,” 162.

70 Meret & Della Corte, ”Spaces of Resistance,” 204.

71 Meret & Della Corte, ”Spaces of Resistance,” 218-219

72 Meret & Della Corte, ”Spaces of Resistance,” 206; 215.

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important for my exploration of collaborations between the different actors, as well as of the outcomes of the support from the church.

73

Even though the above described pieces of research on LiHH at least mention the work of a religious organization involved in the protests (the St. Pauli church), they do not place the work of the religious organizations in a larger perspective by analyzing how

processes like secularization, privatization and securitization have formed the roles of religious actors in migration processes. Furthermore, they do not analyze the roles of the mosques that supported the LiHH-group and how they differed from the churches’.

The complex connections between religion and migration are since long well known, however, a scholarly interest has grown during the last decades among researchers from a wide range of disciplines.

74

Religion is known to affect migrant processes on both individual and collective levels; for example, religious affiliation can be the reason people are forced to seek refuge, but it can also provide a strong sense of meaning for those who have.

Much scholarly attention has been devoted to the roles of religious communities in the societies in which migrants arrive, described by Martha Frederiks as “context-of-arrival- oriented” research.

75

Some of these studies have shown that religious organizations in the West are getting an increased role in questions regarding migration.

The results and perspectives of studies investigating how religion affects migrants that come to the West, however, vary, depending on their geographical focus.

Summarizing these differences, Nancy Foner and Richard Alba write: “/…/ studies of

immigrant religion in Europe stress a series of problems and conflicts and U.S. studies present an upbeat view/…/”.

76

The research done suggests that in the US, religion is an advantage for people who want to become part of the American society. Research investigating religion and migration in Western Europe, however, often empathizes that religion tends to lead to

73 Meret & Della Corte have also published an article on the LiHH-group on the webside

opendemocracy.net, that raises many of the same points as their chapter analyzing the events from a Gramscian perspective (https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/can-europe-make-it/between-exit-and-voice- refugees-stories-from-la/). Further, Meret has written an essay with Martin Bak Jørgensen published in the online magazine ROAR, that also discusses the LiHH-group in the context of Hamburg’s history, as well as similar movements in Germany and Europe. (https://roarmag.org/essays/lampedusa-hamburg-europe- refugees/)

74 Martha Frederiks, “Religion, Migration, and Identity – a Conceptual and Theoretical exploration,” in Religion, Migration and Identity: Methodological and theological explorations, ed. Martha Frederiks and Dorottya Nagy (Leiden: Brill, 2016), E-book, 9.

75 Frederiks, “Religion, Migration, and Identity,” 15.

76 Nancy Foner & Richard Alba, “Immigrant Religion in the U.S. and Western Europe: Bridge or Barrier to Inclusion?” International Migration Review 42, no. 2. (2008): 374.

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exclusion.

77

In this thesis, I will reflect upon these perspectives, and what situations like LiHH can tell us about how religion can affect migrant processes in Western Europe today.

By placing the work of religious organizations during the LiHH-protests in a new light, my aim is to uncover new ways of understanding the crucial part they played in the movement, but also to contribute to the field of religion and migration.

Secularism and secularization

Unsurprisingly, some of the core concepts relevant for studying religion and its relationship to migration in the world today, are those related to secularism and secularization. In his article

“The Secular and Secularisms” (2009), José Casanova distinguishes between secularism, “a worldview”, the secular, “a central modern epistemic category” and secularization, “an analytical conceptualization of modern world-historical processes”.

78

Even though the concepts have much in common, Casanova writes, they are used to describe different phenomena.

79

Theories of secularization stem out of a tradition within the social sciences, of understanding and predicting religious and societal change.

80

Religion’s potential decline in the modern world interested many of the 19

th

century’s most eminent thinkers, such as Weber, Marx and Durkheim.

81

During the 50’s and 60’s the belief in what is often called

secularization theory or the secularization thesis, grew stronger.

82

José Casanova has directed attention to the complexities of the secularization thesis by distinguishing three sub-categories within it. The first (1) regards institutional differentiation; the separation of for example the state and science from religion. The other category (2) foresees a declining religiosity in terms of belief and practice among populations, accompanying processes of modernization. The last (3) consists of ideas of privatization, suggesting that religion becoming a phenomenon

77 Foner & Alba, “Immigrant Religion in the U.S. and Western Europe,” 384.

78 José Casanova, “The Secular and Secularisms”, in Social Research: An International Quarterly 76, no.4 (2009): 1049.

79 Casanova, “The Secular and Secularisms,” 1049.

80 Casanova, “The Secular and Secularisms,” 1050.

81 Erin K. Wilson, After Secularism: Rethinking Religion in Global Politics, (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), E-book, 34.

82 Wilson, After Secularism, 35-37

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privatized is necessary for societies’ democratic practices.

83

Even though the two latter parts of the thesis – of decline and privatization – have been met with much critique, especially during the last 25 years, the third part, which makes out its foundation, is still indeed very impactful. The core of the secularization thesis is described by Jose Casanova as: “/…/the understanding of secularization as a single process of differentiation of the various

institutional spheres or subsystems of modern societies, understood as the paradigmatic and defining characteristic of processes of modernization/…/”.

84

Critiques against theories of secularization have revolved around the fact that they are sprung out of Western European Christian and political ideas of thought – and are thus not necessarily applicable on other parts of the world. Further, scholars have noted that religion indeed continues to be part of both society and individuals’ lives, in old and new forms, around the world, including the West.

85

By distinguishing the three subcategories, Casanova has aimed to show that even though connections between the three processes can be seen in the example of Western Europe, other societies in the world can be argued to have gone through one of the three processes, but not the other two.

86

But even though the predictions of religious decline and privatization have been problematized and criticized, the ideology connected to it, secularism, continues to influence European states and their populations. Secularism is described by Casanova as a generic concept, collecting a diversity of modern secular worldviews and ideologies, that have taken on different shapes historically. It can either be used consciously by powerholders to detain a certain order, or be passively accepted and regarded as the natural state of today’s societies – described by Casanova like a “modern doxa or an ‘unthought’”.

87

Casanova notes that many people living in Western Europe find their own (as well as their society’s) secularized relationship to religion a natural result of progressive history.

88

They define themselves as secular since it is associated with being modern, Western and enlightened.

89

However, the historical relationship to Christianity has in many ways left its traces in European states.

83 José Casanova, “Rethinking Public Religions,” in Rethinking Religion and World Affairs, ed. Timothy Samuel Shah, Alfred Stepan & Monica Duffy Toft (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012) 25.

84 Casanova, “The Secular and Secularisms”, 1050.

85 See for example, Wilson, After Secularism, 37-38; Casanova, “The Secular and Secularisms” 1050.

86 Casanova, “Rethinking Public Religions,” 26.

87 Casanova, “The Secular and Secularisms”, 1051.

88 Casanova, “The Secular and Secularisms”, 1055.

89 Casanova, “The Secular and Secularisms”, 1056.

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