“Living for Return” as Christian Liberian Refugees
An Ethnographic Study of the Lived Experience of Members of the Christ Abiding Ministries Church in Sheffield, UK

Abstract

This ethnographic research explores the role of religion in the everyday lives of Christian Liberian refugees in Sheffield. This group lived in Guinea, West Africa as camp refugees, until their resettlement in the UK in 2004 through the UK government’s Gateway programme. The study analyses how living as refugees impacted their behaviour in their new setting and how their lived religious experience has shaped their return intentions and strategies.

Focus has been on religion’s influence during displacement, explored as a cause or a coping tool in anthropological and theological research on refugees, overlooking the connection between religion and refugees’ return decisions or strategies. I argue in this thesis that there is a direct link between religion and the refugees’ return intentions and decision-making processes. I suggest that religion can be the main driver of return that stops them from completely assimilating into their host country. Additionally, it constitutes a key element for understanding their motivations and behaviours in exile.

This research adopts a lived religion approach, recognising the importance of the agency of refugees. It examines the activities of the Liberian refugees’ church in Sheffield. The data was gathered through participant observation, photo elicitation, in-depth interviews, over twenty-one months of online and in-person fieldwork due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It portrays how the idea of return among the refugees is connected to the history and events of Liberia. The data highlights three key things: 1) The refugees’ hope for a life after refugeeism, rooted in a biblical, theological self-understanding of their purpose and love for their country. 2) Return is not a capitulation to a state of limbo in exile but an active pursuit to reunite with their ancestral homeland. 3) This active hope for return constitutes a “living for return” in exile, and “living for return” in turn fortifies the refugees’ perception of their hope to return.

The thesis’ four thematic chapters containing ethnographic narratives present new data and analyses on the intersection of religion and refugees’ experiences. The thesis highlights the refugees’ “mission of God” theological notion, rooted in their “Promised Land” vision, and emphasizes living a Christ-like life, pleasing God, maintaining Liberian identity in exile, and aspiring to return to Liberia. This was their guiding light amid the tension of belonging in the UK, settling in and longing to return to their ancestral homeland. This finding contributes to the current debate in the literature about “reverse mission” in the Global North, a notion that migrant churches come to the UK to evangelize this former nation of missionaries, now deemed securalized. The refugees did not think about their purpose in the UK in an evangelistic sense.