Investigating postsecularity in urban China: Christianity, lived religion, and the intersectional experiences of migrant Christians in Shenzhen

Abstract

This thesis contributes to geographies of secularity and postsecularity by examining Christianity and the experiences of rural-urban migrants in Shenzhen, China. In the post-reform era, China appears to be caught in a contradictory dual process – the entrenchment of secular values and, simultaneously, the notable revival of Christianity. Bridging existing postsecularity literature with the discussion of the migrant experience, this thesis focuses on the everyday construction of religiosity and subjectivity of rural-urban migrants within the secular world and possible urban faith-based support for them. Drawing on in-depth ethnographic data collected in Shenzhen, I argue that rather than being an active social movement, the emerging postsecularity in China works as an ethical and self-reflective project involving hybrid subjectivities in response to the conditions of being in post-reform China. Four empirical chapters develop this argument further. The first elucidates the emerging young migrant Christian group in Calvinist churches in Shenzhen and argues that neoliberal principles inevitably influenced their attitude toward Christianity. Meanwhile, Calvinist Christian
resources and ethics also engage in the process of mediating with, and even counteracting neoliberal secularity, showing that religiosity as praxis is negotiated and ongoing, and that neoliberalism and emergent Calvinist theology in urban China provide new maps for us to reconsider the interaction of religiosity and secular metrics. The second chapter examines urban Christian churches and the lived experience of migrant
workers within them, showing how these faith-based communities become emotional spaces and social infrastructures for migrant workers and how theo-ethics emerge within and then reshape these urban infrastructures. The third chapter explores young migrant women’s religious agency and their subjectivities
of nonconfrontational negotiating within gendered social norms, foregrounding an intersectional approach to the study of post-secular feminism and women’s religious agency. Drawing on Peter Sloterdijk’s sphere theory, the final empirical chapter focuses on the development of spheres of online religious community and examines how Chinese Christians use the social app WeChat for religious practices. Examining how these foam-like online religious communities developed, and finally disappeared, on WeChat during the COVID lockdown, this chapter explores the changing spatiality of online religious communities and how senses of possibility and connection are forged during this process. To conclude, I show how the findings not only contribute to the discussion of the geographies of secularity and postsecularity in a non-western context but also highlight the value of the everyday and of intersectional perspectives toward rural-urban migrants’religiosities and subjectivities within the neoliberal secular condition.