Displaying Diaspora: Chinese Christian Presence in Hungary after 1989

Authors

  • Dorottya Nagy Central and Eastern European Institute for Mission Studies

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5195/ahea.2012.80

Keywords:

Chinese migration to Hungary, Chinese Christianity, diaspora discourses

Abstract

The present article draws attention to the significance of the “Christian” component in researching Chinese migrants’ presence in post-1989 Hungary within the framework of Chinese globalization and the globalization of Chinese Christianity. After a brief review of the dynamics of Chinese migration to Hungary and special focus on the formation of Chinese Christian Communities, the article examines how the concept of diaspora and the rhetoric built around it is used by missionaries to create new ways of understanding the world from migrants’ perspective and interpreting migration experiences as empowering and liberating divine arrangements for the well-being of their current residence and beyond. The case of Chinese migration to Hungary shows that the concept of diaspora implies a diverse range of community formation practices and the complexity of negotiating Chineseness, which highlights the need of revisiting the very concept of diaspora as reduced to a homogeneous and ethnically essentialized community.

Author Biography

Dorottya Nagy, Central and Eastern European Institute for Mission Studies

Dorottya Nagy is a Senior Lecturer and Program Coordinator of the Master of Theology in Missiology Program at the Central and Eastern European Institute for Mission Studies, Budapest. After completing her PhD at Utrecht University in 2008 with her thesis titled Migration and Theology: The Case of Chinese Christian Communities in Hungary and Romania in the Globalisation-Context, she worked as a post-doctoral research fellow at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity in Göttingen, Germany. Her research interests include theological conceptualizations of migration phenomena, contextual theology, missionary networks, and Christianity in post-communist settings. She is an ordained minister of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Hungary.

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Published

2012-01-01

Issue

Vol. 5 (2012)

Section

Cluster Articles: Hungarian Borders, Immigration, Diasporas

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