Community, Friendship, and Homemaking among Expatriates

What is it about?

The International Catholic community in Brno has proved itself an exceptionally successful mediator of the feeling of being at home in a new place of residence among highly qualified migrants living and working in Brno. The text analyzes how faith, friendship, and community interact, in a particular social environment of Brno, to foster homemaking among Catholic internationals. The identification of a rich network of factors operating in this process made us reluctant to define our theme in terms of ‘the role of religion in homemaking.’ Instead, we thematize relationships between loneliness, community and its organizational culture, friendship, local attachment, social ties, feeling of being ‘at home,’ faith, worship, self-identification, the language barrier, and social integration.

Featured Image

Photo by Jed Villejo on Unsplash

Photo by Jed Villejo on Unsplash

Why is it important?

Instead of ascribing the exceptional success of the community in mediating homemaking to an empty signifier "religion", we understand the setting as a “polymorphous reality,” and show how are various factors that support or inhibit the community's ability to mediate feeling of being at home entangle. We show in detail one supports or contradicts each other and how various effects are produced. The limitations imposed upon social-scientific analytical potential by the concept "religion" and the delimitation of religion as a particular social "sphere" are thus neutralized, and the knowledge gained is more adequate and practically relevant.

Perspectives