The Sociology of Morals: Catholic Faith and Generational Identities among Filipino Migrants in Copenhagen, Denmark

Astrid Krabbe Trolle

Publikation: Bog/antologi/afhandling/rapportPh.d.-afhandling

Abstract

This dissertation describes the religious practices and moral navigation among Filipino Catholics in Copenhagen. This Filipino diaspora consists of two overall categories;permanent settlers and temporary movers. The permanent settlers are Filipinos who have travelled to Denmark through work possibilities (1960-1973) or marriage and family reunion (1973-2000). The category of temporary movers covers the young Filipinos entering Denmark on two year contracts as au pairs. In 2000, the Danish state reinitiated the au pair scheme, and since then the influx of au pairs has radically changed the demographic profile of the Filipino community in Denmark. My thesis seeks to analyse how this demographic development has affected the internal dynamics of the Filipino Catholic milieu in terms of morality, temporality and generation. My main argument is that people's temporal orientation evokes different shades of morality that can be placed on a continuum spanning from restrictive/conservative attitudes to permissive/open attitudes. The different temporal trajectories of the settlers and the movers inform heterogenous religious practices. Whereas the settlers are engaged in moral maintenance work in the Catholic congregations as a main social structure of the Filipino diaspora in Denmark, the au pairs see their two year stay as a time-out, a space of either religious intensification or the possibility of opting out of religious practice. The analysis rests on participant observation in the Filipino environments in Copenhagen from 2015-2018, 24 interviews with Filipinos and their Danish husbands, interviews with Catholic priests and experts, one group interview with 10 au pairs, text material from Christian and non-religious organisations and survey data from the World Values Survey on the Philippines (2012) and the European Values Surveys on Denmark (2008).
OriginalsprogEngelsk
ForlagDet Humanistiske Fakultet, Københavns Universitet
Antal sider174
StatusUdgivet - jun. 2019
Udgivet eksterntJa

Note vedr. afhandling

Ph.d. afhandling forsvaret 20. juni 2019

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