Negotiating belonging in multilingual work environments: church professionals’ engagement with migrants

Abstract

The study presented in this paper focuses on three evangelical churches in Sweden and their engagement with migrants. The goal of the study is to explore how professionals engage with migrants in their everyday work in a multilingual environment. To this end, data from interviews with church professionals are triangulated with video-recordings of their interaction with migrants in a variety of church settings. The analyses demonstrate how different dimensions of belonging are enacted in multilingual encounters through practices that allow the professionals to perform social work in an activity context where empathy is of great importance. These findings highlight the role of the church within the public sphere under the changing conditions of globalization.