"Whoever Welcomes the Stranger Welcomes Me": Discourses of Radical Hospitality in a Multilingual Faith Community

• In Event: Insights and Interconnections: Lessons Learned From Qualitative Studies of Immigration and Education

Abstract

Objectives: In circumstances of social and economic precarity (Butler, 2011; Standing, 2013), faith-based organizations and community centers play an anchoring role for many (im)migrant populations, especially those with undocumented status, and provide a space where diverse cultural groups come together. Such sites may provide opportunities for cultivating more expansive notions of citizenship and civic participation, and for working across cultural and linguistic boundaries. This paper draws on a five-year research partnership with a multilingual faith community to explore the intellectual genealogies and knowledge practices circulating within this context, and how these are mobilized to inform a shared vision of human rights.

Theoretical Framework: This research is informed by several traditions that share a commitment to democratizing knowledge: sociocultural perspectives on literacy (e.g. Barton & Hamilton, 1998; Lewis, Enciso, & Moje, 2007; Street, 1995), interdisciplinary theories of identity and experience (e.g. Alcoff, 2006; Mohanty, 1997), and practitioner research (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 2009). Realist theories of identity in particular place emphasis on the epistemic privilege (Moya, 2002) of subordinated perspectives.

Methods/Data: The work is part of a larger practitioner research (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 2009) and ethnographic (Heath & Street, 2008) study with a multilingual Parish. The collaboration has entailed a series of research foci developed with community members, including an intergenerational family literacy/ESOL class with Latina/o families, a Community Researchers Project with youth, an inquiry with Indonesian refugee/immigrant families around school advocacy, an after school comics club, and a community leadership group. Data sources were: fieldnotes of participant observation, transcripts of recorded meetings and class sessions, artifacts (e.g. planning documents, student work, written communications), interviews with community members, and researcher reflective memos. Data was analyzed thematically (Erickson, 2004; Strauss & Corbin, 1998), and then through critical discourse analysis (Fairclough, 2003) for a more in-depth focus on how community members characterize ethical and social justice commitments.

Findings: This paper looks across the nested inquires of the partnership to explore the discursive resources through which participants enact a vision of human rights (Moyn, 2014). I focus on how a utopian and moral universalism has varied and overlapping intellectual lineages that are culturally inflected, such as Martin Luther King’s idea of a “beloved community,” the Latin American testimonial tradition, liberation theology, and religious-based activism on behalf of immigrants. An analysis of these discourses helps illuminate how coalitional practices are not merely informed by a convergence of interests (a practical or instrumental model), but also by people’s shared beliefs about human dignity and hospitality.

Significance: While in the educational literature there are rich portraits of particular groups, there is less attention to multiethnic communities, whose experiences are braided by histories of colonization and shared present struggles. This research contributes to understanding a side of the transnational story less visible in public debate: the ways that people from a range of backgrounds come together to organize socially and advocate for greater opportunities, including educational access and immigrant rights.

Author

• Gerald Campano, University of Pennsylvania