Paper short abstract:

This paper focuses on the development of Roma-led religious humanitarian projects, conducted by Nordic European Roma missionaries in Eastern Europe, and the emergence of affective forms of trans-national Roma solidarities, embedded within the Evangelical ethos of social development.

Paper long abstract:

Based on long-term ethnographic fieldwork conducted with Pentecostal Roma in Finland and Romania, this paper looks at the ways in which the development of a Roma-led religious humanitarianism becomes a field of continuous emotional connection and spiritual socialisation. More specifically, this paper takes both an ethnographic and theoretical focus on the practice of transnational missionary work led by Finnish Roma Pentecostal believers among Roma in Romania and the affective solidarities emerging from these trans-national encounters. As a key part of their believer identity, Finnish Roma missionaries engage in both national and transnational projects, aimed to Evangelise Roma communities in Eastern European countries. These projects present a discourse of spiritual revivalism and social intervention, with the setting up of several developmental projects focused on children as "the future" of Roma communities. However, in the process of missionary encounters, different meanings of affective labour and affective connections come centre stage, wherein both missionaries and missionised engage in complex (and at times contrasting) conversations concerning the shape of their believer identities. The aim of this paper is, therefore, to underscore missionary practice as a space of affective solidarity, as well as a site of continuous negotiation, by emphasising the contradictions embedded within religious humanitarian agendas.