Paper short abstract:

This paper analyses migration stories from Christians in Melbourne. It discusses their simultaneous sense of loss and gratitude about coming to Australia. It probes the interplay between their shifting emotional states and a secular public discourse which often conflates gratitude with happiness.

Paper long abstract:

This paper analyses the everyday emotional response of Christian migrants to being in Australia. Based on research with migrants who worship at three Christian churches in suburban Melbourne, it focuses on how these migrants simultaneously articulate their experience of loss and of gratitude. In particular, I will interrogate the interplay between these emotional states and politics on the one hand and theology on the other.

In Australian political discourse, there is a sense in which we demand migrants be 'grateful' for their residency here and that all forms of remembrance should be happy or celebratory. Many of my research participants, however, simultaneously express thankfulness and sorrow. I will explore how this troubles the notion that thankfulness/gratitude necessarily corresponds with happiness. I will also seek to conceptualise a joy that is more complex, allowing space for grief and loss.

I will consider the faith-full way in which my participants tend to hold together struggle and gratitude. While not always explicitly theologised, this tendency reflects a deeply-embedded 'theological disposition' that results from Christian liturgical formation. The effect of such formation raises tantalising questions about the moral valuation of emotional responses to experience.

This study involved two multi-cultural English-speaking congregations (one Catholic and one Seventh Day Adventist) and one multi-cultural Arabic-speaking Baptist congregation. Drawing on participant observation, interviews and photography, this paper presents reflections on the intertwined sense of joy and grief, gratitude and loss, experienced by my research participants.