Faith as social capital: Diasporic women negotiating religion in secularized healthcare services

SynopsisIn an era of unprecedented global migration and neoliberal entrenchments, the phenomenon of transnational gendered caregiving is increasingly being recognized as an outcome of today's global economic system. Concurrently, religion is re-entering what has been assumed to be a secularized public sphere. Drawing on research on the negotiation of religious and cultural plurality in healthcare, we examine how faith—sometimes as personalized expressions, other times as codified, structured and collective—shapes caregiving and illness experiences in the context of healthcare services. Demonstrating the salience of intersectional theorizing, we explore how the racialization, gendering, and classing of religion operate for diasporic women seeking and providing healthcare services in the publically-funded Canadian healthcare system that carries the marks of neoliberal ideologies, and is still largely driven by secular ideals. Rather than silencing their faith perspectives in such contexts, many express agency and civic engagement through their religiosity, mobilizing religion as social capital.