Biking to work and listening to worship songs – religious and social support for refugees from Ukraine in Värmland

During the spring 2022, after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, local initiatives in Värmland, Sweden, enabled three busses of refugees from Ukraine, mainly women with children, to get to Värmland. The local initiatives consisted of several relatively small and diverse groups, among them the local Pentecostal church which had had a long-standing exchange with a Pentecostal church in Ukraine. Children from Ukraine had, for instance, visit Värmland for summer camp for several years. This seminar presents some of the results from ethnographic fieldwork conducted among the Pentecostal refugees from Ukraine, focusing on the role of religious practice and support structures, social mobility but also on intersectional dimensions in comparison with refugees and migrants from primarily Syria and Afghanistan after 2015.  

Katarina Plank, Associate Professor of Religious Studies, Karlstad University

Daniel Enstedt, Associate Professor of Religious Studies, University of Gothenburg