Transnational Religious Dynamics of Syrian Christians from Kerala in Kuwait

Abstract

This article focuses on changes in religious practices and the rise of radical religious groups among Christian Kerala immigrants to Kuwait after the First Gulf War in 1990–1. The impact of religious revivalism shows how religion has become a site for various identity-based community-centred networks among South Asian immigrants to Gulf countries. The article analyses the ways in which the church is increasingly active among Syrian Christian immigrants of Kerala in post-liberation Kuwait. Such religious groups are transnational in nature, actively linked to both home and destination countries, and the world beyond. The article focuses specifically on the growing affinity of Syrian Christian immigrants towards Pentecostalism. At the macro level, this article also investigates the interconnection between the geopolitical dynamics in the Gulf and the expansion of what appears to be ‘religious space’ in Kuwait.