Everyday nationhood and religion in the context of migration: The case of Lithuanian Catholics in Norway

Abstract

In this article, I explore the relationship between religion and nationhood among contemporary Lithuanian migrants in Norway. The central puzzle is the lack of an open national feeling in the religious setting. However, academic literature has well documented the tight connection between the Catholic Church and Lithuanian nationhood. Interpreting the empirical data from qualitative interviews and participant observations through the lens of everyday nationalism, I argue that seeming lacklustre national sensibilities among Lithuanian Catholics do not signal Catholicism's demise as the vehicle for reproducing Lithuanian nationhood. Instead, it is an expression of the resilience of banal forms of nationalism reproduced via the institutional framework of the Catholic Church and the practices of the clergy and laity. I suggest that the case of Lithuanian Catholics in Norway intimates the need for a more nuanced approach to the concept of individual agency as opposed to a strict agency vs. banality dichotomy in everyday nationhood scholarship. Scrutinising habitual, banal forms of nationhood, together with the conscious ones, is pivotal in comprehending the complex relationship between religion and nationalism in empirical cases where visible displays of national sensibilities may be subtle but nonetheless meaningful.