Finding a new home through conversion : the ontological security of Iranians converting to Christianity in Sweden

• Extant scholarship on ontological security in sociology has focused on the significance of home as a source of security. In this article, I argue that when Iranian asylum-seeking converts lose faith in mainstream primary institutions (such as the public and political institutions formed and shaped by Iran's religious autocracy), they turn to Christianity to find a source of such significance. This conversion is a secondary institution that shields them from existential anxiety and homelessness, while the primary institution has become meaningless. The new home that this secondary institution offers increases their sense of ontological security and minimises their existential anxiety. Through conversion, they have become 'at home' in the secondary institution, and the self has been reinstitutionalised.

Subject headings

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Statsvetenskap (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Political Science (hsv//eng)

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Sociologi (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Sociology (hsv//eng)

Keyword

Asylum seeker

conversion

ontological security

Sweden

home

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

art (subject category)