Introduction

The intersection between migration, religion, and globalization is among the most exciting debates in current migration studies (Csordas 2009). In ourrecent publication, Building Noah's Ark (Horstmann & Jung 2015), we follow up on the work by Mark Johnson & Pnina Werbner (2010), Aihwa Ong (2003), Peggy Levitt (2007) and Pnina Werbner (2003) to illustrate the centrality of religion in strategies of emplacement and navigation. Religion, we argue, is a lens for understanding the efforts that are invested in transforming strange and hostile environments into more docile and peaceful ones. Religion can be seen as a privileged site through which to study agency, making losses more bearable and reconstructing lives more comfortable. In writing about religion and motion, I have been inspired by Thomas Tweed. In Tweed's opinion, religion is intimately linked to involuntary mobility: it assists in crossing boundaries and is part of a process of reconstructing the self and reimagining the community (2006). From this perspective, Karen villagers, whose homes have been violently displaced in the protracted conflict in eastern Myanmar, are becoming mobile subjects against their will. Bringing religion with them as cultural baggage, they act as missionaries of some sort, mobilizing throughout Myanmar, Thailand, and the West, to spread the good news of Karen Christianity if they are Christian, or to reconstruct Karen monasteries in political exile if they are Buddhist.