This chapter examines borders as historically produced and socially mediated processes that shape the lived experiences of Afro-Surinamese and Ghanaian communities in the Netherlands. Moving beyond territorial understandings, it conceptualises borders through the lens of critical border studies and postcolonial theory as dynamic and racialised mechanisms of inclusion and exclusion. Through an interdisciplinary engagement with scholarship on migration, religion, healing, and the afterlives of colonialism, the chapter argues that borders permeate everyday life via bureaucratic, discursive, and affective practices of b/ordering. These processes shape not only physical and socioeconomic (im)mobility but also health, well-being, and access to spiritual and communal forms of care. The chapter foregrounds how Afro-Surinamese and Ghanaian communities mobilise religious and healing practices, particularly within Pentecostal and Afro-diasporic traditions, as strategies of resilience, unbordering, and identity reconstruction. Healing is inseparable from the broader border regimes and racialised hierarchies that structure life in the Dutch postcolonial present.

错误:搜索内容不能为空,请输入英文关键词
错误:关键词超出字数限制,请精简
高级检索

Healing and Borders: Racialisation, Religion, and Afro-Diasporic Life in the Netherlands

  • Amisah Bakuri

摘要

This chapter examines borders as historically produced and socially mediated processes that shape the lived experiences of Afro-Surinamese and Ghanaian communities in the Netherlands. Moving beyond territorial understandings, it conceptualises borders through the lens of critical border studies and postcolonial theory as dynamic and racialised mechanisms of inclusion and exclusion. Through an interdisciplinary engagement with scholarship on migration, religion, healing, and the afterlives of colonialism, the chapter argues that borders permeate everyday life via bureaucratic, discursive, and affective practices of b/ordering. These processes shape not only physical and socioeconomic (im)mobility but also health, well-being, and access to spiritual and communal forms of care. The chapter foregrounds how Afro-Surinamese and Ghanaian communities mobilise religious and healing practices, particularly within Pentecostal and Afro-diasporic traditions, as strategies of resilience, unbordering, and identity reconstruction. Healing is inseparable from the broader border regimes and racialised hierarchies that structure life in the Dutch postcolonial present.