Migration as Preservation and Loss: The Paradox of Transnational Living for Low German Mennonite Women.

Throughout history, conservative groups of Low German-speaking Mennonites have collectively migrated to preserve their religious integrity. However, their contemporary migrations to North America are not collective or church-sanctioned, but primarily economically motivated. This paper explores the intertwined processes of gender and religion in transnational social spaces through the destination experiences of Mennonite women in Canada. The paradoxes of the transnational social field-each simultaneous gain and loss-constitute a double-bind wherein choice is elusive. Caught in the contest between physical and cultural survival, women find themselves in the 'nothing' of in-between, as conflicting social fields and systems of capital-secular and sacred-collide. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]