Religion and refugee resettlement: Evolving connections to Ukraine since World War II

Several waves of Ukrainian refugees have arrived in the United States since 1945, each following a remarkably diff erent resettlement and assimilation path. Th is article off ers a comparative analysis of the role of religious affi liation and transnational religious organizations and networks in shaping processes of resettlement, ethnic group formation and the creation of attachments to Ukraine to explain the lower than expected levels of engagement of the last two waves with the Ukrainian diaspora and with Ukraine. Evolving global forces and the social structures within them render diasporic identities, which are closely associated with a territorially anchored sense of national culture, less appealing than the highly fl uid transnational networks of religious groups. The role of religious-based resettlement organizations and their networks in the United States is likely to exert an ever greater eff ect on refugee resettlement and migration more generally.