Migratory Theology: Migrant Women and the Reconfiguration of Ecclesiology

This article proposes Migratory Theology as a framework that emerges from the lived experience of displacement and reconfigures how ecclesial life is understood. Drawing on twelve qualitative interviews conducted with migrant women engaged in catechetical and pastoral ministry in Southern California, as well as on practices of pastoral accompaniment, the study argues that migration is not merely a social phenomenon but a constitutive epistemological condition through which faith and belonging are reinterpreted. By placing these experiences in dialogue with biblical narratives—particularly the Book of Ruth—and with the itinerant character of early Christianity, the article shows that migrant communities generate relational forms of ecclesial life that extend beyond territorial structures. Migrant women emerge not only as agents of pastoral care, but as epistemological subjects whose lived experiences generate theological insight concerning belonging, accompaniment, and ecclesial identity. The study concludes that migration reveals dimensions of ecclesial life that have long been present but insufficiently recognized, offering a reconfiguration of ecclesiology in which the Church is understood as a relational communion continually formed through movement, vulnerability, and reconstructed belonging.