Local Communities, Distant Origins: How Cultural Distance and Local Context Shape Immigrant Ethnoreligious Infrastructures

Why do some immigrant communities establish dense ethno-religious infrastructures, while others do not? This study investigates organizational infrastructures in immigrant communities, employing a framework that examines the full spectrum of ethnic groupness, from nominal co-nationals to highly institutionalized communities. Analyzing 25,117 ethno-religious businesses and organizations catering to 54 immigrant minorities across more than 4,900 local communities in Germany, the authors show that minority communities with similar population sizes can exhibit vastly different organizational ecologies. Contrary to claims emphasizing local context, neither category consolidation nor within-community homogeneity go along with more ethnicity-focused organizations. Instead, various dimensions of cultural distance between immigrants’ origins and the host society consistently predict organizational density across diverse localities. In line with theories of reactive group formation, secure legal status relates to sparser infrastructures. However, local anti-immigrant mobilization correlates negatively with organizational presence, too, complicating such theories. These findings highlight the consistent importance of cultural distance, and challenge both essentialist and location-focused constructivist perspectives on immigrant group formation.