Mobilizing Presence across Borders: Devotion to Papua New Guinea's Blessed Peter To Rot in Australia

This article engages with the conjunctures between migration and religion by focusing on the celebration of Papua New Guinea's ‘National Patron Saint’, the Blessed Peter To Rot, in the Australian diaspora. Both in Sydney and Brisbane, Catholic Papua New Guinea (PNG) migrants have been ‘relocating’ PNG shrines, regalia, relics and ritual celebrations to Australia to celebrate their Blessed Peter To Rot. As shown, by relocating spiritual material and performing pilgrimages, migrants create belonging and new communities, but they also mobilize To Rot's divine presence and intervention in the diaspora. This article shows how Australian Peter To Rot chapels have become potent sites for the expression of PNG identity and nationalism, as well as for moral intervention in the diaspora.