The organizational politics of pastoral care: African migrant churches and the informal governance of migration in South Korea

Past scholarship has emphasized the pivotal role that churches have played in improving migrant welfare by providing legal aid, medical services, and advocating for labor rights in the absence of robust state support. This article challenges dominant narratives of migrant advocacy by demonstrating how faith-based care can restrict migrant agency, even while providing short-term sanctuary and support. Analyzing ethnographic data from a large African migrant church in South Korea, we use “the organizational politics of pastoral care” as a conceptual framework to examine how the power of activist clergy is institutionalized in migrant churches. Our findings demonstrate how undocumented migrants who are excluded from government labor migration schemes and isolated from the resources of well-established migrant enclaves are particularly dependent on informal church-based networks, and thus, more vulnerable to these unaccountable forms of migration governance. By analyzing how spiritual authority legitimizes the discretionary allocation of resources to “obedient” migrants, our article situates faith-based migrant care within South Korea’s broader migration governance regime, highlighting how religious organizations function as intermediaries that normalize state and market exploitation of migrant labor.