Two concurrent agendas in the sociology of religion explore how conditions of secularism in the United States result in widespread norms of “spiritual seeking”, and how religion functions as a basis of belonging for U.S. immigrants. This study brings these subfields together by asking whether new immigrants from Ghana, West Africa, also exhibit an orientation of spiritual seeking in their religious trajectories, and how they engage with normative conditions of spiritual seeking within institutional contexts. I find strong evidence of spiritual seeking in their narratives, and I identify processes within the social institutions of family and coethnic networks, higher education, and African Evangelical Christianity that support a seeking orientation. I argue for more focus on the counter-impulses of seeking versus dwelling in immigrant religion, and that more studies of religion and culture should explicitly analyze the institutional contexts that mediate between normative culture and trajectories of social practice.

中文翻译：

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精神寻求的背景：美国的加纳人如何驾驭不断变化的宗教信仰和实践规范条件

宗教社会学中的两个并行议程探讨了美国的世俗主义条件如何导致“精神寻求”的广泛规范，以及宗教如何作为美国移民归属的基础。本研究通过询问来自西非加纳的新移民是否在他们的宗教轨迹中也表现出精神追求的方向，以及他们如何在制度环境中参与精神追求的规范条件，从而将这些子领域结合在一起。我在他们的叙述中找到了精神寻求的有力证据，并且我确定了家庭和同族网络、高等教育和非洲福音派基督教等社会机构中支持寻求方向的过程。我主张更多地关注寻求与居住在移民宗教中的反冲动，