African religious ministers’ transition from expatriation to migration

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to explore the contextual determinants of transition from expatriation to migration (TEM) among ministers of religion originating from the developing world. Design/methodology/approach - The authors used in-depth analysis of narratives of four African religious ministers working in France, plus interviews with their five superiors and three host country national colleagues. Findings - The findings point to personal-level, organisational-level and country-level contextual determinants, which come into play as levers or barriers in the “TEM” process. Originality/value - The study identifies a new category of global mobility research at the intersection of expatriation and migration and develops a theoretical framework which points to the positive and negative influence of three-layered contextual determinants on how expatriated low-status church ministers from the developing world become migrants. The authors found a so far unreported determinant of the personal context: the role of a world view: very visible as “God centrality” in the participants. Results also shed new light on the international careers of this overlooked category of “non-traditional expatriates” from Africa.