Orthodox Immigrations and Integration in Switzerland. A Gift Approach to the “Perils” of Secularization

Maria Hämmerli’s doctoral thesis, supervised by Prof. François Gauthier, is a pioneer research on Orthodox migrations to Switzerland and to Western Europe more largely. Its contribution consists first in testing classical concepts from migration studies (such as integration, diaspora, transnationalism globalization and glocalization) to a religious group that has not yet received scholarly attention. But the main achievement of the present dissertation lies in using a Maussian gift theory to interpret the Orthodox migrants’ critical stance regarding the “conditions of belief and of experience” of the secular Europe in which they redefine and reconstruct their religious identity. This resulted in the construction of a theoretical model and the creation of a concept of an Orthodox ethic (the ethic of theandricity) that can be used beyond the scope of the actual context of the research.

The jury was international: professors Alexander Agadjanian, (University of Moscow), Vasilios Makrides (Universtiy of Erfurt), Victor Roudometof (University of Cyprus) and Ansgar Jödicke (University of Fribourg).

The new Doctor Hämmerli wishes to express once again her gratitude to her supervisor, prof Gauthier, for his dedicated and caring support.