Transcultural Journeys of Indian Christian Women Religious: Challenges and Negotiation Strategies

Abstract

The complex fabric of global cultures, shaped by multireligious, multicultural, and multilingual exchanges, encourages cross-cultural involvement and interchange among many groups. This diversity encourages shared appreciation and the pursuit of universal human goals, thereby promoting harmonious interactions. The Indian Christian women religious, specifically, embody such a dynamic, as their vocational duties frequently involve movement and subsequent integration into multiple contexts of culture, fostering cross-border interactions and exchanges. This qualitative research examines the transcultural encounters of Christian women religious from Karnataka, India, who frequently move within the country as well as overseas, in fulfillment of their pastoral responsibilities. Utilizing the transcultural framework, the study employs dialogical narrative analysis approach to identify the voices of Christian women religious situated in the in-depth interviews with six Roman Catholic nuns and Protestant women priests. The findings demonstrate how the Christian women religious actively negotiate their cultural identities, adopt coping mechanisms, and integrate into the society at large. The study reveals the transformational effects of cross-cultural contacts in multicultural, multilingual, and multireligious settings, allowing for a deeper understanding of the intricate intersection between culture, mobility, and identity. It divulges how mobility further contributes to the negotiation of cultural identities and fosters transculturality, highlighting how adaptable and dynamic cultural identities are when relocation occurs.

1. Contextualizing the Study: Experiences of Christian Women Religious on the Move

Culture and religion are two inextricably linked contributory areas which facilitate close interpersonal associations between various social actors from different sectors. Furthermore, because religion, culture, and society are interdependent, religion does, in fact, support social integration, even when this is accomplished through factors that negotiate one’s distinctive religious identity (Glock 1960). Moreover, Indian society is characterized by a multiplicity of social as well as cultural frameworks, which the nation and its citizens organically and harmoniously navigate. The idea that it might not be possible to identify oneself without considering the larger context of difference and that the process of identifying oneself is fundamentally more deeply strengthened—possibly even desirable—when combined with the experience of recognizing other people is supported by Clothey (2006), who also reinforces his views on the cultural experiences of individuals from distinct religions. Furthermore, religions not necessarily constantly clash over territory, followers, or beliefs; instead, they have often changed to be more tolerant and supportive of one another, cooperating on mutually beneficial projects and exchanging ideas on issues pertaining to their shared convictions (Correa 2023).

Additionally, while religion is recognized as one of the most important factors in promoting social integration (Glock 1960), the association between various religions and cultures might seem to be continually occurring. As a result, religion is viewed as a primary interconnecting factor that promotes the convergence of various communities and cultures, potentially facilitating harmonious cohabitation and greater integration in society as a whole. Through research and observation, it becomes apparent that many religious or cultural groups in India work hand-in-hand and interact with society dynamically. Nonetheless, given this context, challenges surface owing to cultural, linguistic, religious, and caste issues. However, coping with disparities has also often occurred concurrently. According to existing research, Christian clergy encounters are a prime example of this phenomenon as pointed out by some researchers. For instance, Kumaran and Hari (2018) conducted a study on the lived experiences of Christian clergy, specifically Protestant clergy, in which they examined how Protestant clergy in the Dindigul region of Tamil Nadu negotiated their professional identities while fulfilling their roles with the use of personal as well as institutional resources. Priests combined their religious calling with modern social expectations, resulting in intricate methods of professional interactions, identity negotiation, and perception management. The primary themes determined in the study included emotional management, adapting to new technologies, role distancing, and dress codes.

Additionally, a study by Correa and Inamdar (2022) presented a narrative analysis based on the autobiographies of a Protestant priest and a Roman Catholic priest, respectively, in order to explore how the two narrators not merely engage in identity negotiation but also establish how their identities relate to or interact with their social or cultural context through their act of life writing. Subsequently, the study analyzed the linguistic, cultural, and religious barriers they encountered. Lastly, the strategies they commonly employed to negotiate as well as integrate with society at large led to the formation of their transcultural personalities. In another study conducted by Joseph and Kumar (2016), the research aimed at identifying the elements that influence life satisfaction among clergy from the Indian Orthodox Church in central Travancore, Kerala state. It aimed to study the impact of factors such as diocese, income, age, education, tenure in ministry, marital status, employment status of spouse, number of children, occupation of children, living arrangement, and the number of families in parish. The study also examined the life satisfaction of both married as well as unmarried clergy. According to the findings, the three most important criteria influencing life happiness were income, age, and the total number of families in the parish.

Furthermore, issues pertaining to gender discrimination faced by Catholic nuns in specific are examined in the work of Krishnaja and Jose (2024); the study examined Catholic nuns’ approaches to autonomy, drawing on feminist theological perspectives from Diane Shaffer’s Sacrilege: A Drama in Two Acts and Dan Goggin’s Nunsense: A Musical Comedy. The research suggested that the portrayal of radical as well as feminist nuns in the plays might undermine the traditional ecclesiastical structure and promote the deconstruction of sisterhood. The study emphasized the importance of including women in positions of power within the Church to promote gender parity. Another study on gender studies in religion by Smith and Balakrishnan (2020) analyzed the events that transpired on 31 August 2008, when Sister Jesme left the Congregation of Mother of Carmel, followed by the publishing of her controversial autobiography, ‘Amen: The Autobiography of a Nun’. Sister Mary left the convent in 2016, reporting harassment. The paper examined another occurrence that took place in September 2018, when five nuns from the Indian state of Kerala stood up to the Catholic church and led a fourteen-day protest at the High Court to demand that the rape-accused Bishop would appear before the law, amid strong resistance coming from the Church and the congregation. Afterwards, a congregation expelled the nun, Lucy Kalapura, who spoke against the Bishop and urged his arrest. The cases examined in this research revealed inadequacies in the gender roles enforced in Catholic churches and convents. The paper attempted to shed light on the conditions endured by nuns, though they are presented to the world outside as the brides of Jesus. Lastly, Sr. Kusum’s (2009) article on gender studies in religion examined the role of sisters in pastoral ministry. It addressed the identity crisis experienced by women religious due to generational differences and changes in pastoral ministry, including increased professionalism, competence, and self-esteem. The study emphasized the need to confront problems of injustice, oppression, and discrimination against sisters in churches, dioceses, Church organizations, and society at large.

Finally, current scholarship in migration studies concerning Indian Christians points out at the presence of Indian Christian communities overseas. In the work of George and Stephen (2024), migration is believed to be restructuring and renewing the cultural and religious fabric of the United States. The paper examines the issues of migration, displacement, and belonging among the Asian Indian Christian groups. Expanding on this subject, the article discusses the notion of Asian Indians as a typical community and their feelings of alienation and belonging. The paper also contends that, regardless of views on economic mobility, Asian Indians endure prejudice and an experience of alienation and belonging. Oommen’s (2015) research examined the impact of migration patterns including remittances on religion as well as religious practices in Kerala, India, which leads to societal transformation. This study aimed to analyze if the relocation of Syrian Christian immigrants in the Gulf countries and newly generated wealth resulted in major shifts in the lifestyles of Christians in Kerala. The research examined if migration-centered religious shift among Kerala Christians promoted commodification of religion, collective identity, etc.

Consequently, the present research on Christian clergy in India demonstrates how the clergy negotiate social and cultural contexts and fulfill their religious responsibilities. Nonetheless, there is still a significant gap in the examination of the lived experiences of Christian women religious who encounter an added barrier, the gender barrier, exacerbated by vocational mobility while they fulfill their dual responsibilities in the social and religious domains. Moreover, although the literature on women’s studies in religion has produced insightful findings, there is still a significant gap in its analysis of the interrelated encounters of Protestant women priests as well as Roman Catholic nuns. In particular, little has been researched about challenges associated with vocational mobility and the resulting approaches of negotiation, adaptability, and adjustment that the Catholic nuns and Protestant women priests employ across institutional and sociocultural contexts. Lastly, the existing scholarship in migration studies pertaining to migration among Indian Christians reveals a strong presence of Indian Christian communities overseas. Additionally, the primary reason cited for this is economic mobility. So, there remains a significant gap in the literature in migration studies that addresses the issue of vocational mobility among the Indian Christian clergy and the challenges that arise with frequent displacement.

Accordingly, this study includes the personal accounts of Christian women religious, whose lived experiences and religious expressions are formed by the interplay of religion, gender, migration, and cultural frameworks. Hence, further inquiry into the life stories of Christian women religious may provide a nuanced perspective on how religion, gender, migration, and cultural frameworks intertwine to impact individual as well as collective experiences, revealing possibilities for further exploration and analysis. Interestingly, the migratory character of their religious lives, which involves regular deputations across churches and locales within India and across the world, provides a suitable setting for studying the complex processes of identity negotiation and social involvement.

Therefore, the study explores the several experiences of Christian women religious within and outside India, particularly in light of their frequent deputations to various locations. Given their on-the-move lifestyle, these women are observed to encounter distinct challenges while engaging with the society at large. Within this framework, their cultural contacts, encounters, and exchanges provide an important prism through which one could effectively comprehend the intricacies of their interactions. By investigating the multifaceted nature of these encounters, the study aims to shed light on how Christian women religious negotiate the complexities of their cultural involvement while living a dynamic and frequently mobile life.

As a result, the model of transculturalism, which recognizes cultural diversity and promotes contact, interaction, and integration of many cultures, values, beliefs, as well as practices, is considered to be an ideal method for examining how the Christian women religious integrate with the Indian society and societies across the world. The approach investigates the significance of knowing and appreciating other cultures while also recognizing the similarities they share. It depicts how cultures interact and affect one another, potentially resulting in an amalgamation or hybridization of cultures, customs, and identities. Thus, the model recognizes that cultural barriers are gradually disappearing and that individuals are not always defined by one specific religious or cultural identity; instead, the emergence of transculturality or a transcultural identity becomes explicit in the cross-border encounters of people.

Therefore, this article contributes to the field of cultural studies, women’s studies, and migration studies by providing an ethnographic narrative of the experiences of Christian women religious that are intertwined within their social roles, suggesting that religious leadership is deeply shaped by social or cultural contexts, interaction, gender, and vocational mobility. Finally, the study contributes conceptually through the intersection of the features of the transcultural model with an analysis of how religious representatives—in particular, Roman Catholic and Protestant women religious in India—are influenced in the areas of cultural identity negotiation, cultural exchange, co-creation of cultures, and integration within society.

2. Transculturalism and the Journeys of Christian Women Religious

The theoretical framework of transculturalism acknowledges the importance of cross-cultural understanding, promotes collaboration across borders, and demonstrates the contribution of each individual towards the wider community overall. Transculturalism fosters appreciation of individuals regardless of their native language, convictions concerning faith, or cultural roots. The transcultural paradigm advocates broadening the scope of cross-cultural contacts by emphasizing cultural experiences and aspects that indicate both cultures’ constantly evolving nature as well as their potential to embrace transformation (Antor et al. 2010).

The word “transculturalism” implies an amalgamation of several cultures, producing a unique culture that is not influenced by simply one ethnic group or culture. It illustrates the value of cultural variety and encourages individuals to embrace any distinctions between them. Persons from many walks of life have been observed to connect and esteem others around them while continuing to recognize their own unique individualities. People from many different backgrounds display eagerness to achieve an attitude of coexistence and integration. The approach combines a number of cultures, creating a cultural convergence, and amalgamates them to form a distinct, collective approach to everyday life. People from a given cultural background usually have identical beliefs as well as convictions. In contrast, the primary objective of the transcultural model is to nurture interaction as well as integration across communities by presenting them a range of cultural encounters, which gradually become an essential element of individual’s identity.

The Transcultural Model: Origin and Development

The term “transculturation” emerged as an equivalent to the concept of “acculturation,” which describes a process by which a person or a group of people transition from one culture to other. As noted by Ortiz (1995), sugar and tobacco were considered to be crops that represented economic achievement and autonomy for all Cuban citizens, regardless of their ethnic background, as the nation had just come out of a protracted and antagonistic era of foreign oppression. What Ortiz called intersecting cultures offered reinforcement for this idea. The two crops were assessed from a number of angles, as it determined that they represented Cuban culture, economy, society, and industry. A shift was noticed between the center and the border (Ortiz 1995). The transculturalist strategy was suggested as a means of promoting the adoption of a collective cultural identity, language, as well as behaviors. The term denoted cross-cultural contacts across multiple civilizations, encompassing center cultures and ethnic roots.

Accordingly, transculturation is the blending of two or multiple cultures, in the sense that one of these cultures adopts elements of the other or develops ethnic characteristics unique to the emerging culture. Ortiz suggested the following five phases of transculturation in relation to interracial relationships: self-affirmation, cooperation, adaptability, reliance, and fusion. According to Allolio-Näcke (2014), transculturalism rightly recognizes the distinct, complex cultural distinctions that the terms “acculturation” and “deculturation” imply. Acculturation is the process of transferring characteristics from one ethnic group to another and acquiring the traits of the fresh culture, whereas deculturation is another approach that results in the giving up or withdrawal of original cultural identities. Conversely, transculturation exemplifies the idea of completely distinctive cultural occurrences emerging.

As described by Epstein (2009), transculturalism is a form of liberation which facilitates “globalization not as homogenization” (Epstein 2009, p. 328), instead operating as a reinforcement of ethnic uniqueness as well as integration into transcultural people, freeing these people from their passed-down cultural roots or traditions. Unlike confined societies and cultures, the global social framework now includes a vast number of individuals that are free. Consequently, the transcultural model encompasses the process of accepting, mixing, or integrating features from a collection of cultures (Epstein 2009).

Transculturalism, as defined by Welsch (2001), is a multifaceted and an all-encompassing perspective of culture, rather than a separatist or limiting one. It means that the everyday accomplishments of a society and culture are based on their capacity to adapt to experience change rather than the boundaries they establish. When several entities join together, there is always room for collaboration. As a result, such possibilities can be developed and expanded to form a collaborative entity. The advent of transculturality brings us a fresh viewpoint regarding diversity. It stems from transcultural knowledge, which incorporates a variety of ethnic origins as well as cultural dimensions. A range of strands and activities are utilized to construct transcultural systems. Therefore, transculturality is the point at which cultural diversity occurs to a large extent. The amalgamation of various cultures, like a mosaic, no longer generates distinctions; rather, transcultural associations—which share some qualities with one another while also differing—showing parallels as well as disparities at the same time.

According to Lewis (2002), one of the distinguishing features of transculturalism is its attention on current society’s concerns, particularly those concerning relationships, generating meaning, and the dynamics of power. Transculturalism regards order, the concept of collectivism, and communal connectedness as stabilizing qualities, but it also appreciates divergence, disagreements, and instability. It aims to shed light on the numerous cultural differences as well as the methods by which cultures create and transmit meaning. Transculturalism focuses on the interactions and tensions that exist within social groupings. It is captivated by the breakdown of societies, groups, and authority. Its functions include participation in community, corporation, and state-level interactions.

As defined by Epstein (2009), transculturalism represents a modern cultural shift that celebrates individual differences as a key aspect of society. He identifies “difference” as a third category that exists alongside “opposition” and “identity” (Epstein 2009, p. 347). This interpretation endorses a transcultural order where multiplicity is esteemed, and people can combine several cultural individualities via hybridization, selecting the gradation to which they involve with each culture. The transcultural space occurs both within and past long-established cultural limitations, letting a dynamic switch over between cultural origins in addition to new influences.

Williams (1985), a renowned cultural critic and one of the forerunners in the area of cultural studies, effected a noteworthy contribution to the classification of culture. By likening it to a complete way of life, he widened its connotation. Subsequently, equivalents are observed between the transcultural thought and approach to life. Hence, it is thought that transculturalism lends transculturalists the aptitude to recognize, respect, and embrace the exclusive customs and ethnicities of a given expanse and put them together through adaptation.

As defined by Indumathi (2020), transculturalism is a process that can lead to the formation of new cultural forms. A transcultural person is someone who is always willing to cross cultural borders and embrace the distinctive traits of different cultures. Building ties and reliable relationships among individuals representing the exact same culture is relatively effortless, but transcending divides and promoting exchanges among those from different cultures requires effort. As noted by Pandey and Mathew (2017), transcultural people tend to enhance their personality traits by combining universal ideals, expressing hidden sides of their individualities, and completely embracing their unique identities.

Subsequently, the long-standing relationship between culture and identity often makes way for the evolving transculturalism model, which captures transcultural individuals’ diverse lived experiences. In contrast to traditional conceptions of migration as a fixed transfer of identity, current transculturalists manage shifting identity perceptions. The phenomenon is demonstrated in Serine Haghverdian’s in-depth interviews with six young women of Middle Eastern origin living in Sweden, who expressed being frequently seen as “Other” in public. As a response to this experience, these women negotiated hybrid identities by adopting adaptable identities that allowed them to navigate numerous cultural contexts, demonstrating the interrelated ideas of relocation as well as cultural hybridization (Berg and Éigeartaigh 2010).

As the transcultural model facilitates participation among cultural groups, integration, cultural negotiation, and religious harmony will emerge. Transformation can also occur when individuals demonstrate a desire for change, molding themselves and their religious communities into adaptive or dynamic entities or groups (Correa and Inamdar 2021). Transculturalism represents the concept of evolving across ethnic and community boundaries. Hence, it motivates people to promote cross-cultural understanding in addition to the values and principles they represent (Correa and Inamdar 2022).

Transculturality, according to Wang and Zhang (2024), focuses specifically on culture, examining cultural mixing along with cultural similarities. Transculturality plays an operative role in addressing the dynamics of culture in both individual cultural development as well as beyond nation-states, suggesting a greater sense of freedom and identity to ease and even transform cross-border structures. Transculturality adds to the cultural idea of space by demonstrating that today’s cultural milieu is diverse, rather than monolithic. Transculturality explores self-formation mechanisms in greater depth, emphasizing the ongoing, reciprocal relationships between personal identity, freedom, and mobility.

3. Capturing the Voices: A Dialogical Narrative Analysis

The approach to negotiating one’s identity, as portrayed by Christian women religious in a multicultural society, was explored through in-depth interviews with six Roman Catholic nuns and Protestant women priests from Karnataka who are currently on the move both nationally and internationally. The dialogical narrative analysis method proposed by Arthur W. Frank was adopted to investigate how Roman Catholic nuns and Protestant women priests appreciated religious diversity, negotiated identities, as well as integrated into the multireligious, multilingual, and multicultural landscape within and outside India while frequently being on the move. Most importantly, it was necessary for researchers to consider the gender perspective when examining the varied cultural experiences of the respondents.

The effectiveness of the transcultural approach for studying how Christian women religious negotiate identities was assessed using semi-structured in-depth interview question schedule. The interview questions were divided into the following three categories: questions on identity perception, inquiries concerning challenges related to language, culture, religion, including gender, and questions about coping strategies or negotiation strategies, and integration techniques. Consequently, the study aimed at demonstrating the growing degree of transculturality among Roman Catholic nuns and Protestant women priests from Karnataka by exploring the diverse experiences of contact and exchange, followed by negotiation. Overall, there was a prospect to recognize the operational attributes of the transcultural model, predominantly while considering the field of religion and its representatives.

Subsequently, employing the purposive sampling method, six Roman Catholic nuns and Protestant women priests from Central (Hassan, Bangalore, and Mysore), South (South Canara), and North (Honnavar, Bidar) Karnataka who are constantly on the move and have between 10 and 40 years of religious life experience were identified for the study. These are Christian women religious who were deputed to Chennai, Bangalore, Hassan, Honnavar, Bidar, Mysore, Mangalore, Udupi, Gujarat, Orissa, Delhi, and Punjab in India and Geneva, Rome, Tanzania, Vienna, and so on across the world. In the context of their pastoral work (for Protestant women religious), active participation in church activities (for both Roman Catholic and Protestant women religious), and interaction with the general public, the Christian women religious were deemed as experienced women religious. The point of data saturation achieved was factored while determining the total number of respondents.

Consequently, in order to ascertain how Roman Catholic and Protestant women religious recognize religious and cultural diversity and negotiate cultural identities in the multireligious, multicultural Indian, and international context while being on the move, Arthur W. Frank’s dialogical narrative analysis (DNA) method was employed for qualitative inquiry. As described by Frank (2005), the dialogical narrative analysis approach acknowledges narratives as creative depictions of people’s experiences. The reorganization of the past and the imaginative portrayal of the future are facilitated by these stories. Along with stories that are retold with adjustments, the accounts are recognized as being in the style of dialogs in which individuals react to one another and set expectations for future encounters. They capture the narrators’ stories through their numerous voices, which are shaped through their experiences. The numerous voices are not their own, but rather those they obtained through social discourses.

The method aims to understand how the narratives represent multiple perspectives in a single voice. Finding themes or identifying what is being spoken in the narratives, as well as illustrating the structure or comprehending how the accounts are told, are the primary goals of the dialogical narrative analysis approach. The researcher can determine how the respondents’ identities transform as a result of their encounters, what they absorb from external sources, and who they connect and do not connect with (Frank 2012). Individuals also experience, recreate, and perform narratives in social settings; they additionally tell them to learn about their own lives (Frank 2010). The stories must therefore be interpreted in light of their social or cultural contexts. The interpretation of the stories and how they aid in the researchers’ understanding as they engage with the subject’s narratives during the study process will determine the analysis. Therefore, rather than recognizing patterns or defining classifications as facts or assertions that can be expressed with certainty, dialogical narrative analysis aims to portray individual struggles that contain a sense of uncertainty and unfinalizability (Frank 2005).

Bakhtin (1984) asserts that the creator of a dialogical story speaks with the character rather than about the character himself. Dialogical narrative analysis’s first commitment is to recognize that every expression is fundamentally a dialog between voices. Bakhtin (1984) distinguished between the following two ways of examining the discourses that are part of an individual’s story: “polyphony” and “heteroglossia.” When the narrator’s voice mimics the voices of particular people they have previously spoken to, this is known as polyphony. Heteroglossia, on the other hand, is characterized by the narrator’s voice speaking to an entire population rather than just one person. When one individual speaks, the voices of several communities intersect.

Frank (1995) uses his research on illness tales to illustrate both polyphony and heteroglossia. Polyphonic expressions occur when the narratives incorporate the words spoken by particular patients, visitors in the waiting areas, and relatives and close associates, as well as the expressions of physicians and nurses as they describe the illnesses of their patients. The narrator’s use of words borrowed from others to describe events distinguishes these unique terms. These reports are considered heteroglossic given that the narrators’ stories contain codes such as professional jargons, reactions, expectations, and particular circumstances that are representative of the medical community at large.

Broadly, dialogical narrative analysis is a method of analyzing spoken or written narratives which emphasizes the interactions between different voices, points of view, and encounters rather than just finding themes or plot points. Hence, the researcher’s goal in this study was to categorize the many voices and expressions that the respondents used in their narration, which they gathered from their social contexts. The study sought to identify the people with whom Christian women religious connect throughout their interactions while attempting to respond to different individuals in the social context. To accomplish this, the researcher focused on potential stages of integration while simultaneously attempting to identify and comprehend the speakers’ expectations, feelings, and desires.

4. The Life Stories of Six Christian Women Religious

The Roman Catholic nuns and Protestant women priests recount their stories as creative interpretations of their life, opening with their childhood, progressing to their years as students, and finally to their roles as religious Christians. In relation to presenting their earliest memories, their times as students pursuing secular and theological education, and later their experiences as ordained religious, their testimonies indicated the way they reconstructed their past while creatively presenting their future. As religious women, they could be viewed developing a consciousness of a practice construct associated with relationship-centered ministry that was in tandem with the undertaking to encourage harmonious social relations and integration, which was valued by the Catholic Church, the Protestant Church, and society as a whole.

They shared personal accounts of how their life experiences inspired them to maintain hope and support the underprivileged. The functioning of the Protestant women priests and Roman Catholic nuns focused largely on their pastoral roles and contributions to society and they also encountered situations that presented challenges. In their statements concerning their families, socioeconomic status, and the notion that most of them had “good financial support” and attended “convent schools,” the Christian women religious demonstrated how their discourse was shaped by their determination to live religious lives and their concern for the underprivileged. The recollections of the Christian women religious such as, the “family was very prayerful,” “prayers at home,” “parents’ guidance,” “grew up in a spiritual atmosphere,” house situated “close to the church as well as to the convent,” “dad was a pastor,” “cousin was a religious man,” “interest in participating in the Sunday school, youth classes” attending the “Evangelical union,” as a teenager, father, a pastor being “committed to service,” “great desire to work for the poor”, etc., demonstrated how the religious Christian environment and social concern developed into a religious conviction that was associated with addressing the issues and challenges of the deprived as well as people’s spiritual needs.

Additionally, after having joined the religious order or the church, the Christian women religious felt the people from other Christian denominations and other religious groups were “good” to them, they “showered” them with love, “accepted,” treated them “like daughters,” “like family members.” They were “invited by Hindu families,” “nobody spoke ill” of them, “they felt they were a part of them,” “one with them,” were “very happy” to interact with them and often heard others, especially individuals from other religious backgrounds, state that “You do a lot for the welfare of the society, you pray for the society.” According to the accounts, they would frequently “meet” and “interact” with members of various other Christian groups, such as Protestants, Pentecostals, Roman Catholics, and even other independent churches. They demonstrated regard for one another through rendering each other “opportunities.” They would often “help them in their service” and “adopt what is good from one another.”

In their accounts, the Roman Catholic and Protestant women religious acknowledged the gender problem they encountered. The Protestant women priests stated that they “had a different experience” because they were also married and had their own families to support in addition to their responsibilities as priests and social workers. The following is how one of the female Protestant priests described the gender discrimination she encountered:

“I started studying after I got married. My kids were also too small. All my professors used to say that I was the first woman to take up Theological studies, being a woman with responsibilities at home, managing children. Because, for men to study it was easier even before or after marriage because they would not have so many responsibilities.”

Their “different” experiences, such as the one listed below, were heightened while they were “transferred to one place, but were given charge of visiting different churches” and when they were deputed to “unfamiliar” locations on a consistent basis.

One of them pointed out,

“I had a family; my concern was my children. I had the challenge concerning their education. They used to find it very difficult when I used to go from one place to the other. They used to take some time to adjust to a place. They found it very difficult to adjust. They needed a lot of counselling in that point. I had this concern of not disturbing the peace at home on one hand and on the other hand, it was also about not disturbing my service.”

They also sensed that people anticipated to see “the men only and ignore the women,” wherein they “felt embarrassed” and on certain occasions, particularly in the urban areas, even their congregation did “not want women pastors” to represent them or guide them.

Furthermore, people’s criticism was depicted in the stories in the following ways, especially in relation to the Roman Catholic nuns:

“Without marriage is a big question mark.” “Sister you are bringing a big curse to the society by not getting married,” “you don’t wear ornaments,” and “you are unmarried.”

Moreover, considering how “courageously” the Roman Catholic nuns conducted themselves when engaging with the wider community, the Protestant women priests and Catholic nuns sensed that people “must have passed some remarks” and often “spoke against” them. They felt that “people must have thought” critically of them particularly when they interacted with men while fulfilling their responsibilities.

Additionally, the Christian women religious voiced their worries about their safety when traveling during their frequent deputations. One of them said,

“I was to travel alone to Gujarat and it was a big problem and I was thinking how to go and sisters had given me some address and one sister told me that she will reach me and she boarded the train and everything I travelled then one day I passed in the train, the next day afternoon only I will be reaching. So, I was all confused and I was going for the first time, the train journey. And, some of them by seeing that I was in the religious dress, they came and talked to me.”

Another said, “It is a big risk and a challenge.”

Additionally, the linguistic aspect, learning a new language such as Kannada, Hindi, Konkani, German, or French while transferred to various regions throughout the state, nation, and world, was a “struggle” for Roman Catholic nuns and Protestant women priests. Learning various expressions and dialects of a certain language was “difficult” for them because they would encounter “lot of confusion,” which made them “stay mum,” “only listen,” and “not talk” when they were unfamiliar with the language and dialect. For these women religious, who were regularly transferred to different areas, comprehending different forms of the same language proved as a significant challenge because of “lot of variations in the words.” Overall, they found it “difficult to understand the language of the people” and emphasized that,

“Especially when you talk to people, if you cannot convey in the right way; that is the biggest sorrow.”

One of the Roman Catholic nuns who was deputed to Vienna for six years quoted that,

“When I moved to Austria, to Vienna, I found very difficult to learn the German language. It is very difficult, because in Germany, in Vienna, they speak only German. I found difficult to communicate with them. So that was my real difficulties. I also could not move towards people because all of them were talking or speaking German. So, I was always waiting when I come back to Karnataka and I can speak here.”

Furthermore, the narratives then described the cultural barriers that Protestant and Roman Catholic women religious experienced as a result of their direct contact with societies and communities that followed distinct religious or cultural practices. In such circumstances, the Christian women religious noticed “a lot of changes, cultural, food,” needed to “get used to unfamiliar culture,” and had to “win the confidence of the people” of the specific area throughout their periodic deputations to various places in India and around the world, including Chennai, Bangalore, Hassan, Honnavar, Bidar, Mysore, Mangalore, Udupi, Gujarat, Orissa, Delhi, and Punjab in India and Geneva, Rome, Tanzania, Austria, Vienna, and so on.

Following is one such cross-cultural encounter:

“Initially, the people always observe us, especially when we go from South Canara. During my return, I was told by the people there that “we first observed you; whether you would mingle with us or not.”

Similarly, they encountered difficulties while becoming familiar with the local cultures when transferred to churches situated outside India. One of them said,

“When I went to Europe, I found it very difficult to practice that culture. Totally European culture. For us it was very difficult. For example, food, way of living, way of going about more of, you know. They are more of reserved type. I found it very difficult there to cope with that. It took some years for me to because I was there six years.”

Furthermore, both Protestant women priests and Roman Catholic nuns raised the religious issue of “friction” between Christian denominations. They claimed that the primary cause was that people occasionally “did not accept” one another’s religious beliefs. Furthermore, in light of religious extremism that occasionally surfaced in the regions, the Protestant women priests and Roman Catholic nuns described in their narratives the religious challenges they faced when interacting with society as a whole. They feared that “hatred had spread across” and that “society was in a very bad shape,” and there was “lot of communal violence” and “killing one another in the name of religion” in the wake of religious fanaticism. Thereby, they found it challenging to work with those who were marginalized and impoverished.

The women negotiated their religious as well as social identities by demonstrating an intense interest in active involvement in religious and social activities undertaken by the church, as well as endeavors initiated by society at large. Their primary objective was to remain resolute and not abandon their religious responsibilities because of their own personal issues, specifically related to their gender. They subsequently took measures to conceal the fact that “their superiors would not know,” that “their family was suffering,” and that “how difficult” it was for them to adapt to the given circumstances. In the particular case of the Protestant women priests, they would instead motivate themselves and their children to “get adjusted to the place” and “get adjusted at the school,” respectively. Furthermore, as opposed to feeling intimidated by the “stares” and “passing remarks,” Christian women religions traveled alone via public transport quite “courageously” in order “to complete their mission.”

Furthermore, enculturation was adopted at the group or church level to integrate the local cultural or other religious elements into the Christian worship practices. “Bhajans” were introduced as a part of the Christian liturgy or religious service in several places in India. Additionally, adjustments were made in the case of Catholic nuns, in particular to express their Indian or cultural identity and to protect them from any untoward incident owing to their explicit representation of their religious identity due to their religious attire. They were allowed to wear “sarees” and “salwars.” Meanwhile, there was no pressure on the Protestant women priests associated with the dress code. The Catholic church adopted a position on the Roman Catholic nuns negotiating an Indian or cultural identity, and likewise, the Catholic nuns reflected this in the following manner:

“Earlier we were only in the religious dress, in the habits; we had to wear, but now we have got permission to wear sarees. This is just because of the enculturation and to identify ourselves that we are one among others. Even now permission to travel in salwars is given to us.”

In their narrative resources, Roman Catholic nuns and Protestant priests subsequently emphasized the idea of interdependence in relation to their social role, allowing them to freely embrace the language and culture of other communities while assigned to various regions. The elements that determined how they interacted with society at large were their dedication to “changing people’s lives,” their support of “human rights,” their willingness to “take the side of the victims,” and their constant “thought of society.” They successfully advocated this integration approach to foster close collaboration with religious representatives and communities from other Christian denominations and other religious communities.

Reflecting on their social role or social identity, Roman Catholic nuns and Protestant women priests received opportunities to embrace and “involve” in a region’s cultural aspects. As a result, they had a positive opinion of the inclusion of cultural practices in the Church’s cultural activities. The prospect of “visiting all the houses” in the neighborhood excited them. However, they stated that they participated “only culturally, in their cultural practices,” and did “not participate in the religious part.”

“Wherever I go, which ever state or country I go, I pick up a translator. When I go to Orissa, I ask someone from that place, if I go to Gujarat, I ask from there. Like that. If I go to Punjab, then someone will translate in Punjabi. If I go to France, I ask one French fellow to translate. That is the way I do it. Then another thing, when it is my clients, I understand the non-verbal things.”

While considering the Roman Catholic and Protestant women religious’ attempt to integration and adoption of regional languages for communication, the Protestant women priests and Catholic nuns were able to “pick up a translator” and “pick up the languages,” by being “very careful in making note of the usages,” openly asking for help saying, “teach me, as I have come to learn,” and admitting that when one is “open to learn, one can learn.”

Subsequently, the accounts suggested that during periods of religious strife in the region, when “society was in a very bad shape,” the Christian women religious did not let their commitment to society as a whole be compromised. Instead, they kept on serving in hospitals, old age homes, orphanages, and villages; they also participated in cultural and religious gatherings such as interreligious dialogs and collaborative observances of local as well as religious festivals organized jointly by other religious groups’ members and representatives and by members and representatives from different Christian denominations, all of which fostered integration. In this case, the Christian women religious contributed and participated in events organized at the church level, both Protestant and Roman Catholic. They were part of the “thanksgiving service,” thanking God “for providing the produce,” when they integrated the “Harvest festival” inspired by local culture or Hindu religion, and commemorated the festival exactly in the same manner as the Hindus, so that the “celebration becomes a message to the people.” Additionally, during the harvest festival festivities, the Churches organized “sports for all religious communities,” and “everyone joins, as Hindus and all other religious communities come together” on that day.

The Christian women religious expressed their experiences connecting with individuals of different faiths as they performed social duty, conveying inter-group integration as well. They recounted that they all “walked together in love,” not letting the people “who” one “really was,” while simultaneously choosing to not “give up their faith.” They would wholeheartedly intercede for people who would “call” them to pray, saying, “please call madam; we want her to pray for us.” “Whichever community” the individuals came from, the nuns and women priests interceded in a “general way” and made “thoughtful interventions,” which allowed others to “develop lot of faith” in the Christian women religious. In addition, the Protestant women priests and Roman Catholic nuns were frequently “invited” by the other religious communities, and they would “interact” with members of all religious communities on average once every year. The Christian women religious would “participate” in the annual “Sarva Dharma Samelana” (All Religious Committee) event, where they would “convey the message” stating they were a “part of society,” that all religious groups should “work for the upliftment of society,” that “the Kingdom of God is right here,” and that “all people together can build the Kingdom of God here on earth.” Globally, as well as during their deputations, they were sensed that they were included. One of them quoted,

“I am member of the World Council of the Ecumenical Alliance for Food for Life campaign based in Geneva. So, all denominations work for this cause/So, my intervention with is people is for that purpose. Everybody has a desire and a search to alleviate the suffering.”

Lastly, in order to foster intragroup integration across all Christian groups, they stated that since “the Bible is still what” they all “depend on,” they should “all go together.” Likewise, when they received opportunities for intragroup interaction, including “ecumenical programs,” they would frequently “preach, convey a message” and “tell the congregations about Christmas, about Jesus.”

5. Transcultural Encounters: An Analysis

The stories of Roman Catholic nuns and Protestant women priests illustrate complex themes of conflict, identity negotiation, and integration formed by their interactions with diverse religions as well as Christian denominations. In relation to the theme of displacement, their narratives of the Roman Catholic nuns and Protestant women priests emphasize the itinerant part of their religious vocation, where as a part of their religious practice, they were deputed to several regions within India and across the world. As a result, the narratives make it readily evident that the itinerant character of their pastoral practice emerges as an influential factor in their cultural encounters, impacting their negotiation of identity and integration. Their stories were marked by a back-and-forth mention of unpleasant events, displaying a multitude of voices and viewpoints that intersected with the heteroglossic aspect of the Christian community, representing clergy, women religious, as well as congregations. Their responses emphasized the challenges of relocating across borders, settling in new areas, and navigating culturally disparate settings, eventually underlining the necessity of communal support to enable integration.

Furthermore, in reference to the theme of identity negotiation, on the one hand, the participants’ descriptions of themselves as “family members,” “one family,” “like daughters,” “welcomed,” “accepted,” and “invited” revealed a remarkably favorable perception of them, pointing to an intriguing dynamic in how Christian women religious are viewed and regarded in society within India and across the world. On the other hand, the accounts indicated their experiences in which the Christian women religious viewed their gender identities to be prejudiced and discriminated in the Church and in the larger society, which highlights the difficulties of functioning in a patriarchal religious and social structure. Roman Catholic nuns’ and Protestant women priests’ experiences demonstrated feelings of disregard and exclusion, with participants describing instances of disregard through disparaging remarks like “you are bringing a big curse to the society by not getting married” and experiences of exclusion such as people anticipated to see “men only and ignore the women,” and did “not want women pastors.” They felt devalued and unrecognized in their respective positions because of this attitude, which was a consequence of the societal expectations that men should primarily represent their faith in formal and public spaces.

Additionally, the ongoing interactions of the Christian women religious with different religions, Christian denominations, and new languages and cultures were a constant and recurring element of their encounters. The stories revealed the intricate dynamic of Christian groups’ contact and engagement across Christian denominations. They reported how they would often “meet” and “interact” with a variety of denominations, such as independent churches, Protestants, Pentecostals, and Roman Catholics, but they also described “friction” resulting from differences in doctrine. Additionally, the stories highlighted the religious challenge Christian women religious encountered when they actively engaged and interacted with the wider community, especially when they approached and served the underprivileged and impoverished. According to the narratives, these encounters were frequently characterized by “hatred,” which was heightened owing to the movements, religious portrayals, and motives connected with Christian women religious. Furthermore, the narratives of the Roman Catholic nuns and Protestant women priests were characterized by recurrent challenges in familiarizing themselves with “unfamiliar cultures” and “learning” local languages and dialects to “win the confidence of the people” while performing their social and religious responsibilities.

Accordingly, the narratives illustrate the coping strategies employed by Catholic nuns and Protestant women priests to overcome challenges and integrate into the wider social milieu, underscoring the willingness to successfully navigate barriers. At different points in time, their heteroglossic (Catholic and Protestant churches, Catholic communities, Protestant communities, Hindu and Muslim communities, etc.) and polyphonic (specific Catholic nuns, Protestant women priests) expressions conveyed hope and expectations for the future, where they anticipated to see a society that was welcoming and harmonious. Consequently, the Christian women religious’ expressions demonstrated that “thoughtful interventions” may effectively address problems and foster amicable connections among the various groups.

Referring to the themes of syncretism and hybridization, the narratives of Christian women religious portrayed their recognition for regional cultural elements as well as religious practices, as evidenced through the incorporation of “Bhajans” into Christian liturgies, and through their vocalized desire to engage “culturally, in their cultural practices,” thus aiding enculturation. This phenomenon exemplifies hybridization and syncretism, as seen in cultural blending and indigenization which ultimately contribute to the Christian worship practices being contextualized within the regional cultural setting.

Additionally, the Roman Catholic nuns’ stories demonstrated the significance of the institution-level decision to allow Roman Catholic women religious to dress in Indian attire, “sarees” and “salwars,” which had two important advantages. First and foremost, it became possible for them to maintain their cultural identity, which gave them a feeling of acceptance and connection with the local community. Second, by minimizing their public image as religious representatives, donning Indian clothing managed to mitigate concerns regarding safety by lessening potential dangers and vulnerabilities that could arise from their religious identity.

Subsequently, Protestant women priests and Roman Catholic nuns’ participation in church-related matters, welfare work, and pastoral practice was positioned within a complex transitional setting where community concerns and personal challenges for breaking down gender-related obstacles intersected, creating a daunting environment that needed to be cautiously negotiated. As a result, an intricate dynamic of cultural adapting, language acquiring, and religious practice was revealed in the Christian women religious’ narratives.

Lastly, the stories demonstrated that all the communities shared a strong desire to promote interreligious interactions and involvement. Notably, in addition to Christian women religious, several religious groups exhibited a similar dedication to establishing interfaith ties and discourse. This was evident in the desire of Christian women religious, members of other religions, and Christian denominations to collaborate in one other’s religious observances and social gatherings. The inclusive character of these encounters, together with deliberate efforts to reduce conflict and disagreement, was seen as a mutually beneficial mechanism, indicating a common objective to foster peaceful coexistence.

As a whole, the narratives showed how Christian women religious employed their expressions to recount their encounters of conflict, identity negotiation, as well as integration, predominantly concentrating on their assigned churches, congregations, and several religious and cultural groups they came across throughout their pastoral work. Notably, these women religious, who performed both religious and social duties, displayed determination in the face of challenging circumstances particularly caused by the iterant nature of their pastoral work. Christian women religious skillfully expressed their aspirations as well as expectations to a wide range of groups encompassing Catholic and Protestant churches, the male Christian clergy, the congregations, other Christian denominations, and members belonging to other religious groups, emphasizing the critical need to address the issues and apprehensions specific to their experiences as well as perspectives.

6. Comparative Analysis of the Transcultural Encounters of Roman Catholic Nuns and Protestant Women Priests

According to the accounts, both Roman Catholic nuns and Protestant women priests described several occasions when members of various Christian denominations and other religious communities perceived them largely favorably during their religious assignments in India and across the world. They noted that people from various Christian denominations and religious communities thought positively of them, showed them a lot of appreciation and reverence, and acknowledged and welcomed them into their communities. They were also convinced that communities from other religious groups were eager to engage with them, since Roman Catholic nuns and Protestant women priests were proactive in engaging with society and responding to broader societal concerns.

Nonetheless, the experiences of Roman Catholic and Protestant women religious differed in some ways. Regarding their religious vocation, Catholic nuns regarded the Catholic church as exercising control over them in respect to the religious tasks, religious conduct, and offices assigned to them. According to the narratives, they were not permitted to administer the liturgy or play an important role in religious worship rituals because of their designated roles in the Catholic church. Their responsibilities were limited to assisting Roman Catholic clergy during liturgies. However, Protestant women priests’ experiences with their religious roles differed. According to the accounts, Protestant women priests did not feel restricted in terms of religious responsibilities, conduct, and positions assigned to them by the Protestant church.

In addition, adjustments were introduced at the institutional or church level to allow Catholic nuns, in particular, to display their Indian or cultural identity by means of their attire, whereas formerly they were mandated to don habits, religious attires that revealed their affiliation to a specific religion and religious order. The adjustments in wearing Indian attire, such as sarees and salwars, appeared to have been adopted with safety concerns in mind due to their apparent display of their religious identity, as the Catholic nuns were clearly identifiable while following their religious dress code while being in the public eye, using public transportation or operating in the wider society. However, Protestant women priests on the other hand, did not feel compelled to follow a strict dress code.

Additionally, the encounters of Roman Catholic nuns and Protestant women priests could be further distinguished based on religious or moral codes enforced by their respective churches. The narratives demonstrated that public perceptions of Roman Catholic nuns changed upon discovering that they practiced celibacy. So, because the nuns were unmarried, they were viewed unfairly and on certain occasions, they felt excluded and disregarded by the wider community. Protestant women priests, on the other hand, had a different experience because they had the liberty to choose whether or not to marry whilst also performing their religious duties as priests.

Lastly, another notable difference between the narratives of Roman Catholic nuns and Protestant women priests was that the Protestant women priests expressed a sense of being constrained in fulfilling their social responsibilities as spouses and mothers, particularly due to their frequent transfers to various regions both within and outside India. They specifically emphasized that they were required to treat the two roles with the same priority. Roman Catholic nuns, on the contrary, found it easier to traverse nations, cross borders, both national and global, to fulfill their religious and social duties as welfare workers since they were celibate and free of all familial obligations and ties.

7. Discussion

The research findings of this study demonstrated the numerous challenges faced by Roman Catholic nuns and Protestant women priests in India, outlining the complex interplay between their duties as religious representatives and welfare workers. Notably, the topic of gender surfaced as a persistent impediment, necessitating ongoing negotiation, significantly during their deputations in India. The phenomenon was considerably affected by the country’s cultural and social makeup, an occurrence which becomes less noticeable in international contexts. As indicated by the existing literature in cultural studies, the lived experiences of Christian clergy in India provide a prototypical illustration of the mechanism of cultural and social integration inside the larger social fabric. The present research on Christian clergy in India offers insight into the way they discharge their religious responsibilities by navigating challenging social and cultural environments. Despite this, there is still a significant gap in the analysis of the lived experiences of Christian women religious, who confront an additional barrier—the gender barrier—which is made worse by vocational mobility as they fulfill their dual duties in the social and religious domains. This research, on the contrary, offered an in-depth account of the gender problem affecting Catholic and Protestant women priests who make attempts to interact with Christian alongside various other religious or cultural groups, inside as well as outside India.

Moreover, although research on women’s studies in religion has provided intriguing insights, its examination of the interconnected experiences of Roman Catholic nuns and Protestant women priests is still extremely scant. This research went further in effectively capturing the challenge of vocational mobility and the consequent approaches to negotiation, adaptability, and adjustment that Catholic nuns and Protestant women priests adopt across institutional and social-cultural settings by means of their efforts to adapting dress codes, incorporating hybridization and syncretism, and trying to absorb a new language, a different culture, etc.

Subsequently, existing studies on migration among Indian Christians demonstrate a large presence of Indian Christian groups abroad. The main rationale provided for this is economic mobility. Yet, there exists a gap in research in migration studies that examines the issue of vocational mobility among Indian Christian clergy, as well as the challenges that come with frequent displacement. The present study tried to fill this gap in knowledge by recognizing the issue of continual displacement faced by Catholic nuns and Protestant women priests, who, as previously stated, attempt to navigate the process of traversing diverse societies, learning new languages, and enduring gender discrimination both within and beyond the church.

Furthermore, the analysis revealed narrative identities, narrative resources, and barriers that eventually shaped the prospect of negotiating transcultural identities among Christian women religious. The Roman Catholic nuns and Protestant women priests journeyed their respective paths with identical levels of difficulties and competence. The careful review of the narratives strongly revealed the different linguistic, cultural, religious, and gender challenges encountered by the six Christian women religious during their religious assignments both inside and outside India. In response to the challenges they faced, they undertook the process of negotiating their cultural identities, about which they creatively expressed while considering their past, present, and future as well as the cultural context in which they lived. Transculturality emerged as a result of their process of negotiating identities through a variety of coping techniques. The analysis revealed that transculturality as conceptualized by Epstein (2009) encompasses the process of accepting, mixing, or integrating features from a collection of cultures, thereby resulting in the incorporation of religious and cultural syncretism.

As a result, there was a notable demonstration of the type of individual or personal negotiation process that the Roman Catholic nuns and Protestant women priests had initiated during their numerous relocations within India and across the world. They realized that their solidarity with people had to be demonstrated by the way they dressed, moved, and talked. The initial move they had to adopt to engage in negotiations with the broader society was through the act of reaching out and making themselves available and approachable to the local or regional cultures. Later, they integrated into the cultures of the locales to which they were regularly assigned, demonstrating syncretism, enculturation, and cultural hybridization that defined their transcultural personalities. Overall, transculturality was seen to emerge as an outcome of their experiences of understanding and connecting to various religions and cultures, looking past their own religion and culture, and finally embracing the elements of another culture or religion. Thus, the study contributed to the discourse concerning transculturality, mobility, and identity, considering the lived experiences of a particular community—Christian women religious—who go about cultural interactions in the contemporary globalized environments. Therefore, the manner in which the Protestant women priests and Roman Catholic nuns navigated their diverse experiences revealed an immediate relationship between the formation of their transcultural identities and what challenges they encountered on religious, linguistic, cultural, and gender dimensions.

Following this, the analysis showed that the degree of inter-group and intra-group integration that occurred within and beyond the Christian community was strongly indicated through the Christian women religious’ appreciation of religious plurality as well as their involvement and contributions to the cultural and social endeavors of the regions they were assigned. The study indicated that Christian women religious preferred to strive to make improvements rather than concur with situations as they were as an aspect of their integration into society. Hence, the study highlighted the potential for a better future in which some of the most exclusive communities were also willing to work together and uphold the principles set forth by the federal authorities. Here, the study notably confirms Lewis (2002) views on transculturalism, namely that it significantly addresses the connections and conflicts present within social groupings, that it is intrigued by the breakdown of communities, societies, and authority, and how it serves to involve participation in community, corporation, and state-level interactions.

Lastly, the study revealed that members from diverse religious backgrounds exhibited a shared objective for interaction. Alongside the Christians, other religious communities also maintained a similar commitment to encouraging interaction and contact across different religions, and they were seen welcoming people of different faiths to their spaces of worship and religious, cultural, and social events. Therefore, all communities frequently functioned to organically and reciprocally support one another because of their inclusiveness, interactions that were sustained with many religious communities, and targeted undertakings aimed at mitigating misunderstandings, disagreements, and discord. These findings substantiate Indumathi’s (2020) claim that establishing interpersonal connections within a common context of culture is relatively intuitive, whereas transcending divides in cultures requires considerable effort. The study demonstrates that Christian women religious alongside individuals from other religious or cultural backgrounds collaboratively strive to recognize, accept, and cohabit, embodying transcultural ideals.

8. Conclusions

The study thus sought to examine the feasibility of the transcultural framework in the context of comprehending the cultural interactions of Christian women religious in India and the world over. The transcultural approach proves especially beneficial for studying religious communities and how they function since it allows one to recognize cultural diversity while also acknowledging how they are impacted by diverse cultures. Specifically, the encounters of Christian women religious negotiating their identities revealed the key components of transculturalism including Indianization, enculturation, hybridization, and syncretism.

Consequently, this study contributes to the fields of cultural studies, women’s studies, and migration studies by presenting an ethnographic discourse on the lived experiences of Christian women religious which are entwined in their social roles, implying that religious leadership is significantly impacted by cultural and social contexts, interaction, gender, and vocational mobility. Lastly, the study made a conceptual contribution by fusing the characteristics of the transcultural model with an examination of how religious representatives—specifically, Roman Catholic and Protestant women religious in India—are influenced in terms of cultural identity negotiation, approaches to conflict resolution, cultural exchange, co-creation of cultures, and social integration.

Therefore, by assessing if the transcultural model is appropriate for examining identity negotiation or another social phenomenon among multiple other social or religious groups in a particular geographic region, researchers could expand their research. The study’s findings regarding the transcultural phenomena among Indian Christian women religious can be utilized for enhanced comprehension of distinct fields in a number of contexts.

Nevertheless, the study was restricted to the opinions of Christian women religious from Karnataka who regularly migrated both inside and outside India because of their pastoral obligations. This was performed in order to confirm that the transcultural model was applicable with focusing on the particular need to investigate the identity-negotiation process that the Christian women religious initiated owing to the migratory nature of their religious practice. So, it exclusively included the narratives of Christian women religious who were regularly sent to different regions across the world. Therefore, there may be constraints on extrapolating these results to other communities and generalizing them.

Furthermore, in order to comprehend the identities and experiences of Christian clergy in multicultural, multilingual, and multireligious encounters, the study suggests applying the relatively new cultural framework of transculturalism. By exploring the strategies used by Christian women religious from Karnataka to interact with people of different religions and cultures within and outside India, get past barriers imposed by language, culture, as well as religion, and integrate into the community at large, the study aimed to determine the prevalence of transculturality in their cross-cultural interactions. Consequently, a thorough analysis of the transcultural model’s efficacy in relation to communities of other cultural and religious backgrounds may produce important results.