Narratives of (Dis)Unity: Diaspora, Nehemiah, and Silence in a Chicagoland Tamil Church

Following a year of ethnographic research in Chicagoland Tamil churches, this thesis examines the relationship between narrative, diaspora, and division within the church-space at Chicago Tamil Church (CTC). This thesis contends with the following questions: If diaspora is understood as some remembered-home-remade, how might a divided diaspora understand notions of "home" or "family"? Further, in the context of both Protestantism and diaspora, how might fissure function as a kind of process-of-perfecting, and how does authority come to be (understood) within those processes? What is the place of "unity" within diaspora and within church? Finally, in tracking the movement of split-narrative at CTC, I argue that, in the face of (diasporic) community-church fissure, the work of healing functions on the scale of narrative vis a vis narrative citation, interpretation, and interpolation.