Migration, Religion, Gender, and Identity: A Systematic Review of Intersectional Experiences in Diaspora Communities

Migration profoundly reshapes religious practices, gender relations, and individual and collective identities within diaspora communities. This systematic review examines the intersectional experiences of migrants by exploring how migration, religion, gender, and identity interact to influence belonging, cultural adaptation, social participation, and experiences of inclusion and exclusion. Drawing on existing scholarly literature, the review synthesizes evidence on how migrants negotiate religious beliefs and practices while simultaneously responding to gendered expectations, racialization, cultural norms, and changing social environments in host societies. The findings indicate that diaspora identities are dynamic and continuously reconstructed through interactions between transnational religious networks, family structures, community institutions, and broader social and political contexts. Religion can provide migrants with social support, cultural continuity, community belonging, and resources for negotiating identity, while religious institutions may also reproduce gender hierarchies and constrain individual autonomy. Gender further shapes migration experiences, with women, men, and gender-diverse migrants encountering different expectations, opportunities, vulnerabilities, and forms of discrimination. The review also demonstrates that intersectional identities can generate both marginalization and agency, as migrants selectively negotiate elements of their cultural, religious, gender, and national identities across transnational spaces. Overall, the study highlights the importance of intersectional approaches for understanding diaspora experiences and argues that migration research should move beyond single-category analyses toward frameworks that recognize the interconnected nature of religion, gender, identity, culture, and social power.