This book of papers from the 2011 conference on “Chinese Overseas: Culture, Religion and Worldview” organized by the International Society for the Study of Chinese Overseas explores religious affiliation in diaspora, especially its transformation by local contact. The editor argues that the exceptional scale of Chinese migration means that diasporic Chinese religions can be more easily studied in comparative perspective than other migrant faiths. Contributors use the term “Chinese religion” to cover the complex of popular beliefs and “sects.” They also look at the canonical religions and quasi-religious practices like qigong.

A main focus is the effect of political context on religious practice. Whereas in Malaysia Chinese have been free to worship in traditional ways, in Indonesia Chinese religion was not officially recognized, so Confucianism and Tridharma (sanjiao, “the three teachings”: Buddhism, Confucianism and Taoism) became institutionalized. In America, racial discrimination discouraged Christian conversion in the early years, although the situation later improved. Other foci are localization, including syncretism, chiefly in Catholic contexts, and transnational religious networks.

Part one looks at religious traditions in diaspora. Myra Sidharta describes Mazu beliefs and customs in Indonesia. Leo Suryadinata looks at the state's impact on Chinese religions in Indonesia – its Indonesianizing impact and its engineering of divisions in Buddhism. Duan Ying describes Chinese Buddhism in Myanmar, where religion has allowed Chinese to integrate socially despite lacking full citizenship. Emily Wu shows how qi (“life energy”) transmits traditional medical knowledge in San Francisco, where Chinese practitioners educated to reject “superstition” and stress science confront North American spiritualism.

Part two looks at syncretism. Aristotle Dy (a Jesuit) and Teresita Ang See (an activist) point to the mutual rootedness and tolerance of Chinese and Catholic rituals and practices in the Philippines. Syncretic practices include side-by-side worshipping of images from different faiths, using Chinese rituals to worship non-Chinese deities, and identifying Chinese deities with Catholic ones (for example, Mazu and the Virgin Mary), as well as religious syncretism at the popular level, in everyday life. (Their conclusion that syncretism in the Philippines is unique because it yielded no new religion forgets the Cuban case, where Guan Yin and Guan Gong were similarly transfigured.) Lee Yok Fee and Chin Yee Mun look at localization in the Malay world, focusing on the worship of Datuk Kong (Nadugong), a Malay Muslim (sometimes an Orang Asli) seen by Chinese as a tudigong, “god of the soil.”

Part three looks at Christianity and Islam. Eva Xiaoling Li and Peter Li analyse changes in the propensity of Chinese in Canada to convert to Christianity. Relevant factors include racialism among early missionaries, the 1947 Repeal of the Chinese Immigration Act, the Christian turn towards Chinese after World War Two, changes in immigrants' provenance and social class, and the rise of Canada-born cohorts. Isabelle Lausent-Herrera writes in rich detail about Catholicism among Chinese in Peru. Early arrivals accepted baptism as a way to integrate, but recent immigrants have, on the whole, resisted integration, because they identify with rising China. Kainei Mori studies the relationship between Protestants and Chinese in Japan, concluding that where the early churches stressed ethnic orientation, the newer ones stress universality. Chiou Syuan-yuan looks at the Chinese activist Junus Jahja's promotion of assimilation of Chinese into Indonesian culture, by means of conversion to Islam and inter-ethnic business deals.

Part four looks at transnational networks. Satohiro Serizawa explores the history of Chinese converts to Japanese esoteric Buddhism, exported to Chaozhou in the 1920s, whence to Southeast Asia (including Vietnam) after 1949 and to North America and Australia after 1975. Irene Masdeu Torruella looks at how temples in Qingtian reinforce transnational ties and the circular flow of things and information between migrants in Spain and China by means of long-distance divination (qiuqian) and migrants' donation of giant candles. Tan Chee-Beng's study compares the role of ancestral deities (zushen) and local deities (difangshen) in sustaining regional identity in diaspora.

All these essays contribute usefully to the ethnographic description of diasporic Chinese religion, a relatively untouched field in scholarship, and have been skilfully edited into a coherent package. All make reference to existing theories about diasporic and Chinese religion and some elaborate further on the conceptual framework, though few explore wider comparative angles. The volume will be welcomed by specialists in anthropology, religious studies and ethnic-Chinese scholarship.