Migrants and Religion:
Paths, Issues, and Lenses
A Multi-disciplinary and Multi-sited Study
on the Role of Religious Belongings
in Migratory and Integration Processes
Edited by
Laura Zanfrini
provided no alterations are made and the original author(s) and source are credited. Further information and the complete license text can be found at https://creative commons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
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Copyright 2020 by the authors. Published by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Hes & De Graaf, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Rodopi, Brill Sense, Hotei Publishing, mentis Verlag, Verlag Ferdinand Schöningh and Wilhelm Fink Verlag. Koninklijke Brill NV reserves the right to protect this publication against unauthorized use.
Cover illustration: Mexico–United States barrier at the border of Tijuana, Mexico and San Diego, USA. The crosses represent migrants who died in the crossing attempt. Some identified, some not. Surveillance tower in the background. 1 May 2006. © Tomas Castelazo, www.tomascastelazo.com, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Zanfrini, Laura, editor.
Title: Migrants and religion : paths, issues, and lenses. A multi-disciplinary and multi-sited study on the role of religious belongings in migratory and integration processes / edited by Laura Zanfrini.
Description: Leiden ; Boston : Brill, [2020] | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020030436 (print) | LCCN 2020030437 (ebook) | ISBN 9789004429444 (hardback) | ISBN 9789004429604 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Emigration and immigration--Religious aspects--Case studies. | Religious refugees--Social conditions--Case studies. | Immigrants--Religious life--Case studies. | Freedom of religion. | Belonging (Social psychology)
Classification: LCC JV6107 .M57 2020 (print) | LCC JV6107 (ebook) | DDC 305.6086/91--dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020030436
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020030437
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ISBN 978-90-04-42960-4 (e-book)
Copyright 2020 by the authors. Published by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands.
Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Hes & De Graaf, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Rodopi, Brill Sense, Hotei Publishing, mentis Verlag, Verlag Ferdinand Schöningh and Wilhelm Fink Verlag.
Koninklijke Brill NV reserves the right to protect this publication against unauthorized use. This book is printed on acid-free paper and produced in a sustainable manner.
List of Figures and Tables ix Notes on Contributors xii
Part 1
Migrations and Religious Belongings: from Periphery to Core, for
a New Humanism
1 Introduction: General Description of the Study, Key Issues, and Provisional Conclusions 3
Laura Zanfrini
2 The Uncanny “Religious” Refugee: a Post-Secular Perspective on Ethics of Hospitality 53
Paolo Gomarasca
3 Religion in Secularized and Post-Secularized Europe 74
Monica Martinelli
4 Migration and Religious Freedom: the Legislative and Judicial Framework at International and European Level 111
Andrea Santini and Monica Spatti
References to Part 1 125
Part 2
Where (Forced) Migrations Are Generated
5 No Size Fits All: Diversity, State and Politics in the Contemporary Middle East 143
Paolo Maggiolini, Andrea Plebani and Riccardo Redaelli
6 Christians Navigating through Middle East Turbulences: the Case of the Copts in Egypt 175
7 Religious Affiliations and Social Coexistence in the Islamic Middle East Countries 205
Giancarlo Rovati
8 Women’s Rights and Shariʿa Law in the MENA Region 231
Vera Lomazzi
References to Part 2 251
Part 3
The Religion’s Dimension in the Trajectories of (Forced) Migrants
Directed to Italy
9 The “Place” of Religion in the Italian Asylum Seekers’ Reception System: Constitutional, Legislative and Procedural Framework 267
Paolo Bonetti
10 On the Role of Religion in the Decision to Migrate 315
Laura Zanfrini
11 The “Space” of Religion in the Assessment of Asylum Applications 357
Laura Zanfrini
12 On the Role of Religion in the Process of Adaptation of (Forced) Migrants 376
Laura Zanfrini and Mario Antonelli
References to Part 3 427
Part 4
Religion, Faith-Based Organizations, Integration and Social
Cohesion
13 Religion and Integration: Issues from International Literature 433
14 Religious Persecution, Migrations and Practices in Faith-Based Organizations: Some Recommendations from a Qualitative Study 464
Lucia Boccacin and Linda Lombi
15 Interreligious Dialogue in the Governance of Migration and Interethnic Cohabitation 504
Fabio Baggio
16 The Multi-Ethnic and Multi-Religious Transformation of the Largest Diocese in the World: the Church of Milan and the “Synod from the Peoples” 526
Laura Zanfrini and Luca Bressan
References to Part 4 551
Part 5
Migrations, Intergenerational Relations and Families
17 Migrations and Intergenerational Religious Transmission: Issues from International Literature 569
Donatella Bramanti, Stefania Meda and Giovanna Rossi
18 The Copts in Italy: Migration and Generosity 589
Beatrice Nicolini
19 Religious Belonging and (Forced) Migration: a Study on Migrant Coptic Families in Italy 596
Cristina Giuliani and Camillo Regalia
20 Religious Belonging and (Forced) Migration: a Study on Migrant Coptic Minors in Italy 615
Giovanni Giulio Valtolina and Paola Barachetti
Part 6
Religious Diversity in Italian Schools
21 The Religious Dimension in Plural Schools: Institutional, Relational and Strategic Issues 655
Maddalena Colombo
22 Religious Belongings in Multi-Cultural Schools: Freedom of Expression and Citizenship Values 676
Rosangela Lodigiani
23 Religious Conflicts in Multi-Cultural Schools: a Generational Divide between Students and Adults 715
Mariagrazia Santagati
24 Religions and Laïcité in the French Republican School 754
Alessandro Bergamaschi and Catherine Blaya
25 Religious Education in Schools as a Necessity in a Secular State: the Perspective in Catalonia 770
Núria Llevot-Calvet, Olga Bernad-Cavero and Jordi Garreta-Bochaca
References to Part 6 783 Index 799
Figures
7.1 To have people of a different religion as neighbors 228 7.2 To have people of a different sect of Islam as neighbors 228 8.1 Feminism typologies by country 247
14.1 The Greimas square applied to interview number 1 484 14.2 The Greimas square applied to interview number 2 484 14.3 The Greimas square applied to interview number 6 485 14.4 The Greimas square applied to interview number 3 485 14.5 The Greimas square applied to interview number 4 486 14.6 The Greimas square applied to interview number 8 487 14.7 The Greimas square applied to interview number 5 487 14.8 The Greimas square applied to interview number 7 488 14.9 Migratory processes and the religious dimension in migrant
narratives 496
14.10 Action conducted by the FBOs and the explication of the religious dimension 502
15.1 Religious composition of international migrants, 2010 508
15.2 Religious composition of international migrants in the EU, 2010 509
Tables
2.1 Countries where nationalist political parties or politicians targeted religious groups in 2016, and religious groups that were targeted 56 2.2 The “Drama triangle” 65
7.1 Countries involved in the third and fourth Arab Barometer survey 206
7.2 Religious belonging of representative samples interviewed in 2014 (3rd wave) and 2016 (4th wave) 207
7.3 Do you consider yourself to be a religious person? 208 7.4 Do you pray daily? 208
7.5 Do you always listen to or read the Quran/the Bible? 209 7.6 Islam Law Conformity Index by sex and age 212
7.7 Which of the following statements is the closest to your point of view?
7.8 Compatibility of Western democracy with Islam teachings: agreement 215
7.9 Banks charging interest contradict the teachings of Islam 216 7.10 Islamic Traditionalism Index by sex and age 217
7.11 Gender mixed education should be allowed in universities 218 7.12 Women should wear modest clothes without needing to wear
hijab 218
7.13 Islam Openness Index by sex and age 219
7.14 Islamic Traditionalism Index (recorded in three levels) (IST INDEX R3) by
Islam Openness Index (recorded in three levels) (ISO INDEX R3) 220
7.15 Islam pluralistic typology 220 7.16 Secular Politics Index R3 222
7.17 Secular Politics Index by sex and age 222 7.18 Fundamentalism Index by sex and age 223 7.19 Fundamentalism Index R3 223
7.20 Religious – Not religious political party agreement 224 7.21 Correlation coefficients between indexes 225
7.22 Frequencies of indexes grouped in three levels 225
7.23 How do you view the relationship between Christians (in Egypt: Copts) and Muslims in reality? 227
8.1 CEDAW Convention acceptance 236 8.2 Sample sizes by country and survey 245
10.1 Results of asylum applications. Italy, 2016–2018 325
14.1 The empirical reference group: case studies and interviews 468 14.2 A summary of the first case study 471
14.3 A summary of the second case study 474 14.4 A summary of the third case study 477 14.5 A summary of the fourth case study 479
14.6 Religious persecution and migration paths: a summary based on the case studies 492
14.7 Values and actions in the interreligious dialogue and religious integration 498
21.1 Focus groups with students – participants’ composition 673 21.2 Focus groups with adults – participants’ composition 674 21.3 Items for focus group interview – reference to 4 keywords and
comparison between targets 674
22.1 Most frequently mentioned words during the focus groups 685 23.1 Number of conflicts mentioned in focus groups by students or
adults 724
23.3 Religious-based conflicts emerging from FGs with adults 731 23.4 Word frequency query concerning conflict and problems in
relationships 735
23.5 Words, attitudes, behaviors emerging in religious-based conflicts from FGs with adults 736
23.6 Words, attitudes, behaviors emerging in religious-based conflicts from FGs with students 739
23.7 Religious divide among generations 750
24.1 The feeling of being French according to the religion and school experiences – linear regression, stepwise method (N = 2 625) 765 25.1 Actions/activities carried out while working on cultural
Mario Antonelli
is a Priest of the Archdiocese of Milan. At the Pontifical Gregorian University, he took his doctorate in Theology with a thesis about the Action by Maurice Blondel. He started teaching in 1989. Until 2018, he was Professor of Funda-mental Theology at the Seminary of the Archdiocese of Milan, with the occa-sional teaching of Trinitary Theology and Ecclesiology. He was sent as fidei
donum to the area of Belém (Brazil) where he also taught Theological
Anthro-pology, Trinitary Theology and Christology from 2004 to 2010. He is a collabora-tor of the missionary Pascollabora-toral and of the pascollabora-toral Care of Migrants, and since 2018 he has been Episcopal Vicar for Education and Celebration of Faith in the Archdiocese of Milan.
Fr. Fabio Baggio
is a member of the Missionaries of St. Charles Borromeo. He gained a doc-torate in Church History at the Pontifical Gregorian University in 1998. Fr. Baggio worked as a pastor in Santiago de Chile from 1995 to 1997 and was also advisor for migrations to the Chilean bishops’ conference (INCAMI). Af-terwards, until 2002, he served as Director of the Department for Migration of the Archdiocese of Buenos Aires. From 1999–2010, he taught at the Uni-versidad del Salvador in Buenos Aires as well as at the Ateneo de Manila and at the Maryhill School of Theology at Quezon City in the Philippines, where he was Director of the Scalabrini Migration Center (SMC). Since the year 2000, he was also Professor at the Scalabrini International Migration Institute (SIMI), which is incorporated into the Theology Faculty of the Pon-tifical Urban University in Rome. He became Director of the Institute in 2010. From 1 January 2017 he is Under-Secretary of the Refugees and Mi-grants Section, Dicastery for the Promotion of Integral Human Development (Holy See).
Paola Barachetti
graduated in Political and Social Science. She has had a long career in a non-profit organization offering social welfare services, including those devoted to migrants and refugees. She is currently affiliated with the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore of Milan, where she is serving as Teaching Assistant. Her re-search interests include intercultural psychology and social practice; accultur-ation and integraccultur-ation in migrant families and children; the influence of reli-gious values in the process of social inclusion.
Alessandro Bergamaschi
holder of an international French-Italian Ph.D. in Sociology, is Associate Pro-fessor at the University of the Côte d’Azur. His research focuses on the manifes-tations of xenophobia among adolescents and on the role of formal education in the prevention of interethnic intolerance. He is a member of the “Migrations et société” research unit (CNRS 8245 – IRD 205) and fellow at the Institut Con-vergences Migrations – INED Paris.
Olga Bernad-Cabero
is a Postdoctoral fellow of the Department of Pedagogy at the University of Llei-da, Catalonia, Spain. Her research lines focus on the sociology of education, family and school relations, migration and cultural diversity. She has carried out research at the University of Montreal and at the University of Dakar. She is a trainer and consultant at educational centers and has given numerous lectures, communications and consultations for various institutions. In recent years, she has published articles and book chapters in prestigious publishing houses. She is part of the GR-ASE research group “Educational and Social Analysis” of UdL.
Catherine Blaya
is Professor of Education Sciences at the University for Teachers’ Education in Lausanne (Switzerland). She teaches at the Special Education Needs unit and is Co-Director of its Research Centre for the Prevention of School Dropout (LASALE). She is member of the Research Unit on Migrations and Society (UMR CNRS 8245-IRD 205), specialized in the study of migrations and interethnic relations at the University Nice Sophia Antipolis. She has been dedicating her academic career to researching issues that might affect young people’s lives, such as dropping out of school, school climate, cyberbullying, and cyberhate.
Lucia Boccacin
Ph.D. in sociology, is currently Full Professor of Cultural Sociology in the Fac-ulty of Education, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milan. Chair of Na-tional Scientific Qualification in Sociology of the Cultural and Communicative Processes, Scientific Sector 14/C2, years 2016–2018.
Her investigations focus on the third sector, partnership models among the third sector and other social macro-players, social policies and social services, family and intergenerational relations.
Paolo Bonetti
is Associate Professor of Constitutional Law at the University of Milano- Bicocca, where he teaches Institutions of Public Law and Immigration Law in
undergraduate and postgraduate degrees. Among other things, he conducts research on the organization of jurisdiction and fundamental rights, on social and family rights and on the principles of equality, the conditions of foreign-ers and the right to asylum. He has collaborated with ISMU Foundation – Initiatives and Studies on Multi-ethnicity and with ORIM (the Regional Centre for immigration supported by the Lombardy Regional Council) on the collec-tion, analysis and processing of regulatory and judicial data regarding immi-gration and asylum applications from a constitutional perspective. He also col-laborated with the Inter-University Research Centre on Service of Public Utility for the Individual (CRISP) on a report about the situation of undocumented foreigners in Italy for the EU Fundamental Rights Agency (FRA). He took part in and coordinated the working group for the research on “Administrative Judges and Constitutional Rights” that ended with the convention held at the University of Trento (2011), where he delivered an introductory lecture on the independence and impartiality of the administrative judge.
Donatella Bramanti
is Full Professor of Sociology of the Family and Sociology of Personal Services at the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore of Milan. She has conducted a num-ber of studies on the themes of family and of ageing population. She has also participated in numerous research projects. She has collaborated with the Na-tional Observatory of the Family with a research on “Self-sufficient Seniors and Family Friendly Services”. She is the author and co-author of over 100 mono-graphs and articles concerning social policies, personalized services and good practices, social and cultural family transformations, impact evaluation in the field of personalized services and educational processes.
Luca Bressan
Presbyter of the Diocese of Milan since 1987. At the Archiepiscopal Seminary of Milan, he teaches Homiletics and Pastoral Theology. He is a permanent Pro-fessor at the Theological Faculty of Northern Italy (Milan). Since June 2012, he has been Episcopal Vicar for Culture, Charity, Mission and Social Action.
Maddalena Colombo
is Full Professor of Sociology of Cultural and Communicative processes; she teaches “Sociology of Education”, “Sociology of Educational Policy” and “Soci-ology of Inequalities and Differences” at the Faculty of Education, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore of Milan and of Brescia. She is the Director of the CIRMiB (Centre of Initiatives and research on Migration – Brescia) and of the Laris (Laboratory of Research and Intervention on Society). She is a
member of the Scientific Board of several journals in Italy. She co-ordinates the AIS-Education section. At the Milan campus of UCSC, she co-ordinates the Jean Monnet Module IDEAL -Intercultural Dialogue in Europe and Active poLicies (a.y. 2016/2019). Last publication on the topic: “The impact of Eth-nicity on school life: a cross-national post-commentary”, in “Italian Journal of Sociology of Education”, (3) 2018.
Jordi Garreta-Bochaca
holds a degree and a doctorate in Sociology from the Autonomous University of Barcelona and is currently teaching at the University of Lleida. He has car-ried out research on educational sociology and sociology of migrations and is Director of GR-ASE research group “Educational and Social Analysis” of UdL. As well as presenting his work in conventions, he has published articles in na-tional and internana-tional journals and books (https://lleida.academia.edu/Jor-diGarretaBochaca). He has carried out various research visits at the Centre d’Études Ethniques at the University of Montreal (1996, 1998, 2000 and 2009) and the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris (1997, 1998, 2007, 2010 and 2020).
Cristina Giuliani
is an academic researcher and serves as Assistant Professor of Social Psychol-ogy at the Faculty of Linguistic Sciences, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore of Milan. She is also member of the Family Studies and Research University Centre. Her main issues of research are the following: critical family transition and resiliency processes, migration processes, acculturation process and fami-ly relationship transformations in post-migration, Muslim immigrant families.
Paolo Gomarasca
Ph.D. , is an Associate Professor in Moral Philosophy at the Faculty of Political and Social Sciences – Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore of Milan, where he currently teaches “Social Philosophy”, “Philosophy of Intercultural Dialogue”, “Ethics of Care”, “Ethics and Professional Conduct for Social Work” and “Global Ethics”. At the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore of Milan, he is a member of the Doctoral Board of Ph.D. “Social Work and Personal Social Services”, a mem-ber of Research Centre of Relational Social Work (RSW) and a memmem-ber of the Transdisciplinary Research On Food Issues Centre (TROFIC). He is also an ex-ternal collaborator in the international project “Emotional culture and identi-ty”, Instituto Cultura y Sociedad, Universidad de Navarra, Pamplona (Spain). His areas of study and research are the following: care ethics for social work, gender studies, studies on refugees, and food ethics.
Núria Llevot-Calvet
is Professor in the Department of Pedagogy at the University of Lleida, Catalo-nia, Spain (Serra Hunter Programme of the Generalitat of Catalonia). Her lines of research focus on mediation and intercultural education, religious diversity, ethnic minorities and cooperation between Africa and Europe. She has carried out several research stays at universities such as Sherbrooke, Quebec, Montre-al, Paris, Mostar, Dakar, Padua, Rome; she has given lectures and training courses in various centers and has published articles in journals, as well as book chapters and books. She is a member of the Board of Directors in the Research Institute “INDEST” and in the Research Group GR-ASE “Educational and Social Analysis” of UdL.
Rosangela Lodigiani
Ph.D. , is an Associate Professor of Sociology of Economics at the Faculty of Political and Social Sciences – Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore of Milan, where she currently teaches “Employment relations and active labor market policies”, “European Social Policies”, and “General Sociology”. She is member of the WWELL (Work, Welfare, Enterprise and Lifelong Learning) Research Cen-tre’s Steering Board at the Department of Sociology, and member of the Scien-tific Committee of the Ph.D. Course in “Sociology, Organizations, Cultures” at the same University. Her research interests are focused on labor market, life-long learning and activations policies, as well as on Italian and European active welfare system’s reform and innovation, in a comparative perspective. On these issues, she has carried out and managed many field-research projects and published several essays and papers.
Vera Lomazzi
received her Ph.D. in Sociology and Social Research Methods in 2015. She is a Senior Researcher at the Data Archive for Social Sciences at GESIS – Leibniz Institute for Social Sciences in Cologne, Germany, and Secretary of the Execu-tive Committee of the European Values Study. Her substanExecu-tive research mainly focuses on the cross-cultural study of gender equality and gender role atti-tudes, youth engagement, and collective identities. She has a specific interest in the quality of the instruments adopted by large cross-sectional survey pro-grams and on their measurement equivalence. Before joining GESIS, she took part as trainer and consultant in a UNICEF-funded project in South Lebanon (2014–2015) and was research fellow at the University of Aberdeen, where she was involved in the EC-funded project “Arab Transformations”.
Linda Lombi
Ph.D. in Sociology, is Assistant Professor at the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore of Milan, where she teaches “Sociology and Methods” (Faculty of Educa-tion Science). Her research interests are around welfare policies, health sociol-ogy, and digital research.
Paolo Maggiolini
is Research Fellow at the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore of Milan, Faculty of Political and Social Sciences, and Adjunct Professor in “Regional Studies – Middle East and History of Islamic Asia”, Faculty of Linguistic Sciences and Foreign Literatures.
Monica Martinelli
is Associate Professor of Sociology at the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore of Milan and a member of the “Centre for the Anthropology of Religion and Cultural Change” (ARC). Her scientific research focuses on the study of the so-ciological classics and their questions about the relationship between the indi-vidual and society, applied to contemporary socio-cultural transformations.
Stefania Giada Meda
is a sociology researcher at the Università Cattolica’s Centre for Family Studies and Research. Her main research topics are in the field of sociology of the fam-ily, ageing, and social policies. She was awarded a Marie Curie Actions fellow-ship for international mobility and research.
Alessia Melcangi
is Tenure Track Assistant of “Contemporary History of North Africa and Middle East and Globalization and International Relations” at the Sapienza University of Rome, Department of Social Sciences and Economics (DiSSE), Non-Resident Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council, Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East, Washington D.C., and collaborates with the Centre of Research on the South-ern System and the Wider Mediterranean (CRiSSMA–Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore).
Giulia Mezzetti
has recently obtained a Ph.D. in Sociology. She is Researcher and project Offi-cer at ISMU Foundation – Initiatives and Studies on Multiethnicity, a research institute on migration and integration. Her research interests concern children
of Muslim migrants’ religiosity, activism and visibility, contemporary forms of jihadist radicalization and the religion-integration nexus.
Beatrice Nicolini
has a degree in International Relations and Comparative Government from Harvard University, U.S.A. and graduated in Political Sciences from Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore of Milan. She obtained a Ph.D. in History of Africa from Siena University, Italy. She is Full Professor of “History and Institutions of Africa, Religions, Conflicts and Slavery, Indian Ocean World”, Faculty of Politi-cal and Social Sciences at the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore of Milan. Expert for Zanzibar V-Dem – Varieties of Democracy Project, Oslo University, Norway. She has received grants and recognition for her research from Italy, from the Sultanate of Oman and from the UK. She has released more than 110 publications, most of which in English, and a number of them have been trans-lated into Arabic.
Andrea Plebani
is Associate Fellow at the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore of Milan and Adjunct Professor in Geopolitics, Faculty of Linguistic Sciences and Foreign Literatures.
Riccardo Redaelli
is the Director of the Center for Research on the South and the Wider Mediter-ranean System (CRiSSMA) and Director of the Master in Middle Eastern Studies (MIMES) of the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore of Milan, and Full Professor of “History and Institutions of Asia”. He also teaches “Post Conflict and Emer-gency Management”. Member of the “Observatory on Religious Minorities in the World and the Respect for Religious Freedom” of the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, since 2004 he has been coordinating a plurality of Track-two programs of national reconciliations, international cooperation and knowledge transfer in the Middle East. He published more than 100 monographs, edited books, essays and articles on the history and contemporary politics of the Middle East.
Camillo Regalia
is Full Professor of Social Psychology at the Faculty of Education, Director of the Ph.D. program in Social and Developmental Psychology at the Università Cat-tolica del Sacro Cuore of Milan, and member of the executive committee of the Family Studies and Research University Centre. His main issues of research are the following: psychological integration of first and second generation of im-migrants; cultural identity and family processes; Muslim migration in the West.
Giovanna Rossi
is a Full Professor of Sociology of the Family, Faculty of Psychology, and Head of the Centre for Family Studies and Research, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore of Milan, since 1997. She is also Member of the ESA (European Socio-logical Association) Advisory Board of Research Network 13 “Sociology of Families and Intimate Lives”. She carried out extensive and documented re-search focusing on family, social policy, and third sector. She is author and co-author of many books and over 130 scientific contributions on national and international journals, editor of “Studi di Sociologia” (Sociology Studies) and of “Sociologia e Politiche sociali” (Sociology and Social Policy), Co-Direc-tor of “Studi interdisciplinari sulla Famiglia” (Interdisciplinary Studies on Family) and “Politiche sociali e servizi” (Social Policy and Services).
Giancarlo Rovati
was Full Professor of Sociology at the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore of Milan (from 2003 to 2018), teaching “General Sociology” and “Sociology of Development” in the Faculty of Political and Social Sciences. He has been in-volved in several national research projects, supported by CNR and MIUR and in multinational research projects on Values System change (in the context of European Values Study program), cultural enterprises (in the context of the European Community ADAPT program), international cooperation programs with Russia, Azerbaijan, Ukraine (in the context of Tempus-Tacis program); development cooperation programs (in the context of the Orphan Vulner-able Children – OVC program managed by AVSI and supported by USAID in Kenia, Rwanda, Uganda, Ivory Coast). He was member of the national board of the Italian Sociological Association (1996–1998); President of the national Inquiry Commission on Social Exclusion – CIES (2002–2007), member of EVS Theory Group and Italian Director of the IV and V wave of the European Val-ues Survey (EVS-Italy 2008 and 2017) coordinated by University of Tilburg. His main fields of theoretical and empirical researches are the following: cultural institutions, social-economic élites, social stratification, change in religious, moral and political values, development and globalization, poverty and social exclusion.
Mariagrazia Santagati
is Assistant Professor of “Sociology of Education” in the Faculty of Education at the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore of Milan, as well as Scientific Secre-tary of the CIRMiB. She is the head of the Department for Education of the ISMU Foundation (Initiatives and Studies on Multiethnicity) and, since 2010, she has been the editor of the annual “Report on students with non-Italian
citizenship”, promoted by the Ministry of Education and ISMU. Her main sci-entific interests deal with the connections between education and migration (ethnic inequalities; successful students with an immigrant background; inter-ethnic and interreligious relationships; intercultural policies). Last publication on the topic: “The (im)possible success of disadvantaged students. Reflections on education, migration and social change” in Arxius de Ciències Socials, (40) 2019.
Andrea Santini
is Associate Professor of European Union Law at the Faculty of Political and Social Sciences of the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore of Milan, where he also coordinates the Bachelor course in Political Sciences and International Relations and is a member of the Ph.D. School of Institutions and Policies. He has recently published, with Ugo Draetta and Francesco Bestagno, the hand-book Elementi di diritto dell’Unione europea – Parte istituzionale, Giuffrè Fran-cis Lefebvre, Milan, 2018.
Annavittoria Sarli
Ph.D. in Anthropology, collaborates as a researcher and expert in migration studies with the WWELL (Work, Welfare, Enterprise Lifelong Learning) Centre of the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore of Milan and with ISMU Foundation – Initiatives and Studies on Multi-ethnicity in Milan. Author of several scien-tific publications, she has collaborated in various national and international research projects.
Monica Spatti
Ph.D. in International, Supranational and European Institutions at the Univer-sity of Teramo, is a researcher of “European Law” at the Faculty of Political and Social Science at the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore of Milan. Her main research subjects concern the international and European system of protec-tion of human rights, especially regarding migraprotec-tion, privacy, freedom of ex-pression and religious rights.
Giovanni Giulio Valtolina
educated in Padua, Milan and Chicago, is currently affiliated with the Univer-sità Cattolica del Sacro Cuore of Milan, where he is serving as Associate Profes-sor of “Developmental Psychology”.
At the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, he is also member of the faculty board of the Ph.D. program in Relational Social Work and Personal Social Services.
His research interests are the following: intercultural psychology and social practice; migrant children; acculturation and psychosocial adaptation in mi-grant families. Since 2000, he has been a member of the editorial committee of the Ismu Italian Report on Migrations and since 2009 he has also been serving as Head of the Child and Family Department at Ismu Foundation – Initiatives and Studies on Multiethnicity in Milan.
Laura Zanfrini
Ph.D. in Sociology, is Full Professor at the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore of Milan, where she teaches “Sociology of Migrations and Interethnic Rela-tions” and “Organizations, Environment and Social Innovation”. She is the Sci-entific Director of the research center WWELL (Work, Welfare, Enterprise and Lifelong Learning); the coordinator of the Board of Professors of the Master’s Degree in Labor and Business Management; and the Scientific Director of the Summer School “Human Mobility and Global Justice”. She is Head of the Eco-nomic and Labor Department, as well as the scientific supervisor of the Docu-mentation Center (CeDoc) at ISMU Foundation – Initiatives and Studies on Multiethnicity, the most important Italian scientific institution studying inter-national migrations and intercultural relations. She is member of several edi-torial boards, scientific networks, and consultative bodies; she took part and coordinated various international research project. She is the author of about 400 publications, including books, essays, articles and research reports, pub-lished both in Italy and abroad. Among these, the first Sociology of Migration and Sociology of Interethnic Coexistence handbooks ever published in Italy and several dictionary and encyclopedia entries.
Migrations and Religious Belongings:
from Periphery to Core, for a New Humanism
Introduction: General Description of the Study,
Key Issues, and Provisional Conclusions
Laura Zanfrini
1 Migrants and Religion: a Challenging Couple for European Contemporary Societies
International migrations have registered, in recent years, an extraordinary evo-lution, both in the volume of flows and in their composition.1 Within this com-plex scenario, Europe has become the first destination in the world in terms of migrants’ arrivals and, in the last years, it has faced the most dramatic refugee crisis since the end of World War ii. In a more patent way than ever, newcomers are obliging Europe to confront with the multi-faceted religious landscape of migrants’ sending countries. Dramatic circumstances such as the growing influ-ence of Boko Haram in Nigeria –and of its foolish attempt to “purify Islam” and society as a whole–, the increasing intolerance towards Christians in Egypt –a sort of “spill-over” effect of terrorism in Iraq and Syria (Open Doors, 2019)–, or the upsurging of religious nationalism in India are now irrupting in European society, through the arrival of people claiming protection or, at times, accused of corrupting “our” religious identity, or even of importing the virus of religious intolerance and religious radicalism to Europe.
While forcing European societies to become aware of the tremendous religious-based violations and persecutions that are characterizing the con-temporary global scenario, new arrivals are challenging the main distinction on which European migration regimes have been traditionally based: the discrim-ination between voluntary and forced migrants. For this reason, all along the book we will put the adjective “forced” within brackets, in order to emphasize the porous and disputable character of this concept. More deeply, paraphras-ing the well-known Sayad’s concept (1999), new arrivals “disturb” Europe and its systems of refugee protection, whereas asylum seekers’ religious affiliations seem to represent, in themselves, an “embarrassing” variable that discloses the
1 https://www.un.org/development/desa/en/news/population/international-migrant-stock-2019.html.
weaknesses and pitfalls of these systems, since the latter were built in a geo-political context that was very distant from the contemporary one.
As a matter of fact, religious-based claims mirror the extraordinary enlarge-ment of the concept of forced mobility, once circumscribed to the definition provided by the Geneva Convention. However, today it has been progressively extended to include new categories of individuals, situations, and agents of persecution. On the other hand, because of their nature, both complex and intimate, this kind of claims easily feeds the suspect of the recurrence of “bo-gus” requests, thus contributing to the delegitimization of the asylum institute. Finally, asylum’s procedures and practices face, while being influenced by them, preconceptions and distorted convictions about the different religious groups, and about the relations among them. As it is emblematically shown by the Middle Eastern region –the cradle of the three main monotheistic faiths, chosen as one of the focuses of the present study–, current analyses are often dominated by opposite understandings, unable to comprehend the “turbu-lent” situations of Europe’ peripheries, but also unable to grasp what really is the bet at stake.
Just to cite an emblematic example, while accusing humanitarian channels and reception services to become an instrument for the attraction of (Muslim) (fake) refugees, European public opinions seem to disregard how these same channels provide a possibility of survival for many Christians currently “under attack”.2 Not to mention the case of those migrants –Muslims and not Muslims– prejudicially perceived as “enemies” only because they come from given “Is-lamic” undemocratic countries. Ultimately, a debate dominated by concerns of a cultural and security nature ends up obscuring the other implications of the migration-religion link; first of all, the importance of the religious factor in the genesis of migration. In this context, the European religious identity has been repeatedly evoked as a vessel to be wielded in order to protect “Europe” from arrivals, depicted as a menace. One of the most shocking examples was the Rozaniec do Granic, the Rosary on border boundaries: a collective prayer that took place on October 7, 2017, involving an impressive number of people along the over-3,100-kilometre Polish borders, creating an ideal human chain. The official motivation of the event was that of imploring the intercession of the Mother of God “to save Poland and the world”, on the occasion of the feast of Our Lady of the Rosary, “established after the great battle of Lepanto, where
2 As a matter of fact, according to the reports produced every year by “Aiuto alla Chiesa che soffre”, the persecution of Christians has been producing significant outflows of people try-ing to escape, to the extent of putttry-ing into question the very survival of some of the oldest Christian churches of the world, thus compromising the multi-religious composition of the sending societies (Aiuto alla Chiesa che soffre, 2019).
the Christian fleet defeated the much larger fleet of Muslim society, thus sav-ing Europe from Islamization”.
Finally, European public opinion looks at current migrations as something from which “to defend itself”, and is worried about not only the economic, but also the cultural impact of incoming flows, particularly when they are com-posed of migrants presumed to be Muslims (Mavelli, Wilson, 2016). Both eco-nomic and humanitarian migrations are perceived as an “identity challenge”, since they are forcing the symbolic borders of European nations, shaped by their “Christian roots”. In this manner, they “miss” the key point: policies for the granting of asylum and other forms of humanitarian protection represent a conscious way of affirming principles, values and worldviews. In the end, they should be an opportunity for societies to reflect on the values on which they are based and deserve to be handed down as a legacy to future generations, and an extraordinary –if not prophetic– opportunity of self-reflection and of display of “our” own culture. The goal of contributing to raising the general awareness of this concept is one of the main reasons behind the present study: as it often happens, migration proves to be a “mirror” that permits to grasp and discuss key issues and emerging challenges.
Indeed, as it is emblematically showed by the experience of (forced) mi-grants intercepted thanks to the research on which the present book is based, religious rights and religious freedom represent a “litmus test” of the quality of a democracy. On the one hand, their systematic violation dramatically gives evidence of the lack of democracy in many sending countries, and marks the limit beyond which it is not possible to accept any abuses, thus forcing victims to opt for the “exit strategy” represented by migration. On the other hand, they offer European citizens the opportunity to realize the importance of religious rights at both individual and collective level, shaking them from the inertia that sometimes seems to characterize European societies, not to mention the temptation to encourage authoritarian turns. It is exactly the experience of people migrated for religious motives that encourages a reflection about the importance of religion in both the private –individual and family– life and the public life; particularly in Europe, where this dimension has been traditionally expulsed from the public sphere and it is now more and more reduced to its “identitarian” dimension (Roy, 2019). As we will deeply analyze, the contempo-rary “post-secular” scenario proves to be particularly stimulating for this kind of reflection since, alongside the insistent secularization, a more composite, not easily defined picture is emerging. Religion is closely connected with cul-tural and social transformations involving today Europe, but it is also the bor-derline where contradictory pressures and, in some cases, thorny questions relating to the coexistence between people with different religious traditions interweave.
At the same time, since contemporary (forced) migrations are perceived as more and more unpredictable in their dimension and internal composition, they are obliging Europe to come to terms with the full and long-standing legacy represented by its relationship with immigration and the “diversity” – including the religious one– that immigration brought with it. According to our interpretation (Zanfrini, 2019), as it was institutionalized during the post-war phase, the European migration regime contained in itself the reasons for cultivating the illusion of the temporary nature of migration, discouraging the stable settlement of immigrant families and communities, and defining migra-tion as a pure economic phenomenon; that is a phenomenon unable to change the political and identity borders of European national communities. Never-theless, the unpredicted settlement of the post World War ii “guest workers” and their progressive inclusion in the citizens’ community, the huge number of family reunions, the implosion of the Soviet empire and the subsequent re-definition of the internal States’ borders, as well as the arrival of millions of asylum seekers following the crises in various regions of the world (from Latin America to South-East Asia, from the Balkans to the Medium-East) have con-tributed to the formation of ethnic and religious minorities. Their presence and their “visibility”, also in the public space, represent an unexpected –if not an unwelcomed– phenomenon; a phenomenon definitely inconsistent with the myth of the ethnic, cultural and religious homogeneity on which the Euro-pean nations have been founded.
As a matter of fact, in recent times, the main societal institutions have been profoundly challenged by the settlement of people with different cultural and religious background (Vilaça et al., 2014); even more so when these people not only expect to be treated as “equals”, but ask to be acknowledged as “diverse”. National school systems –another of the topical issues chosen by the present study–, invested by the task of socializing new generations to the role of future citizens, have therefore become a key actor: the presence of students with a (minority) religious background challenges them through the request of rec-ognition; what is more, it offers a unique opportunity to grasp the concepts of democracy and citizenship, without avoiding the confrontation with the di-mension of conflict inevitably present in every pluralistic and truly democratic context. Finally, among the other consequences, the permanent settlement of migrant families and migrant communities has transformed European States into multi-religious societies, thus offering them the opportunity “to test” the principle of religious freedom.3
3 For a brief review of the issues and possible solutions concerning the governance of post-immigration religious diversity see: Modood, Sealy, 2019.
Another point deserving our attention is that the migrants’ condition of structural disadvantage –in its turn, a “natural” inheritance of a migratory re-gime that has traditionally attracted a “poor” migration, useful to enter the lowest ladders of the occupational stratification (see again Zanfrini, 2019)– has amplified the perception of a social and cultural distance between migrants and natives. In other words, it has fed the anxiety for the “diversity” embedded in the population with a migratory background, starting exactly from their re-ligious diversity. Rere-ligious affiliations, particularly Islamic affiliations, have therefore turned to be viewed as an element of vulnerability, if not as a barrier inhibiting the integration process and the relations with the native population. Not to mention that, according to available data, low levels of socio-economic inclusion tend to be correlated with a higher involvement in religious practic-es. Lastly, the transformation of an economic process –as immigration was originally conceptualized– into a political process, has catapulted at the core of the political agenda issues and problems related with the “identity” (includ-ed the “religious identity”) of European societies. Not surprisingly, the religion of refugees has become a noticeable issue (Schmiedel, Smith, 2018), definitive-ly denying the prophecy of a decline in the importance of religion in the public sphere that has accompanied the modernization of European societies. At the height of the refugee crisis, religion has even been identified as a useful filter to select, among potential asylum seekers, those individuals who should be able to cross the symbolic and cultural boundaries of European national communi-ties. “Anti-migrants” actors make an open and sometimes violent use of reli-gion in order to endorse securitarian and selective approaches in the manage-ment of migratory flows. What is even more embarrassing, “pro-migrants” narrative sometimes evokes the low percentage of Muslim migrants as a sup-posed reassuring argument for public opinion, thus implicitly reaffirming the problematic character of religious diversity. All this in line, after all, with the historical European approach to the topic at issue, which has been tradition-ally shared by both policy makers and social researchers. As it is well known, once confronted with the “ideal-type” of immigration country (the US), Eu-rope not only has a different migration history, but it has also suffered from the different role and meaning traditionally attributed to religious affiliations. In its seminal volume Protestant, Catholic, Jew (1955), W. Herberg stated that it is precisely through religion that immigrants, and even their children and grand-children, have found an identifiable place in American life; still today, in a much more diversified scenario, many immigrants “become Americans” thanks to the participation in the religious and the community activities of Churches, Mosques and Jewish temples (Alba, 2009). Furthermore, the Ameri-can population is much more “religious” than the European one (according to available statistics), so as to perceive less distance from the immigrant
communities, usually more inclined (or supposed to be more inclined) to reli-gious practice. However, even more than the actual data, it is the interpreta-tion that social sciences have provided that illuminates the different meaning of religious practice. Until recently, religiosity has been eventually depicted, by European social researchers, as a “refugee” and a balm for the soul, an instru-ment to enforce intra-community solidarity and to contrast individual frustra-tion and isolafrustra-tion, but also as a possible source of self-segregafrustra-tion, reactive identification, and potential conflict with the mainstream institutions. Thus, while in the American context many sociologists are inclined to see in religious affiliations a factor supporting integration, in Europe religiosity has often been described as the indicator of a lack of integration in the framework of an a prioristically-defined secularized society –as well as a factor negatively affect-ing interethnic relations (the French experience is indeed emblematic in this regard)–. The same public discourse has often tended to underestimate the role that religious affiliations and organizations can play not only in support-ing integration, but also in the process of identity buildsupport-ing, by favorsupport-ing the in-ternalization of values oriented towards the common good and some peaceful coexistence. Finally, by reflecting the common tendency to confine religion in the private sphere, European studies have tended to emphasize the “bonding” component of the religious capital of migrants; that of the “bridging” type, more emphasized in the American tradition, in Europe has a potential that is not only underused, but also largely neglected by academic research. Just as much evidence of how the role of religion –and of the migrant religion nexus– is socially constructed.
Finally, there are several reasons behind both the misunderstanding and the underestimation of the role of religion in migratory and integration processes. However, as it will be deeply analyzed, migrants’ religious affiliations have be-come increasingly visible also in the public space and, despite religion’s mar-ginality in the mainstream analysis of the integration processes, religion today has being more and more acknowledged as a significant component in the construction of migrants’ individual and collective identity, in (peaceful or conflicting) interconnection with the other actors of society. In this way, the religion of migrants is set to be one of the relevant themes in the debate on the so-called post-secularized society.
Given this background, the study-project on which this book is based –
Migrations and religious belongings. From the periphery to the core, for a new humanism– supported by Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore of Milan and
developed in 2016–2018, has aimed to contribute to filling significant knowl-edge gaps, and to provide both theoretical analysis and empirical evidence on
the relationship between migrants and religion. This phenomenon has been studied by using the concept of religion in its broader meaning, including: a) individual and collective religious affiliations, belongings, beliefs,
identi-ties, and practices;
b) religious-based organizations and institutions, as well as interreligious initiatives;
c) religious rights’ violation, religious-based discriminations and conflicts. Furthermore, it has been inquired by different disciplinary perspectives –from philosophy to law, from sociology to psychology, from political sciences to theology– and has been focusing on different levels of analysis –macro, meso and micro–. Finally, from a methodological point of view, as subsequently il-lustrated, the study has made use of a variety of methods –including literature review, key-informants’ interviews, and focus groups discussion (FGDs)– de-scribed in detail within each thematic part.
While ensuring a scientific approach to the subject, the study has been based on a clear cultural and ethical option: the need to acknowledge and il-lustrate how religious-based belongings, identities, and institutions affect both the genesis of contemporary migrations and the development of migration and integration processes – and, as a further implication, the opportunity to activate religion-related potential in order to support migrants’ integration and social cohesion, as well as in order to improve the global governance of (forced) migrations and the efficacy of the protection system.
More in detail, two key hypotheses have encouraged the present study, and guided both the speculative analysis and the collection of empirical evidence.
First of all, the denial of religious rights –in its overall meaning– is one of the
main drivers of contemporary ( forced) migration, usually in interconnection with other social, political and economic factors. As a matter of fact, the current
global scenario witnesses a dramatic recurrence of situations of religious rights’ violation and even of open persecution towards minority groups or sin-gle believers. Just to cite one of the most dramatic examples, exactly during the time-span of realization of this study, the international community has help-lessly witnessed the forced expulsion from Myanmar of hundreds of thousands of Rohingya, a long-standing discriminated Muslim minority. This is only one of the many emergencies involving religious minorities and single believers – or non-believers escaping from “pre-secularized” States–, which have been producing millions of displaced people, asylum seekers, and “voluntary” mi-grants. All this notwithstanding, the relationship between religion and migra-tion choices and strategies has still been studied insufficiently. More precisely, our hypothesis was that the factors connected with religious affiliations and
belongings play a much more significant role than what is shown by available data on refugees for religious reasons, not to mention the common (improper) perception of their effective importance. As a matter of fact, despite the grow-ing concern for the religion of migrants and refugees, there is scarce evidence on the role it played and plays in the life of people who try to penetrate the European Fortress. Besides the possible shortfalls of the legislation in force, our hypothesis was that a multiplicity of factors concurs to a general under-evaluation of this issue, including the existence of religious-based biases and anti-religious sentiments. In order to analyze this point, we have deeply stud-ied the situation of contemporary Middle-Eastern region, chosen as an em-blematic place where to investigate the processes which generate (forced) mi-grations (Part 2); as well as an emblematic example of how current analyses are often dominated by opposite understandings, unable to comprehend the “turbulent” situations of Europe’s peripheries (but also unable to grasp what the bet at stake really is, as suggested above). Moreover, we have collected plenty of evidence from migrants escaped because of religious-based persecu-tions (or, in more general terms, from migrants for whom religion has played a significant role both in the decision to migrate and in its subsequent develop-ments) and from different kinds of key informants (Part 3). Finally, a selected group of families, adolescents and children have been included in the study in order to grasp the relationship between religion and migration culture also along intergenerational links (Part 5).
Related to this latter point, the second key hypothesis at the basis of the study was that religious institutions, religious affiliations and religious values are
crucial factors not only in structuring migration patterns and practices, but also in supporting the adaptation of newcomers –particularly in the case of ( forced) migrants and asylum seekers– and the integration processes of first- and second-generation migrants –especially through the mediation of the family and faith-based organizations (from now on: fbos)–, thus positively impacting on the social cohesion and the common good. Recent contributions, from sociological
(Part 4), psychological (Part 5) and theological (Ahn, 2019) studies, offer new insights in order to grasp the (positive) role of spirituality, religious belongings and interreligious dialogue, thus concurring to fill the traditional knowledge gap on the issue. Besides providing a systematic review of this literature, our study emphasizes how the emerging “post-secularized” Europe offers a reno-vated scenario in which to analyze their role and their future evolutionistic prospects. This hypothesis has been tested through different kinds of analyses, focused on migrants and asylum seekers (Part 3), families (Part 5), fbos (Part 4) and public schools (Part 6).
As explained in detail in the remaining chapters of Part 1, the discussion on these two hypotheses has been conducted in the light of a philosophical, socio-logical, and judicial theoretical framework which provides suggestions for: a) a perspective to “deinstrumentalize religion” and to “rehumanize”
mi-grants and asylum seekers (Chapter 2);
b) the unexpected vitality of the religious phenomenon currently emerging as a result of a continuous intersection of long processes and secularizing influences, as well as of responses reacting to those processes and those influences, not without new dilemmas and conflict (Chapter 3);
c) the opportunities and the limitations that follow the interpretation of the relationship between the violation of religious rights and the status of protection granted by international judicial and quasi-judicial organs (Chapter 4).
2 Book’s Content
In detail, the book is articulated in six parts, each composed of four chapters (except for Part 6, which is composed of five chapters).
Part 1 (Migrations and Religious Belongings: from Periphery to Core, for a New Humanism), after the general description of the study’s aims and contents, and
the presentation of its provisional conclusions (object of the present Chapter 1), illustrates the philosophical, socio-cultural, and legislative frames that consti-tute the research background.
Chapter 2 starts with a description of the unethical ambivalence of the
dom-inant narratives about migration and (forced) displacement. On the one hand, refugees are criminalized and targeted as a threat to border security. On the other hand, counter-narratives portray refugees as innocent, vulnerable vic-tims. The paradox is that these two stereotyped images of (forced) displace-ment are two faces of the same unethical process of dehumanization: in both cases, refugees are the objects of other people’s interpretations and actions. Moreover, in this process of dehumanization, religion is often politicized and plays an instrumental role in justifying two opposite narratives and political solutions. Given this picture, the author develops the proposal of a new “ethics of hospitality”, based on two conditions: (a) de-instrumentalizing religion, in order to analyze the real, multi-dimensional role of religion in refugees’ experi-ence (as both a root cause of displacement and as a source of resiliency and support); (b) returning refugees their human subjectivity, which means en-abling them to express their subjective outlook on their own experience of
(forced) displacement and on the importance of their religious belonging. The political effect of this “post-secular” hospitality is a discursive act that creates a public space, where social ties can be ()built. Religion, in this context of re-humanization, can be an integral part of refugees’ public space making, along four main lines of research:
1) identity, which focuses on the individual and collective processes of (re-) shaping some forms of self-definition, based on religious beliefs and values;
2) religious freedom, which legitimizes the pluralistic involvement of (reli-gious) identities in public life;
3) citizenship, which is not tied to rigid national territoriality, but includes fluidity of borders and multiple (religious) identities and loyalties; 4) common good, i.e. a multi-religious social capital, generated by the new
citizens and their desire to participate in their new society of settlement.
Moving from the perspective of the sociology of religion, Chapter 3 intends to outline the main characteristics of the so-called (European) “post-secular soci-ety”. Although a vast literature from the second half of the 20th century an-nounced the imminent end of the religious phenomenon, in Europe –as well as in other regions of the world– a different scenario has been unfolding: reli-gion is still present, even if it is in crisis, as it has increasingly been relegated to the intimate sphere and set free from institutional set-ups, reinvented in con-tent and contaminated by secularization factors. Moreover, in many cases, this presence is strengthened precisely in relation to the migration phenomenon.
Consequently, the European scenario cannot be explained by simply choos-ing between two options: “secularization versus non-secularization”. There is a much more articulated and complex picture, certainly from a geographical and national point of view, but in general also because of the singular forms it assumes: these elements are the result of a continuous intersection of secular-izing thrusts and responses that oppose them –not without this leading to new dilemmas and, sometimes, to real conflicts–. It is therefore evident that we are living in a different time than that defined as completely “secularized”. As a matter of fact, the post-secular society constitutes the socio-cultural context within which migrants enter when arriving in Europe, often bearing forms of religious belonging considered to be significant for the construction of their identity in interconnection with the other actors of society, whether it is a peaceful or conflictual interconnection.
Finally, Chapter 4, authored by two law scholars, aims to verify the relation-ship between the right to freedom of religion and the status of refugee consid-ering, in particular, the applications of these institutes given by the interna-tional judicial and quasi-judicial organs.
Freedom of religion is a fundamental right recognized in many acts within international and European law. It includes the right for everyone to have, to change and to manifest one’s religion. Serious violations of this right could be ascertained as a form of persecution, thus giving rise to the possibility, for those who escape from places where this right is not respected, to obtain the recognition of the status of refugee, according to the Geneva Convention of 1951, and to the EU directive 2011/95/EU concerning the recognition of interna-tional protection to refugees. However, following the pronouncements of the European Court of Human Rights and of the Court of Justice of the European Union, a violation of freedom of religion or belief does not automatically grant the right to receive protection, which is obligatorily reserved only to those in-dividuals who are exposed to serious breaches of their fundamental rights. Fi-nally, as clearly illustrated by the empirical study presented in Part 3, the “space” of religion within the system of international protection is subject of different interpretations and negotiations.
Part 2 (Where (Forced) Migrations Are Generated) focuses the attention on
one of the most turbulent word-wide regions, which is particularly explanato-ry with reference to the study’s main topics.
The multiple crises that, especially from 2001 onward, inflamed the wider Middle East dramatically altered the geopolitical equilibriums of a region that has always played a crucial role in the international arena. Affected by height-ening levels of violence and widespread destabilization, the area became in-creasingly associated with processes of radicalization and socio-political frag-mentation destined to redefine the very foundations of a system whose roots can be traced back to the end of the Great War. The arch of crises that came to bisect the region largely contributed to project the image of a Middle-Eastern region “endemically” marred by divisions and instability and destined to be partitioned according to apparently undeniable ethno-sectarian fault lines. In this framework, Middle East ethno-linguistic and religious diversity has be-come the focal point of two different and opposite arguments. On the one hand, diversity has been considered as the victim of the rising polarization, manipulated and politicized in order to impose a specific political agenda. On the other, it has been listed as one of the drivers or sources of present instabil-ity in a region experiencing its own Thirty Years War, as Europe did in the 16th century.
The authors of Chapter 5, thanks to their specific background of experts of contemporary history of the Middle East, aim to maintain distance from both understandings, reconsidering the contemporary history of the Middle East and of state- and nation-building process in the region according to the image of multiple geographies. Instead of proposing once again the idea of the Mid-dle East as a mosaic, the chapter aims to offer an account of the role of diversity
in the region. Through the idea of multiple geographies, the chapter explains why diversity in the Middle East has always played a crucial role. Middle East does not stand out only for its diversity per se, but because the features that compose and define its diversity and “multi-vocality” often strongly intertwine and overlap, thus giving birth to social fabrics that are far more complex and branched than usually represented. In this spirit, the analysis ends by showing how a more precise understanding of the Middle East’s diversity, of its signifi-cance and its role can help to demystify today’s sectarian narratives and tackle instability and violence in the region.
This perspective is paradigmatically developed in Chapter 6, whose aim is to offer a dynamic account of the Christians’ presence within the Middle East, of their contribution and position in the contemporary history of the region. In this regard, the historical vicissitude of the Coptic community is helpful to fo-cus more clearly on the challenges, issues and ambitions that have influenced Christians’ historical vicissitude from the beginning of the contemporary state- and nation-building process in contemporary Middle East until today. Firstly, the chapter focuses on the multi-vocal dimension of the Christian pres-ence in the Middle East – a feature that needs to be taken into account to fully understand its position and condition within the different States in the region; the study helps to reconsider how the interplay between international, region-al and locregion-al interests affected and shaped the politicregion-al and institutionregion-al pres-ence of Christians within the region. Then the authors analyze the dynamics of sectarian violence and persecution against the Christians in the Middle East. In particular, they focus on contemporary Egypt, from the 1950s until the 2011 Uprisings, taking the specific case of the Egyptian Christian Copts (also object of the qualitative study presented in the Part 5 of the book) as a case study.
The remaining chapters of the part offer a general picture of cultural orien-tations in the Middle East and a special focus on attitudes about women’s role.
Chapter 7, authored by a researcher with a long experience in the study of
societal values and world-views, provides a sociological analysis of data pro-duced by the Arab Barometer. This latter constitutes an important source for monitoring the cultural and social dynamics in the countries of the region, since it provides longitudinal surveys supporting comparisons over a long time frame (from 2006 to 2018) in 14 Arab-speaking countries. The emerged data al-low knowing what Arab heterogeneous public think about key issues related to social coexistence, among which religious beliefs and belongings have a funda-mental relevance. Beyond the official representations of the strong relations between religion and the political system inside the Arab countries, the focus of this contribution is to check how people perceive their religious affiliations, in order to understand their level of openness toward different religious
