Lived Religion, Lived Citizenship. the Everyday Experiences of Young Muslims in Italy between Religion, Morality and Civic Engagement

In recent years, the study of religion and the study of citizenship seem to have proceeded on parallel tracks. Indeed, both strands of study have challenged institutional and formal conceptions with a view to developing research approaches grounded in the everyday experience of social actors. These trends have led to the concepts of lived religion (Ammerman, 2015) and lived citizenship (Kallio et al., 2020). These parallel developments have already produced fertile intersections that explored the relationships between the lived experience of citizenship and faith (Rubin et al., 2022), particularly among migrants and their descendants (Nyhagen, 2015; Calabretta, 2023).

The present study aims to engage and deepen this research stream with new data and analysis. The aim of the paper is to explore how the everyday experience of religiosity overlaps with and fuels that of citizenship. The paper is based on 80 biographical interviews and 8 focus groups with young Muslims with migratory backgrounds living in Italy. The research is part of the project ‘Growing old, feeling like citizens?’ (Universities of Padua and Milan-Bicocca) which focuses on the biographical trajectories of young Muslim adults in Italy.

Based on the data collected and analysed in the project, the paper provides some interesting insights. First, in the interviewees’ narratives, the daily experience of belonging to Islam – which intensifies with the transition to adulthood – is linked to the rediscovery and practice of religious and moral values contiguous to the idea of being ‘good citizens’. This convergence between citizenship and lived religion is even more interesting since it occurs in a minority context and where Islam is the subject of negative representation (Allievi, 2012). Thus, by associating Islam with civic engagement, the interviewees seek to claim their legitimacy in participating as Muslims in the Italian citizenry.