Regulation from within? the Role of Minority Representatives in the Local Governance of Religious Diversity

The regulation of religious diversity in the public sphere of Western European countries has increasingly become and issue of political and scientific interest. State actors and institutions are no longer the only active agents in these processes. As some authors have shown, governance networks composed of a variety of state and non-state actors are increasingly gaining prominence in the regulation of religion (Martikainen, 2013). Particular attention has been paid to the role of individual religious actors as well as of that of interfaith groups and platforms at the local level (Dick & Nagel, 2017; Griera, 2012). Drawing on qualitative fieldwork conducted in three French cities between 2015 and 2017, in this presentation I enquiry to what extent and how do representatives of minority religious groups contribute to the “formatting” (Roy, 2013) of religious minority practices in the context of the local governance of religious diversity? How do these representatives intervene in the shaping of particular religious subjectivities deemed “acceptable” and “legitimate” in the public sphere in contrast to those considered “problematic”? And how do they navigate, and contest or accept the regulatory role imposed on them by local public authorities?