Is religion a source of social integration or social exclusion for migrant populations?
- Argue both ways – come up with ultimate conclusion
- Define integration ?
- Pick a case study for sure – France (diss overlap ?)
- Compare different religions – Islam as source of social exclusion (maybe ?) but Christianity as
possible source of social integration (I think my argument might be that it depends on the
religion – read papers about integration of Christian migrants and the exceptionalism
towards Islam making it harder to integrate (could bring in Ukraine ?)
- Mention intermarriage ? – Alba & Fone article
- That weird long diagram about generational integration we saw in class
- Nativism as relevant for diss – nativism accompanied by ‘thin theories’ – populism as thin
theory needing nativism as a complementary element (link to nativism)
Cadge, Wendy, & Elaine Howard Ecklund (2007), ‘Immigration and Religion’, Annual Review of
Sociology, vol. 33, no. 1, pp. 359-379.
Penninx, Rinus, & Blanca Garcés-Mascareñas (2016), ‘The Concept of Integration as an Analytical Tool
and as a Policy Concept’, in Integration Processes and Policies in Europe (Springer Cham), pp. 11-29
- Integration: refers to process of settlement, interaction with the host society, and social
change following immigration (p. 11)
- Two-way process: host society doesn’t remain unaffected
Kastoroyano, Riva (2004), ‘Religion and Incorporation: Islam in France and Germany’, International
Migration Review, vol. 38, no. 3, pp. 1234-1255.
- Religion closely related to national history (p. 1234)
- Secular politics in Europe, esp. France, placed religion in the private domain of individual
believers, opposing it to “public reason”
- Emancipatory movement following Enlightenment removed the individual from religious and
communal constraints, promoting integration into the political community “comprised of
individual citizens”
- The resurgence of religion in public debate nowadays attributed to settlement of post-
colonial migrants, Muslims comprising a large majority.
o Their public faith and demand for recognition and representation of Islam blurs
accepted boundaries between private and public (p. 1235)
- Islam as a transnational political force emerging and causing perceived tension between it
and citizenship and loyalty – some Europeans question Islam’s compatibility with the West
and the ability of its adherents to adopt Western ‘universal’ values
- Events like the Rushdie affair in Britain and the headscarf question in France suggest the
issue is not with the assimilation of immigrants but the recognition of Islam and of a new
emerging majority in Europe.
- Debates need to focus on relationship between church and state to interpret and
acknowledge diversity resulting from the immigration of Muslims (what ?) – their settlement
apparently “tests the principle of secularism in the context of the emergence of
multiculturalism and identity politics in different European countries”
- Public recognition and representation of Islam challenges democratic states’ approach to
diversity and multiculturalism (possible that they’re wrong ?); and counters a dichotomist
view opposing assimilation and multiculturalism
, - Argument that it is impossible for democracies to dissociate multiculturalism from
assimilation and to maintain boundaries between social, cultural and political domains
- Secular state under institutional pressure to reshape its institutions to provide for general
recognition of Islam, or extend them to include newly emerging Islam in European societies
(pp. 1235-6) – “need for institutional assimilation of diversity”
- Politically: states must find the means by which equal institutional representation and
individual national citizenship can be reconciled – how to integrate Muslims into the political
community ? (p. 1236) – need for contemporary acceptance of Islam as part of Europe’s
historical continuity
- Political approach rejects argument that western democracies and Islam are by definition
“incompatible”
- Religion (esp. Islam) as emergent form of corporate ethnicity in France and Germany
Ethnicization of religion in France and Germany
- Historically, religion used as centre of efforts to maintain and transmit values of the old
countries; churches separated by nationality
- Charles Hirschman (2004): “immigrants become Americans by joining a church and
participating in its religious and community life”
- Religious diversity emerged in 1965 as a political ideal linked to immigrants’ assimilation
- One aspect of assimilation in France has been acceptance and internalisation by immigrants
of the separation between religion and public life (pp. 1236-7)
- “cult of assimilation” as basis of national unity seeks to remove differences among citizens,
esp. in their separate religious or linguistic origins, suppressing or obscuring them in private
life once they passed through the “mill of institutions” (p. 1237)
- Tradition finds its most solid anchor in religion – Georges Balandier (1988) – newcomers
arriving in a new society find that religion ‘responds’ to the loss of past common references,
and establishes social bonds; helps ensure respect for cultural traditions
- Religion providing most important components of moral and social order, ethnic pride, and
‘self-enhancement’ – led to defensive traditionalism
- Polish immigration to France (Janine Ponty, 1988): church made up the “soul of resistance”,
and it caused them to bring a polish priest to the pas-de-Calais
o Muslims migrating to France and Germany in early 1970s brought imams to manage
prayer halls in concert with municipal authorities
- Perception of Islam as a “permanent difference” both by immigrants and public authorities is
a step towards the construction and recognition of an ethnic group, generating an
“awareness of belonging” (pp. 1237-8) – institutional basis in the “right to difference”
promoted by the socialist govt in 1981.
o Since, foreigners acting in labour unions, political organisations, or parties (esp.
French communist party) have organised around special cultural traits that have
been invented and reaffirmed through their relationship to politics (p. 1238)
o Younger generation of immigrants express interests in terms of cultural or religious
“identities of origin”; Islam come to signify culture in its entirety and become
another way of reappropriating identity
- “headscarf affair” – Nov 1989 – teenage girls wearing hijabs at public school – commentary
on identity of latest wave of immigrants and of the nation (pp. 1238-9)
o Issue used laicite to illustrate French differences from the secularism of other
western states (p. 1239) – torn between defensive republicanism and a pluralistic
liberalism – some recalled the basic principle of the republic, constituting the “core
