The article investigates how young Muslims born and/or raised in Italy perform ‘acts of citizenship’ combining religious belief and civic engagement. We present the results of 40 in-depth interviews carried out with young Muslims active in two associations: Giovani Musulmani d’Italia and Islamic Relief. The aim is to explore how the tactics of visibility, the strategies of recognition ‘from below’ and the forms of transnational mobilisation of Western Muslim activists may trigger processes to ‘denationalize’ the meaning of citizenship, challenging original autochthony as the primordial ‘right’ of belonging. Furthermore, in the Italian model of imperfect secularism, young Muslims’ acts of citizenship can shed light on the limits of the fictitious principle of public ‘neutrality’ as tolerance and the need to redefine the public sphere as a common and heterogeneous space affirming cultural pluralism and the right to difference as integral elements of the foundation of civil society.
AcocellaICataldiSCigliutiK (2016) Between tradition and innovation: religious practices and everyday life of second-generation Muslim women. In: “Fieldwork in Religion”. Equinox Publishing, pp. 199–216.
2.
AhmedL (2011) A Quiet Revolution: The Veil’s Resurgence from Middle East to America. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
3.
AlicinoF (2017) The place of minority religions and the strategy of major denominations. The case of Italy. Osservatorio Costituzionale2: 10–18.
4.
AmbrosiniM (2011) Sociologia Delle Migrazioni. Bologna: Il Mulino.
5.
AsadT (2003) Formations of the Secular. Christianity, Islam, Modernity. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
6.
BeckUBeck-GernsheimE (2009) Global generations and the trap of methodological nationalism for a cosmopolitan turn in the sociology of youth and generation. European Sociological Review25(1): 25–36.
7.
Bellion-JourdanJ (2004) Reseaux transnationaux de l’aide humanitaire islamique: les ONGs islamiques. In: Ben-NéfissaSAbd-al-FattahNHanafiSCarlos-MilaniC (eds), ONG et gouvernance dans le monde arabe. Paris: Khartala e Cedej, pp. 113–142.
8.
BenhabibS (2002) The Claim of Culture: Equality and Diversity in the Global Era. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
9.
CesariJ (2004) When Islam and Democracy Meet: Muslims in Europe and in the United States. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan.
10.
FrégosiF (2009) Formes de Mobilisation Collective des Musulmans en France et en Europe. Revue internationale de politique comparée16: 41–61.1.
11.
FrisinaA (2010) Young muslims’ everyday tactics and strategies: resisting islamophobia, negotiating italianness, becoming citizens. Journal of Intercultural Studies31(5): 557–572.
12.
GaleottiAE (2005) Toleration as Recognition. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press.
13.
GeschiereP (2009) The Perils of Belonging. Autochthony, Citizenship, and Exclusion in Africa and Europe. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
14.
Glick SchillerN (2010) A global perspective on transnational migration: Theorising migration without methodological nationalism. In: BauböckRFaistT (eds), Diaspora and Transnationalism: Concepts, Theories and Methods. Amsterdam: University Press, pp. 109–131.
15.
IsinEF (2008) Theorizing acts of citizenship. In: IsinEFNielsenGM (eds), Acts of Citizenship. London, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 16–43.
16.
JouiliJS (2019) Islam and culture: Dis/junctures in a modern conceptual terra. Comparative Studies in Society and History61(1): 207–237.
17.
KaagM (2011) Connecting to the umma through islamic relief: transnational islamic NGOs in chad. International Development Planning Review33(4): 463–474.
18.
LentinATitleyG (2011) The Crises of Multiculturalism: Racism in a Neoliberal Age. London, UK: Zed Books.
19.
LevittP (2009) Roots and routes: understanding the lives of the second generation transnationally. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies35(7): 1225–1242.
20.
LinklaterA (2002) Cosmopolitan citizenship in handbook of citizenship studies. In: IsinEFTurnerBS (eds), Handbook of Citizenship Studies. London, UK: Sage Publication, pp. 317–332.
21.
MaddanuS (2009) L’islamità dei giovani musulmani e l’ʻijtihad’ moderno: nuove pratiche per una nuova religiosità europea. Rassegna Italiana di Sociologia50(4): 655–680.
22.
MandavilleP (2011) Transnational muslim solidarities and everyday life. Nations and Nationalism17(1): 7–24.
23.
PaceEFrisinaA (2011) Italian secularism revisited? Muslims’ claims in the public sphere and the long struggle towards religious equality. In: KeskinT (ed), The Sociology of Islam. Secularism, Economy and Politics. Reading: Itacha Press, pp. 291–317.
24.
PalmerV (2011) Analysing cultural proximity: islamic relief worldwide and rohingya refugees in Bangladesh. Development in Practice21(1): 96–108.
25.
PepicelliR (2017) Young muslim women of Bengali and moroccan origin in Italy: multiple belongings, transnational trajectories and the emergence of European islam. International Review of Sociology27(1): 61–79.
26.
PetersenMJ (2011) For Humanity or for the Umma? Ideologies of Aid in Four Transnational Muslim NGOs. London, UK: Hurst.
27.
RamadanT (2004) Western Muslims and the Future of Political Islam. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
28.
RamadanT (2009) Radical Reform: Islamic Ethics and Liberation. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
29.
RoyO (2008) La Sainte Ignorance. Le Temps de le Religion sans Culture. Paris: Edition du Seuil.
30.
RudolphPCookD (2014) Jihād. The Oxford Encyclopedia of Islam and Politics. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
31.
Saint-BlancatC (2017) L’islam italien: catalyseur des ambiguïtés et contradictions de la société italienne?Hommes & Migrations316(1): 17–24.
32.
SalihR (2009) Muslim women, fragmented secularism and the construction of interconnected ‘publics’ in Italy. Social Anthropology17(4): 409–423.
33.
SassenS (2002) Towards Post-National and Denationalized Citizenship. In: IsinEFTurnerBS (eds), Handbook of Citizenship Studies. London, UK: Sage Publication, pp. 277–292.
34.
SmithSRSosinM (2001) The varieties of faith-related agencies. Public Administration Review61(6): 651–670.
35.
SoysalYN (2000) Citizenship and Identity: living in diasporas in post-war Europe?Ethnic and Racial Studies23(1): 1–15.
36.
YanowDVan der HaarM (2013) People out of place: allochthony and autochthony in the Netherlands’ identity discourse-metaphors and categories in action. Journal of International Relations and Development16(2): 1–15.
