Migration-Religion Studies in France: Evolving Toward a Religious Anthropology of Movement

Abstract

The emergence and visibility of the religious on the African and European migratory scenes are generating much debate; thus this article explores how scientific thought and analysis of the subject of “religion-migration” has gradually been built up in France. Over three decades, the developing academic debate about issues of migration, identity, then religion within migration, and migrants' religion has revealed many tensions, especially about the question of Islam and/or religious minorities within migration. Through selective review of these debates, I attempt to comprehend perceptions and research about the religion-migration scene since the 1980s. From an anthropologist's viewpoint, I also explore whether studies of African migration in France have opened the door to a new research field in terms of method and inquiry. Thus, as we observe, anthropologists studying African migrations have enabled us to reexamine the object of religion within migration and to remove it from an ethnicizing, identity-based approach.