L'incidence du facteur religieux dans la “conscience ethnique” des immigrés marocains en Belgique

Abstract

“Ethnic consciousness”, conceived as a functional category of action, only becomes real for the sociologist when identifying the manifestations in behaviours and/or opinions which mould the normative context actors lend to their behaviours. The author, working from empirical research, seeks to grasp the ongoing process of ethno-genesis among immigrants of Moroccan origin in a society like Belgium which has experienced significant post-colonial immigration. The religious factor is certainly far from being the sole at work in the process, yet we ought not to minimize the importance it assumes in the re-elaboration of the identity of transplanted Muslim communities. The ultimate question is whether ethnicity, as a category of actors' social classification, is a relic of the past or remains one of the most fundamental beliefs in post-colonial society, as it was in yesterday's colonial contexts.