Urban Secularism: Negotiating Religious Diversity in Europe

This book explores how city actors understand, frame, and govern religious diversity, challenging static conceptions of laïcité and the nation. It provides detailed accounts of how religious groups, city officials, municipal employees, secularist actors, and other civil-society organizations negotiate concrete public expressions of religion, illustrating how urban, national, and international contexts interact with one another.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 144 pages
Publication date: 01 August 2022
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd

While French laïcité is often perceived as a fixed concept, its practical implementation is rather complex. What insights can we gain by examining the governance of religion from a dynamic, bottom-up perspective? This book employs an ethnographic approach to explore everyday secularism in the making. By delving into how city actors comprehend, frame, and govern religious diversity, it sheds light on the local factors that shape these processes. In Urban Secularism: Negotiating Religious Diversity in Europe, Julia Martínez-Ariño takes readers on a journey into the heart of laïcité. Through detailed accounts of the ways religious groups, city officials, municipal employees, secularist actors, and other civil society organizations engage in the negotiation of concrete public expressions of religion, the book offers a profound understanding of the dynamics at play. Drawing on a wealth of empirical material, the book demonstrates that urban actors create and reproduce dichotomies of inclusion and exclusion, challenging static conceptions of laïcité and the nation. By illustrating how urban, national, and international contexts interrelate, the book provides researchers with a deeper grasp of the multifaceted governance of religious diversity.

Weight: 280g
Dimension: 234 x 156 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780367696931