Aix-Marseille Université,
Centre St Charles, case 10
3, place Victor Hugo
13331 Marseille, cedex 03
France
Tél. : +33 (0) 4 13 55 07 47
Fax : +33 (0) 4 91 08 30 36
lped univ-provence.fr
Evolving Toward a Religious Anthropology of MovementBava S., Migration-Religion Studies in France : Evolving Toward a Religious Anthropology of Movement, Annual Review of Anthropology, 2011, N°40, 493-507.
octobre 2011
As the emergence and visibility of the religious on the African and European migratory scenes is generating much debate, 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 migrations in France have opened the door to a new research field in terms of method and inquiry. Thus, as we will observe, anthropologists of African migrations have enabled us to reexamine the object of religion within migration, and remove it from an ethnicizing, identity-based approach.