Lived Religion, Lived Citizenship: The Everyday Experiences of Young Muslims in Italy Between Religion, Morality and Civic Engagement

Abstract

In recent years, both religious studies and citizenship studies have developed research approaches grounded in the everyday experience of social actors, leading to the concepts of lived religion and lived citizenship. The convergence of these approaches has fostered innovative research exploring the interplay between citizenship and religious experience, particularly among migrants and their descendants. Building on these theoretical developments, this paper explores how the lived experience of religiosity intersects with and reinforces that of citizenship among young Muslims with migrant backgrounds in Italy. The research is set in Italy, where Islam is often portrayed as the ultimate form of otherness and focuses on young migrants’ descendants, who have frequently articulated claims to citizenship in relation to their religious belonging. The paper draws on 40 biographical interviews and 4 focus groups conducted with young Muslims with migratory backgrounds living in Italy, collected in the framework of the project ‘Growing old, feeling like citizens?’ (Universities of Padua and Milan-Bicocca). The paper illustrates how the everyday experience of Islam among the young participants entails the upholding of religious and moral values that closely align with the notion of being ‘good citizens’. This convergence between lived citizenship and religion is particularly significant, as it is strategically employed by the interviewees to assert their legitimacy in participating, as Muslims, in Italian civic life.

1. Introduction: Religion and Citizenship: The Link in Everyday Life

In recent decades, driven by the cultural turn and influenced by feminist perspectives, sociological research has increasingly adopted process-oriented approaches that pay attention to the bodily and practical dimensions of the phenomena under study.

In the case of religious studies, institutional definitions of what constitutes religion—often uncritically reproduced in academia (Orsi 2011)—have been challenged by the perspective of lived religion (Hall 1997). This approach abandons predefined understandings of religion ‘in favour of an emphasis on the activities and interpretations of individuals’ (Knibbe and Kupari 2020, p. 159). In other terms, ‘the lived religion approach seeks to examine religion within the matrix of everyday life’ (Kupari 2020, p. 218), observing it through its everyday enactments and through practices taking place beyond institutional religious settings (Ammerman 2007). This research orientation finds theoretical grounding in de Certeau’s theories of everyday life (Woodhead 2013), phenomenological frameworks, praxeological perspectives (Kupari 2016; Ganzevoort and Roeland 2014), and feminist scholarship (Nyhagen 2017). Since its consolidation in the early 2000s, the lived religion approach has found wide application, inspiring studies on online religiosity (Helland 2005), the sensory dimension of religious experience (McGuire 2016), and perceptions of the sacred in domestic and workplace settings (Williams 2010). Although originally developed in the United States within the study of Christianity, the lived religion approach has been rapidly extended to the study of Islam. This perspective has examined religious experience in both Muslim-majority countries (Zubair and Zubair 2017) and minority contexts, frequently with an emphasis on female experiences (Berghammer and Fliegenschnee 2014; Liebelt and Werbner 2018). Studies on everyday Islam in Europe (e.g., Dessing et al. 2013) have investigated daily religious practices, often focusing on descendants of migrants and exploring how they reclaim Islamic identity in everyday life within a non-Islamic context (Erhard and Sammet 2019). This process entails a renegotiation of tradition (Frisina 2010), which takes on varying nuances depending on the intersection between religious belonging and other social categories (Månsson McGinty 2023).

Citizenship studies have likewise seen the emergence of a lived perspective. Formalist approaches have been increasingly challenged and expanded by substantive conceptions of citizenship (Isin and Nielsen 2008), which consider citizenship as something practised and experienced in everyday life (Staeheli et al. 2012). This has led to the concept of lived citizenship, which seeks to explore ‘people’s everyday lived experiences of being citizens’ (Laksana and Wood 2018, p. 808). Under this framework, citizenship studies have deepened their focus on the spatial, relational, performative and affective dimensions of citizenship experience (Kallio et al. 2020), the same dimensions emphasised by studies on lived religion (Ammerman 2015). Studies on lived citizenship have also paid particular attention to young people, particularly those of foreign origin. Positioned at the intersection of multiple political and cultural spaces, the descendants of migrants offer a lens through which to examine changing conceptions of the nation (Antonsich 2022) and related transformations in citizenship practices (Cherubini 2011; Kyei et al. 2022). Numerous studies have therefore explored how they experience citizenship in everyday life through civic practices (Harris et al. 2010; Hörschelmann and El Refaie 2013), political claims (Kallio and Häkli 2011; Khan 2021) and emotional ties (Wood 2013; Freyer 2019).

Hence, both scholarships on religion and on citizenship contribute to the broader sociological shift towards practical and lived approaches, paying particular attention to the descendants of migrants as agents of social change

2. At the Intersection: Merging Lived Perspectives in the Analysis

The relationship between the perspectives of lived religion and lived citizenship goes beyond their epistemological and methodological affinity. Both approaches focus on how social actors experience (political and religious) forms of membership that entail participation in communities characterised by symbolic and value-based boundaries. It was particularly Line Nyanghen who explored—under the notion of lived religious citizenship—the relationship between lived religion and substantive citizenship, with a specific focus on the notion of belonging and participatory practices (Nyhagen 2015). These experiences appear to reinforce one another when religious and national communities overlap, as in the case of Christians in South America (Rubin et al. 2014).

The issue becomes more complex in cases of minority religious experiences challenging the national mainstream. A striking example is Islam, which in Italy (though the argument applies to other European countries as well) has been cast as an extreme case of cultural and political otherness (Allievi 2005), portraying Muslims as ‘potentially disloyal citizens’ (Sarli and Mezzetti 2020). Within this framework, younger generations have been called upon to reconcile minority faith with participation in national life, mobilising Islam—in particular, its moral principles—in forms of active citizenship (Giacalone 2024). European research has thus shown a link between the experience of citizenship and religion among the descendants’ generation, which gives rise not only to visible civic engagement but also to the reaffirmation of multiple identities (Sheikhzadegan 2019; Vicini 2021; Calabretta 2023).

Maintaining a dialogue between the perspectives of lived religion and lived citizenship thus appears to be a particularly fruitful direction for research. This intersection of perspectives allows us to go beyond the heuristic potential of the two approaches taken individually, highlighting both convergences and tensions between the expression of religion and participation in the community of fellow citizens. This is particularly useful for investigating the experiences of subjects ‘on the margins’ of these community frameworks, such as the children of migrants (Knibbe and Kupari 2020, p. 167), and for observing how their everyday practices transform the relationship between religion and citizenship and, consequently, the ‘larger normative debates’ (Nyhagen 2017, p. 497) concerning membership in both political and religious terms. The transformative potential of the practices enacted by young people of migrant origin must nevertheless contend with the inertia of the national order, which seeks to regulate the expressions of ‘marginal’ subjects and to restrict the space for their self-expression, favouring civic and religious practices that are less assertive and conflictual.

The paper engages precisely with this terrain, exploring how the representation and practice of Islam among a group of young people of foreign origin inform their positioning within Italian citizenship. These dynamics are examined through an approach attentive to the lived and everyday dimension. The paper is guided by the question of how these young people articulate the relationship between Islam and citizenship, the role of morality in this dialogue, how they navigate tensions between the two reference points, and ultimately, how their practices reconfigure their meaning.

Following a methodological section, the paper contextualises the presence of new generations of foreign origin and Muslim faith in Italy. The subsequent sections analyse their narratives concerning political and religious belonging and their everyday practices. The paper concludes with a final section outlining the study’s key findings.

3. Methods

This study draws on qualitative data collected within the PRIN-PNRR project, Growing old, feeling like citizens?, conducted by the Universities of Padua and Milan-Bicocca. For the purposes of this specific research, forty interviews were carried out by the University of Padua in the provinces of Padua and Verona, encompassing both urban and provincial contexts. The interviews involved young Italian Muslims of North African origin (35 of Moroccan and 5 of Tunisian origin), aged between 20 and 35 years. Within this rather broad age range, we focused on experiences of entry into adult life, engaging with young people who are either completing their university studies or are already active in the labour market. This shared biographical stage, combined with the fact that most interviewees are clustered around an average age of 28, allows for a nuanced yet coherent picture of this generation. The participants are evenly distributed by gender (21 individuals identifying as women and 19 as men). In generational terms, more than half of the interviewees (22) were born in Italy; nearly a quarter (9) arrived before the start of primary school (generation 1.75: Rumbaut 2004), and another quarter (9) arrived after the age of six (generation 1.5: Rumbaut 2004). In terms of relationship status, approximately half of the sample reported being single (22), while the remainder were either married (11) or in a relationship (7). The majority of participants hold Italian citizenship, despite the particularly restrictive regulations governing naturalisation1.

The selection of this specific group of participants is based both on demographic considerations—linked to the longstanding presence of North African migration in Italy, and thus the existence of an adult ‘second generation’—and on their shared Islamic faith. This group appears particularly subjected to symbolic exclusion rooted in Islamophobic prejudice and to processes of structural and social exclusion, exemplified by high school failure rates (Azzolini and Barone 2013). It is therefore particularly relevant to examine how the participants experience citizenship and religion in their everyday lives, and how these two dimensions intersect and shape each other.

The interviews were conducted using a biographical approach, a widely employed technique in studies of lived experiences of citizenship and religion (Erhard and Sammet 2019; Berghammer and Fliegenschnee 2014), as it allows for the exploration of everyday representations and practices as they evolve over time (Cardano 2019). The data collection also included four focus groups with young Muslims of migrant background. These focus groups facilitated the investigation of how orientations, discourses and representations surrounding lived citizenship and religious practice are socially constructed. Author 2 was responsible for collecting the data. Being male, white, of native background, and an atheist (while socialised within Catholicism), he represents the national mainstream. These characteristics undoubtedly played a role during data collection, during which participants occasionally expressed socially desirable responses. Nonetheless, this tendency was mitigated by three factors. First, he entered the field after previous research with similar social groups and through a process of relationship-building with participants. In addition, the researcher shares with participants a similar stage in life (he is 32 years old) and—albeit only partially—a migratory background, being an internal migrant (from central to northern Italy) and the child of internal migrants (from southern to central Italy). His familiarity with the field and these biographical characteristics partly reduced potential barriers with interviewees.

Given its qualitative nature, the study does not aim to produce generalisable findings but rather seeks to develop new interpretative frameworks for understanding the everyday experiences of young Muslims in minority contexts and how these experiences reshape the contours of faith and citizenship. For this article, the excerpts quoted from the interviews and focus group transcripts have been translated into English by the authors, who ensured the accuracy and faithfulness of the original meanings. The interviews were transcribed verbatim and coded and analysed based on a set of predefined analytical categories.

4. Context

Despite the enduring rhetoric that depicts immigration to Italy as a ‘recent’ and ‘exceptional’ phenomenon (Ambrosini 2020), the first significant immigration flows reached the country as early as the 1970s, subsequently increasing steadily. The initial arrivals were primarily workers (and later their families) from neighbouring regions, particularly North Africa and the Balkans. It was in the 1990s that migration became a central topic in political discourse, partly fuelled by a growing climate of Islamophobia (Allievi 2003), which prompted successive Italian governments to adopt legislation aimed at hindering the long-term settlement of foreign communities. Nevertheless, migration has now become a structural feature of Italian society. If we consider also naturalised citizens, the number of residents with a migrant background in Italy is approximately 7 million (ISTAT 2022), representing nearly 12% of the total population—comparable to figures in European countries with a longer-standing immigration history. With regard to the younger generations, estimates by Italian scholars indicate that the number of individuals under 35 with a migrant background, regardless of their citizenship status, totals around 2.8 million (Riniolo 2020).

In terms of settlement patterns, non-Italian citizens reside predominantly in northern Italy (accounting for 59% of the total), which is also home to the majority of ‘new’ Italian citizens (66.5%) (ISTAT 2023). This trend reflects the higher demand for labour in the northern regions, which has led to a substantial and well-established foreign presence, fostering the emergence of a new generation with a migrant background. Veneto region—located in the north-east of Italy—ranks second among Italian regions for the number of high school students without Italian citizenship (Ministero dell’Istruzione 2020), a figure that highlights the significance of the foreign presence in this area. At the same time, this region is marked by the cultural and political influence of xenophobic parties—such as the Lega—which have exacerbated Islamophobic and exclusionary rhetoric towards the Muslim and immigrant population (Marengo 2015). Verona—one of the sites of this research—is known for the presence of far-right groups that have carried out attacks and intimidation against people of North African origin2. The Veneto, therefore, represents an area where processes of othering towards the Muslim population are particularly pronounced, making it a key context for understanding the dynamics of exclusion and resistance (Frisina 2014), in which young people with migrant backgrounds play an active and visible role.

5. Empirical Part

5.1. Belonging to the Citizenry

Belonging constitutes one of the core dimensions of the lived experience of citizenship. As Kallio and colleagues observe, ‘feelings of belonging or not belonging are inseparable from the experience of both being and feeling a citizen’ (Kallio et al. 2020, p. 6). According to Yuval-Davis, while belonging may be understood as an emotional attachment—exemplified by the feeling of ‘being at home’—it simultaneously becomes the subject of political struggles, as various actors seek to ‘construct belonging in particular ways for particular communities’ (Yuval-Davis 2006, p. 197). Migrants and their descendants are undoubtedly at the centre of the struggle to define the scope and permeability of the national community, and it is within this context that legislative measures hindering their acquisition of Italian citizenship must be situated (Calabretta and Ragone 2024). Following Honneth (2004), such legal exclusion can be understood as a process of misrecognition of this social group, with negative consequences for their capacity to develop a stable and socially supported identity. It is particularly striking that the very term ‘recognition’ emerges in Ali’s own words:

A.

I used to think, how is this possible? I was born in this country, and yet until I was 12 or 13, I had to renew my residence permit. That was something that really made me angry. Honestly, I felt let down.

Int.

Do you remember the queues at the police station?

A.

Yes, I remember, because we had to go at dawn when it was still dark… I remember this scene when it was still dark and I was sleeping in the car while my parents were queuing, but it was a very long queue. And thinking about it, you say, ‘What the hell, how can I feel accepted or feel part of a country that doesn’t recognise me, though I was born here?’ (Ali, 34, male)

However, being ‘citizens on paper’ does not shield individuals from a series of symbolic and social obstacles that maintain the divide between ‘nationals’ and ‘non-nationals’ (Sayad 1994). These barriers emerge in the everyday lives of the interviewees, intersecting with their gendered and class positions (Wood 2013). One example is Dalila who—although she has managed to pursue a prestigious career as a medical doctor—still experiences episodes of exclusion that affect the affective sense of belonging which characterises lived citizenship (Kallio et al. 2020).

D.

I’ve always felt more Italian than Tunisian. It’s hard to quantify, but sometimes I think about it—maybe 70% Italian and 30% Tunisian. So, I don’t really feel like a foreigner here, but there are some things I couldn’t have expected, like the house, which was a real headache back there, both in Genoa and here when I came back to Verona.

Int.

Has anyone ever made you feel like a foreigner?

D.

Yes, because when you call about a flat and they ask you, ‘What’s your name?’, ‘Dalila’, ‘Surname?’, then after you say your surname, they say, ‘The flatmates don’t want foreigners’. I cried for two days when that happened. (Dalila, 27, female)

These obstacles do not prevent the interviewees from developing a sense of embeddedness in the Italian context, grounded in their practical and everyday experience (Staeheli et al. 2012). Within this framework, their Italianness is something to be performed (Grimaldi and Vicini 2024) and negotiated (Frisina 2010) in the encounters of daily life, adapting to contexts and situations. Amina’s words clearly highlight the situated and relational character of (self-)definitions of identity.

A.

Italianised in the sense that, for example, I don’t celebrate Christmas, but for me it’s a holiday. When Christmas comes, I have to stay at home and make my beautiful Christmas lunch, no matter what. […] The same goes for Easter and New Year’s Eve, I don’t believe in them, but I feel they are part of me. I grew up here, I was born here, so… […] when it suits me, I’m Italian, when it doesn’t suit me, I’m Moroccan, born and raised in Italy.

Int.

When does it not suit you?

A.

When I’m out with friends who need to understand who I am, I don’t say I’m Italian, I’m Moroccan, born and raised in Italy, to make people understand a little bit who I really am. At work, on the other hand, I’m Italian, born and raised in Italy, with citizenship and everything. […] This is also because there is a risk that if you say you are Moroccan, you won’t get a job. (Amina, 22, female).

The transnational biographies of these young people—marked by recurrent mobility between their country of origin and Italy—immerse them in multiple life contexts, prompting them to reflect on where they feel ‘at home’ in a more acute way than their native peers. Within this framework, representations and experiences of belonging appear as plural and shifting (Colombo et al. 2009). While participation in the Italian community takes shape through the practical experiences of everyday life, the persistence of exclusionary rhetoric and experiences of marginalisation lead some interviewees to assert their Italian identity in a vocal and explicit manner. This stance is articulated, for instance, in the claim to a political role within the Italian community rather than within that of the country of origin itself.

In Morocco, I have never actually voted or done anything, even though in theory I can, but as a matter of principle, in the sense that it seems a bit… wrong to me, I mean, why should I vote for a country where I don’t live? For me, having a Moroccan identity card shows that I am part of that community, but I think it is wrong to have a say in the decisions of a country where I do not live every day. […]. On the other hand, precisely for this reason, living in Italy and having grown up here, I feel the need to make a difference.

(Mariem, 24, female)

The narratives of the interviewees thus confirm the deep everyday embeddedness of citizenship and the liminal positioning of migrant descendants, caught between experiences of exclusion and claims for inclusion within the boundaries of the citizenry.

5.2. Defining Oneself as Muslim: Youth Claims and Practices

With regard to religious affiliation as well, participants express forms of claim-making and re-appropriation of belonging. Religion is transmitted primarily within the family, the context in which interviewees are socialised into Islam and its associated practices. However, mediating between parental and community expectations regarding Islamic affiliation and everyday life in a non-Muslim context can be challenging, and doubts and questions may arise concerning the role of religion in their identity configuration. Within this framework, young descendants of migrants find themselves constructing their own autonomous relationship with religious belonging. For many of those who identify as believers, Islam must be consciously chosen anew during their transition to adulthood. In this phase, religion is transformed from a passively inherited legacy into a personal and rediscovered faith (Maniscalco 2011).

F.

You can’t inherit religion, in my opinion […] you have to start from scratch, see what attracts you most. I mean, I might feel attracted to Buddhism, so why should I say that there is Allah? Maybe there is Buddha.

Int.

When was the moment when you felt Muslim?

F.

When I had knee surgery, I had a lot of time to do everything I wanted, and I learned a lot about religion (Farah, 25, female)

Part of this process of reclaiming Islam in a personal way also involves emancipation from community networks. Many interviewees seek answers to their religious doubts on the internet rather than in the mosque, which is seldom attended by young descendants who struggle with the dominance of traditional approaches typical of the parental generation (Mezzetti and Ricucci 2019). Their relationship with Islam is thus characterised by its extra-institutional nature, rooted in everyday choices and practices. The European Islam shaped by the descendants of migrants (Dessing et al. 2013) is therefore marked by the lived and spiritual dimension through which faith is interpreted. An illustrative example is offered by Achraf, whose distancing from community networks becomes even stronger in order to avoid episodes of discrimination linked to his homosexuality (see also Peumans 2014), thereby reinforcing the lived and personal nature of his religiosity:

I am a believer, I believe in my religion, I believe in the ideals of my religion. I am not a practising believer, rightly so, but I live my religion personally, in the sense that I manage it in my daily life. I make religious choices that I think reflect who I am and then I evaluate the aspects that are perhaps a little more rigid: I think about those a lot to try to find compromises […] no, I can’t [go to the mosque], I mean, it’s difficult for me to interact with people who are against something that can be seen as wrong […] going there would always be a bit of an affront, a conflict, and I wouldn’t feel comfortable

(Achraf, 30, male).

The demand for a religious interpretation independent of community contexts is particularly explicit in some women’s accounts. In line with previous research in Italy (Acocella and Pepicelli 2016), the young women interviewed tend to emphasise the egalitarian nature of Islam, in direct contrast to the gender discrimination embedded in their cultures of origin. Within this framework, advocating for a different understanding of Islam becomes synonymous with reclaiming its correct interpretation.

A.

If someone asks me, ‘Why are you Muslim?’, I proudly reply, ‘Because I want to be’, not because I was born Muslim, but because I want to be. That’s the difference […]. Try explaining that Islamic culture is not the same as the Islamic religion.

Int.

Explain that to me too.

A.

The difference is that in culture they are more closed-minded, but that is because the past has made them that way. It is not the same for religion. […]

Int.

So by cultures you mean traditions?

A.

The traditions specific to different countries. They coincide with each other, but sometimes they are literally opposed to religion. (Amina, 22, female)

We can thus interpret the interviewees’ relationship with Islam not in terms of ‘loss’ but as an identity ‘re-shaping’ (Cerchiaro 2020), during which a direct and unmediated engagement with Islam emerges, permeating the everyday lives of these young people.

5.3. Living Islam in a Non-Muslim Country

It seems useful to further explore the reciprocal relationship between expressions of national and religious belonging, given that transformations in the latter appear to be intertwined with minority status within the Italian context. ‘Living a life marked by secularised social time, [Islam’s] profession of faith and practice require a deeply felt personal commitment. It represents the transition from a communal Islam, sustained by collective routines, to one based on individual choice’ (Maniscalco 2011, p. 76).

I think that precisely because you live in a country that does not represent your roots, you are even more inclined to be attached to your country, that is, to your parents’ origins, both culturally and spiritually, because it gives you comfort, meaning and a whole range of things. On the other hand, my cousins down there [in Morocco], for example, almost none of them wear the veil. […] I mean, you are born and raised in a country where that is the culture, so for you it is taken for granted, OK? Having been born and raised in a country that is very different culturally, for me, getting closer to the spiritual side is a way of reclaiming my identity. They don’t have to do all this work

(Sonia, 28, female).

Sonia’s words are particularly significant. They show, first of all, how the disconnection established by descendants between religious belonging (spiritualised) and cultural affiliations (multiple) stems from the practical need to identify as Muslim within a minority context. This condition—which distinguishes them from relatives in the country of origin—requires them to develop de-culturalised and personal interpretations of faith, which must then be defended as the correct understandings of Islam. The close relationship between religious experience and positioning within the hierarchies of the national community thus becomes apparent. As highlighted by Priori (2021) in a study of young Bangladeshis in Rome, the discourse on returning to the origins of Islam intertwines with that on one’s ‘integration’ in Italy. In this framework, where Islam is not only a minority religion but a symbol of true otherness (Allievi 2012), spending time with other descendants of immigrants can provide a space in which to share practices and a sense of belonging without appearing ‘exceptional’. While all interviewees raise the issue of how to live Islam on a daily basis in the European context, the degree of faith, family socialisation, and the types of social networks they engage with play a role in shaping their approach to harmonising daily life with the precepts of Islam. Abed, who is personally involved in a religious association, provides an example of how this effort permeates his daily life.

A person who says they are thinking of buying a house is 90% inherently aware that they will have to take out a mortgage and pay interest, etc. For me, it is not like that. When I say I have to make a certain investment or something else, it has to be compliant with religious dictates. These are the most specific, most significant things. I might go out to a restaurant to eat or something, and I always ask myself whether this is halal, not halal and so on. […] Then what you learn is to live it and apply it in practice. It makes no sense to follow a path if you do not incorporate it into your being, […] into your daily life

(Abed, 36, male).

Others—as in the case of Zahra—develop a different way of adjusting religion to everyday life. In such cases, religious belonging is reduced to basic culturally supported practices, such as fasting during Ramadan. So, emphasising the inner and individual nature of one’s religiosity can also serve as a strategy to claim flexibility in complying with Islamic practices, thereby aligning one’s daily routines more closely with those of the non-Muslim majority population.

I feel Muslim, so maybe I don’t eat pork, I observe Ramadan, I believe in Allah, but I have a lot of respect for other religions, and I have no problem going into a church. Let’s say I have a very open mind […] Living here gives you a different approach, because the Muslim religion sometimes conflicts with Western freedom. So automatically you have to make a choice, say ‘OK, I’m Muslim but I practise in my own way’ because if you had to practise according to the dictates of religion, you would have to change so many things. So automatically, we are all personalising our religion.

(Zahra, 24, female).

Living one’s religion in a minority context thus gives young believers a task of reconciliation that is absent from the experience of those living in Muslim-majority countries. It compels them to reflect on the importance they attribute to Islam in their lives, to question the lawfulness of certain actions, and to scrutinise whether to adopt religious practices that generate visibility and potential labelling. The presence of these reflections on the legitimacy of one’s own religious expressions—particularly within the public sphere—reveals a form of internalisation of the social control exerted by the mainstream society over the practices of marginalised subjectivities. In this same vein, in this negotiation between self and social context, being Muslim among non-Muslims also means representing—as in a synecdoche—the entire community of believers. Their actions are not measured solely by their own desires, but also in relation to how they may be perceived both by the majority society and by fellow believers. It is within this framework that the interviewees’ reflections on the veil take shape.

The veil is actually something I will wear sooner or later, I know I want to wear it, not now, but because, in my opinion, I see it as a symbol, something I would like to respect. I would not respect it at the moment; I would not wear it as I should. And in addition, in my opinion, the veil is something I want to wear at a time when I know I have a good job and am in a stable situation. Because my mother also had problems wearing the veil at work

(Mariem, 24, female)

As Zahra asserts, in everyday life, participants are led to ‘personalise their religion’ in order to resolve the tensions between life in Italy—with its specific demands and persistent stigmatisation—and the various forms of daily Islamic practice. This process unfolds through the lived experiences of the interviewees, in which their representations of cultural and religious belonging are reshaped.

5.4. Islam as a Compass of Values: Religion and ‘Politesse’

Although varying degrees of compliance with Islamic practices emerge in the interviewees’ experiences, there is widespread recognition of a moral dimension inherent in Islam, connected to its ethical precepts. In this sense, Islam serves not only as a source of spiritual support but also as a moral compass in social interactions.

Being Muslim also helps me with spirituality, with prayers, etc., in times of difficulty, to cheer myself up, to feel better. And on a social level, being Muslim leads me to behave towards other people… for example, the prophets ultimately [say that] I must not steal, I must not harm others, I must be more understanding, more open with everyone, regardless of ethnicity, religion, political or sexual orientation, or whatever. […] So yes, to answer your question, yes, it also teaches you how to behave

(Ali, 34, male).

Ali’s words reveal a clear intertwining between religious practice—particularly an Islam that has returned to its sources—and the experience of citizenship, understood in his case as support for others. While this represents the most evident manifestation of lived religious citizenship (Nyhagen 2015), the interplay between citizenship and lived religion also emerges through the self-discipline associated with religious practices (such as fasting during Ramadan), which helps interviewees cope with challenging moments, often linked to experiences of exclusion. In this sense, Islam equips individuals to face life’s trials. Within a worldview in which one’s life course is believed to be part of a higher plan, difficulties and moments of crisis are understood as ‘tests’ to be accepted as integral and necessary components of one’s journey:

One of the values I feel most strongly is gratitude, that is, not thinking that this life is always a negative thing and thinking that it is more of a test, that this life is a test. […] It is a journey in which there are things that may go well and things that may go badly, but the important thing is to keep going and not dwell on the negative things. […] In fact, we always say alhamdulillah, thank God.

(Rachid, 26, male)

Respectability in social interactions, self-control over one’s actions and desires, and acceptance of life’s hardships: these principles seem to nurture the image of a moral and ‘polite’ individual. It is in this light that Sayad’s reflections on the politeness imposed on migrants by European society—as a form of political silencing—re-emerge: ‘the political neutrality that the political demands of foreign residents who are confined to the non-political is certainly more acceptable and more easily obtained if we locate it in the register of politeness rather than in the sphere of the political, even though that is its true territory. At an unconscious level, it is politeness that prevents the foreigner from playing a political part in the political affairs (internal and external) of the host country’ (Sayad 1999, p. 497). For the Algerian author, migrants—even more so their descendants—challenge the State order, built on the division between ‘nationals’ and ‘non-nationals’. To maintain this order, migrants and their descendants must therefore be excluded from full citizenship in both symbolic and social terms, even before legal terms (Calabretta et al. 2025). This interpretation helps to illuminate the position of the young interviewees, who share not only a migrant background but also the Islamic faith—a powerful marker of symbolic exclusion in Europe (Sarli and Mezzetti 2020). For them, access to citizenship appears possible only through ‘reassuring the dominant’ (Sayad 1999, p. 504) of their politesse in the civic and political sphere. In this context, Islamic belonging can appear legitimate as long as it inspires moral stances that do not seek to shatter the foundations of political and social organisation.

In the end, this is what Muslims have in common with what is written in the Constitution: we can say that it is [also a precept] of Islam to behave like civilised people. And Islam teaches this […] So for a Muslim, the guide is the prophet Mohammed, and therefore we try to follow him from that point of view, to be… to have good character, to behave well towards others

(Ali, 34, male).

It is in everyday life and in the lived dimension of religion and citizenship that these civic practices—reassuring and conciliatory in character—emerge. It thus appears that marginalised subjectivities are compelled—in articulating their civic and political practices—to conform to the expectations of social desirability expressed by the majority society, which thereby exerts a subtle form of social control over them.

[Islam] for me represents… a lot of principles that allow you to be an added value to society, as there is a strong idea of helping others, seeing if someone needs help, being there for them, being kind, being supportive. […] because I also see among my peers that this idea of individualism is taking over, and I see it in everyday situations

(Sonia, 28, female).

Sayad defines ‘political mutism’ as the confinement of migrants and their descendants to the non-political sphere imposed by the State. Despite the pervasiveness of this condition, the interviewees’ narratives also reveal stances that regard belonging to Islam as a source of ‘voice’ (Hirschman 1970). This is particularly the case for those deeply embedded within religious communities, who express a desire for a redefinition of the institutional relationship between Islam and the State:

In recent years, I have sometimes considered the idea of pursuing a path towards politics, but only if it could be of benefit in representing Muslim communities, to try… because there is this issue of agreements between the Italian State and the Islamic religion, which is practically the only religion that is not recognised3. So, every now and then, I think I have done these studies, maybe I could help.

(Assad, 27, male)

From the analysis of the interviews, what emerges is not simply an overlap between lived citizenship and lived religion, but rather a close entanglement, in which the position of migrant descendants within citizenship hierarchies shapes their religious practice. As this final excerpt shows, this relationship is not only one of convergence but can also conceal tensions.

5.5. Associationism and Public Visibility

As noted above, many young people interviewed construct their relationship with Islam in individual terms and tend to distance themselves from community networks and traditional interpretations of religion, which they perceive as resistant to the compromises necessitated by life in Italy. Nevertheless, the challenges of reconciling multiple identities give rise to a parallel desire to connect with peers who share similar cultural backgrounds and religious affiliations. These social connections are often facilitated by participation in associations.

In high school, my friendships grew stronger, the Tunisian, Moroccan ones, they expanded. I was already 14–15 years old when I also began to delve into the Tunisian context, volunteering, joining associations. There were the Young Muslims of Italy, we had an association in Verona, I did voluntary work with Islamic Relief, always through the Islamic centre […] I became more attached to this world and this type of friendship than to my school friends because I saw them as too distant from me, that is, I had already begun to understand that there was… that we were too distant

(Maya, 25, female)

Getting to know others who are ‘similar’ and sharing questions with them—whether in informal groups or through associations—appears to offer support in the process of adjusting and harmonising daily life in Italy with one’s Islamic heritage (Priori 2021). Within associations, this harmonisation often follows a dual trajectory: on one hand, strengthening personal faith, and on the other, engaging in active citizenship (Nyhagen 2015). In fact, through public initiatives, these associations seek to assert the legitimacy of Islam’s presence in the public sphere in Italy and advocate for ‘the public recognition of an Italo-Muslim identity’ (Cigliuti 2018, p. 80).

The Islamic Association in Italy is not something we would call ‘casa e chiesa’4, but rather it touches on the most fundamental concept of the individual, that is, being able to live in society in accordance with religious precepts and also being a bearer of those precepts, according to a concept of honesty, determination, fairness, helping others and so on. […] We did something also with other associations… for example, in the field of blood donation, and now we are actively involved in a campaign against Islamophobia in Turin, so yes, we are trying to put it into practice.

(Abed, 36, male)

However, this projection into the public domain requires a certain politesse—an alignment with the norms of ‘good citizenship’, including for associations. Establishing, also through collective action, a link between Islamic identity and civic engagement becomes a strategic means of legitimising one’s presence in the public sphere and Italian civic life in a negotiated, non-confrontational manner.

In addition to doing things strictly within the association, we often find ourselves doing something outside as well. For example, we see that the street is dirty, so we put on our vests and go out and start cleaning. Or maybe we all go together to donate blood. These are activities that can be done both as a group and individually, so everyone takes responsibility for a moment.

(Akram, 25, male).

While individual experiences may give rise to spaces of tension and negotiation between the demands of citizenship and those of religion, within associative bodies—given their visibility—a conciliatory attitude appears to dominate, resembling in this respect the model of first-generation associations.

6. Conclusions

This paper has explored how a group of young descendants of Muslim migrants experience faith and citizenship in their daily lives in Italy. In both dimensions, the interviewees occupy a liminal position: their religion is not only a minority faith but also a symbol of otherness, and their citizenship—often painstakingly achieved in legal terms—remains contested in dominant representations. The paper has examined how this unique social group expresses civic belonging in practical ways and develops a specific definition of religiosity. As shown, reconciling these dimensions involves continuous negotiation and effort, with convergence between religious and civic experience often emerging in practical and even unconscious forms.

A key finding of the study is the deep interpenetration between religion and citizenship. In the biographical accounts of young Italian Muslims of foreign origin, one cannot understand their religious practices without also considering their marginalisation from full citizenship. At the same time, the way in which participation in citizenship is represented and expressed (both individually and as a group) cannot be disconnected from their religious affiliation. This understanding stems directly from the lived approach adopted in the research. It is in the mundane, everyday experiences of these young people—often overlooked by institutional frameworks—that this intertwining of religion and citizenship becomes evident. Their choices regarding consumption, socialisation, leisure, and investments reflect this entanglement of multiple affiliations.

This is not merely a practical intertwining, but rather a reciprocal relationship that exerts influence on both poles. The conditions of religious minorities can indeed foster open and multifaceted conceptions of citizenship, albeit grounded in a consensualist vision of the citizenry. At the same time, a marginal position within citizenship hierarchies may require a rethinking of one’s legitimacy in the public sphere, favouring more privatised and spiritual approaches to religion. These dynamics—which have emerged throughout the paper—highlight the need to adopt an intersectional perspective when examining the civic and religious participation of minorities. The paper has also gone a step further, highlighting not only the existence of a dialectical relationship between religiosity and civic engagement, but also its connection to deeper political tensions. Portrayed as bearers of a radical cultural and religious otherness, the young people interviewed are subjected to strong pressures to remain at the margins of political debate, or at most to adopt conciliatory positions—the only ones legitimised within the symbolic order of the Nation-State. These dynamics of marginalisation reveal the State’s attempt to exercise social control over marginalised subjectivities, thereby distancing—as far as possible—any transformation of existing social orders.

In theoretical terms, the paper demonstrates that the continuities between lived religion and lived citizenship approaches are not accidental. Both frameworks emphasise the practical and embodied dimensions of belonging to a community (whether religious or civic) that generates values, expectations, and behavioural norms. Intersecting these two perspectives facilitates further steps toward de-essentialising social affiliations and categories, acknowledging instead their composite and intersectional nature. From this perspective, the lived approach to religion and citizenship should continue to harness the strengths of qualitative methodologies, while avoiding the risk of descriptive particularism that overlooks the influence of broader material and symbolic structures. Such risks have already been widely critiqued in both citizenship studies (Müller 2022) and lived religion research (Kupari 2020). In this paper, situating individual experiences and narratives within the structural contexts in which difference is produced and experienced allowed for highlighting the instrumental use of a conciliatory conception of citizenship, contiguous with Sayad’s notion of politesse (Sayad 1994).

Although limited to the group of Muslims of North African origin, the findings of this paper—for example, about processes of exclusion from mainstream representations of citizenship—appear consistent with those of other studies on young Italian Muslims of Pakistani and Bangladeshi background (Priori 2021; Acocella and Pepicelli 2016). Processes of symbolic exclusion from the perimeter of citizenship thus seem to intertwine religious with racial exclusion, continuing to reproduce an idea of Italian-ness as white and homogeneous, which is slowly being eroded by the everyday practices of these migrant descendants (Antonsich 2018). Aware of the limits of this paper, we argue that comparative studies are needed that also consider other groups of descendants, to better capture the unfolding and multiplicity of the processes through which nationhood and citizenship are being reconfigured in Italy. We also see as necessary and urgent a systematic treatment of the entanglement between Islamic belonging and citizenship at the European level. Across Europe, indeed, there are diverse experiences of citizenship-building and of managing religious difference, going well beyond the well-known opposition between English multiculturalism and French assimilationism. Updating these studies and extending them to Southern and Eastern Europe is necessary to obtain an up-to-date picture of how young Muslims engage with national citizenship across the continent.

Despite these limitations, the study yields several clear policy implications. Firstly, and as repeatedly emphasised by several associations led by young people with a migratory background, there is an urgent need to revise Italian legislation to bring it into closer alignment with the country’s current demographic configuration. This concerns the citizenship law, which, being grounded in the principle of jus sanguinis, continues to reproduce ethnicised representations of the nation, and the absence of an agreement (Intesa) between the State and Islamic institutions, which reinforces the perception of Islam as an ‘exceptional’ or ‘problematic’ religion within the national context. Finally, it would be desirable to foster a shift in public and media narratives—one capable of recognising the voices of the descendants of migration as legitimate actors in the national public sphere and, as such, entitled to articulate dissent in relation to the legislative, symbolic, and social marginalisation to which they are often subjected.

In conclusion, this study outlines a path for future inquiry, advocating for a holistic approach to the lived experiences of social actors—one that can generate deeper and more nuanced understandings of their interwoven forms of social participation. This analytical orientation not only responds to the theoretical demands of contemporary religious studies (Knibbe and Kupari 2020) but is also increasingly vital in the study of citizenship.