Conceptualizing lived religious citizenship: a case-study of Christian and Muslim women in Norway and the United Kingdom

Abstract

AcknowledgmentsThe author wishes to thank Esmeranda Manful (UK) and Beatrice Halsaa and Hanna Helseth (Norway) who, as part of the Work Package 4, Strand 2 team of the FEMCIT project, conducted the interviews with religious women. She also wishes to thank the editors of the journal and the anonymous reviewers for their constructive and very useful comments and suggestions. Preliminary project findings were reported in a working paper submitted to the European Union (see Nyhagen Predelli et al. 2010). FundingThe research on which this manuscript is based, was funded by the European Union 6 th Framework Programme (project number 028746). 2 AbstractThe concept of 'religious citizenship' is increasingly being used by scholars, but there are few attempts at defining it. This article argues that rights-based definitions giving primacy to status and rights are too narrow, and that feminist approaches to citizenship foregrounding identity, belonging and participation, as well as an ethics of care, provide a more comprehensive understanding of how religious women understand and experience their own 'religious citizenship'. Findings from interviews with Christian and Muslim women in Oslo andLeicester suggest a close relationship between religious women's faith and practice ('lived religion') and their 'lived citizenship'. However, gender inequalities and status differences between majority and minority religions produce challenges to rights-based approaches to religious citizenship.

Citizenship, religion, gender and the politics of belonging: a case study of white, middle-class christian men in the East Midlands, United Kingdom

“…In this regard, rights-based approaches to religious citizenship (e.g. Hudson 2003) are too narrow (Nyhagen 2015): while they address issues such as freedom of belief and the right to collective worship, they do not consider the importance of belonging, participation, and care. The demonstrated link between citizenship and religion also lends support to the view that religiously informed political convictions are legitimate in democratic deliberation (Habermas 2006).…”

“…Recent scholarship has also proposed the notion of 'religious citizenship' as useful to debates about the rights of religious citizens and groups (Hudson 2003;Permoser and Rosenberger 2009). Rights-based approaches have, however, been critiqued for paying insufficient attention to inequalities pertaining to gender and to inequalities between majority and minority religions, and for overlooking lived citizenship practice (Nyhagen 2015). In a comparative study of Christian and Muslim women in Norway, Spain and the UK, Nyhagen and Halsaa (2016) found that a majority of the participants saw their faith as strongly linked to their lived citizenship, with their religion providing guidance on how to be a good citizen.…”

“…Contemporary scholarship that addresses this tends to focus on a 'generic', genderless citizen (e.g. Hudson 2003) or on women citizens (Nyhagen and Halsaa 2016;Nyhagen 2015). There are no in-depth studies of how contemporary men of religious faith in Europe understand and experience citizenship in everyday life.…”

Not In The Same World: Topological Youths, Topographical Policies

“…To me, issue publics, as based on topological connectives, seem like potential contexts of youth inclusion. If encouraged by public administrative means, they could offer young people what Cornwall and Coelho () call “new democratic arenas” and potential contexts for practicing “lived citizenship,” to use Lister's term (see also Nyhagen ; Wood ). By tracing the issues that appear as particularly important to young people, participatory efforts could aim at supporting youthful agencies in the matters that concern them experientially and thus succeed to “blur the mundane‐political distinction” (Shklovski and Valtysson , 431), thus building connections between the topological worlds of youth and the topographical worlds of public administration.…”

Representations of Religion on the British Feminist Webzine The F Word

“…In her study of Christian and Muslim women in Norway and the UK, Nyhagen (2015) points out that for women, religious inclusion -she uses the term 'lived religious citizenship' -is about more than individual or group rights. Religious women value belonging, identity and participation.…”