Abstract

This project proposes a comparative analysis of the daily religious practices of Senegalese migrants established in the Iberian Peninsula. This will be done through an in-depth ethnographic and comparative approach to everyday religious practice and its forms of institutionalization both in Lisbon and Barcelona. The former concentrates the great majority of the Senegalese diaspora present in Portugal, whereas Barcelona Although Barcelona is one of Senegalese migrants main final destinations in Southern Europe.

The aim is to understand how forms of association based on religious practice play a fundamental role in the migratory process of certain migrant groups, weaving transnational solidarity networks that extend between Senegal and Southern Europe. The starting hypothesis states that religious practice constitutes a fundamental associative space for weaving networks of solidarity and mutual aid that make it possible to cope with the vicissitudes of the migratory process and to establish transnational links that facilitate the circulation of people, objects and knowledge both between Senegalese communities in each countries and at a transnational level. Beyond structuring the practice of Islam, national-religious-based organisations in the diaspora play a key role in the public presentation of the Senegalese diaspora in the host countries, integrating it into broader debates and discourses on the presence of Islam in Europe, particularly in the Iberian Peninsula.