Situating itself at the intersection of the anthropology of religion, education research and migration studies, this research explores the involvement of West African diasporas within the religious education sector in Senegal, a major hub of Islam in West Africa. Firstly, it seeks to trace how sojourns for the purpose of religious education – during school holidays or longer periods – shape how the children of the West African diaspora engage with Islam, and how they integrate such experiences once returned to the West. Through this, the project hopes to shed light more broadly on the challenges children of Muslim migrants to the West face in a context of growing Islamophobia and narrowing social and economic opportunities. Secondly, the project aims to generate insights into the role that diaspora involvement, in the form of funding as well as ideas, plays within the Islamic education sector in Senegal, thus furthering scholarship on the dynamics of change within Islamic educational systems in West Africa more widely.
Counter-currents of migration and faith: the involvement of Senegalese migrants and their children within the religious education sector in Senegal
2015 - 2018
Project status: Complete
Funded by: Research Foundation Flanders - FWO
