Conceptualizing Religious Citizenship: Limitations to Rights-based Approaches Emerging from a Case-Study of Christian and Muslim women in Europe

The concept of ‘religious citizenship’ is increasingly being used by scholars, but there are few attempts at defining it. This paper develops a critical perspective on the term ‘religious citizenship’ by linking it to the concept of ‘lived religion’, to gender inequality, to differences between privileged and disadvantaged religious groups, and to identity, belonging, participation and other aspects of lived citizenship. Inspired by theoretical perspectives that foreground both citizenship and religion as ‘lived practice’, the paper applies a bottom-up perspective based on findings from interviews with Christian and Muslim women in Norway, Spain and the United Kingdom. The paper argues that current rights-based definitions of religious citizenship are too narrow. Rights-based approaches silence inequalities based on gender and ignore the different statuses accorded by states and societies to different religions. They also overlook dimensions that religious women themselves deem important in their lived citizenship practice, including identity, belonging and participation, and an ethic of care, love, tolerance and respect. The paper thus argues that feminist approaches to citizenship foregrounding identity, belonging and participation, as well as status, rights and duties, can further a broader understanding. Furthermore, the paper demonstrates that there are similarities as well as differences between Christian and Muslim women’s understandings and practices of citizenship. For example, they have in common the notion that citizenship is an expression of a religiously informed ethic of care, love, tolerance and respect. However, the interviewed Muslim women highlight experiences of stereotyping and discrimination that are not shared by the interviewed Christian women. The paper demonstrates that ‘religious citizenship’ has multiple meanings among the interviewed religious women, thus making it difficult to offer an alternative, precise definition of the term. Instead, a multi-perspectival approach is required which acknowledges that rights, status, identities, belonging, participation, and an ethic of care, love, tolerance and respect, are important dimensions of religious citizenship as lived practice. The paper also discusses challenges to ‘equal citizenship’ stemming from unequal gender relations and from inequalities between majority and minority religions.