The journey from france to france: the spiritual moves of muslim youth from marseille

Abstract

Based on long-term ethnographic research with youth who were born to North, West, and East African families in northern Marseille, this article explores the common experience of alienation that practicing Muslims\xa0from Marseille report as they endeavor to live piously in their hometown, together with the mobility-oriented strategies they have devised to achieve belonging. Following these Muslim-Marseillais young adults longitudinally, it emerges that some\xa0relied on physical migration away from France (religiously conceived as hijrah ) as a means of remaining pious and finding belonging. Others, meanwhile, navigated towards pious personhood and finding home in ways that still involved movement but\xa0transpired within France. Significantly, individuals\xa0who have chosen to remain in France carve out pious belonging\xa0by engaging in domestic movements to particular places in France, by pursuing occupational mobility, and by making advantageous use of prestigious linguistic registers like Standard French and Modern Standard Arabic.\xa0As such, the article suggests that hijrah is but one—and the most transnational—among various kinds of movement to which young Muslim-Marseillais turn as they grapple with discrimination, seek to improve themselves, and ascertain how best to belong.