Immigrant Communities, Religious Identities and incorporation in Civil Society: Comparative Qualitative Insights for Germany and Switzerland

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The aim of this qualitative research project is to analyse diverse religious immigrant communities with respect to their processes of identity construction and civic integration. The project is closely linked to its sister project Configuration of individual and collective religious identities and civil society potentials. The quantitative project will analyse external and self-categorisations of social and religious identities and their impact on civil society on the basis of a large-scale assessment. The qualitative and the quantitative projects jointly address the lacuna of a detailed description and analysis of the impact of collective identities of religious communities in the context of a growing importance of civil society and an increasing plurality of religions. In addition, the combined undertaking asks which consequences arise from the perpetuation of collective identities of religious communities for contemporary politics and the coherence of modern democratic societies. The present qualitative research project focuses on analysing the strategies of adaptation and change of collective identity constructions of religious immigrant communities and their impact in civil society. The comparative design of researching the exemplary cases of immigrant Bosnian Muslims and Croatian Catholics in defined regions in two countries intends to analyse questions of belonging to a religious group in view of external and self-ascriptions. The key assumption of the project is that in western Europe the societally constructed idea of a socially accepted religion takes on lead orientation in order to gain societal legitimacy and recognition. The added value of this project and its close linkage with the quantitative project is to enhance the understanding of the role and impact of religion and religious communities both in democratic civil societies and processes of social integration.