This book explores the relationship between religion and citizenship from a culturally diverse group of contributors, in the context of the developing tendency towards fundamentalist and conflicting religious beliefs in European, North African, and Middle Eastern societies. The chapters provide an alternative narrative of the role of religion, presenting diverse 'lived shades' of citizenship, as well as accounting for issues of gender equality, minority rights, violence, identity, education, and secularisation. As the renewed role of religious institutions is increasing in Europe and elsewhere, the contributors interrogate the experience of belonging, public policy, welfare services and religious education, highlighting how cooperation between citizenship and religion is necessary in a democratic regime. The research will be of interest to students and scholars across sociology, international relations, and religious studies.

This book explores the relationship between religion and citizenship from a culturally diverse group of contributors, in the context of the developing tendency towards fundamentalist and conflicting religious beliefs in European, North African, and Middle Eastern societies. The chapters provide an alternative narrative of the role of religion, presenting diverse 'lived shades' of citizenship, as well as accounting for issues of gender equality, minority rights, violence, identity, education, and secularisation. As the renewed role of religious institutions is increasing in Europe and elsewhere, the contributors interrogate the experience of belonging, public policy, welfare services and religious education, highlighting how cooperation between citizenship and religion is necessary in a democratic regime. The research will be of interest to students and scholars across sociology, international relations, and religious studies.

Palestine is often characterised, from afar, as being plagued by insurmountable difference and violent conflict along religious and ethnic lines. Julia Droeber looks beyond this, as she draws out the way in which sameness and difference is constructed and dealt with in the day to day relationships and practices of different religious communities in the West Bank town of Nablus. She follows the reality of coexistence and the constant negotiation of boundaries between Christians, Muslims and one of the last remaining Samaritan communities worldwide, and how these relationships are complicated by an occupier perceived as 'Jewish'. This is a sensitive and nuanced study of cultural and religious space in a much-contested region. It illustrates how differences are reconciled, accommodated and emphasised, while existing alongside a common sense of belonging. Droeber's findings resonate beyond the town of Nablus, and the West Bank, and into the broader fields of Middle East Studies, Anthropology, Comparative Religion and Peace and Conflict Resolution Studies.