Abstract

Religion and ethnicity are two critical topics shaping the agendas of world leaders, public policy makers and academics. Increasing ethnic and religious diversity brought about by transnational migration poses many challenges to most nation states. For example, the US alone has taken in 22 million immigrants since the 1980s (Rytina 2009), not only pressing policy makers to urgently address issues such as housing, employment and education for the newcomers, but also rendering timid encounters with the ‘ethnic/religious-other’ unavoidable in everyday life. More importantly, religiously and ethnically charged activism appear to be a leading source of conflict throughout the world; the recent street riots in the French banlieues and the ongoing Arab–Jew, Hindu–Muslim conflicts are only a few examples of such social conflict.