Citizenship, commitments and religious belongings: a socio-history of Muslims in the 18th arrondissement of Paris

This socio-historical article on the 18th arrondissement of Paris invites the reader to consider the question of relations with Islam in a context where many cultures have long coexisted. Since the first quarter of the twentieth century, this urban area of Paris has been shaped by a variety of histories, trajectories and socio-cultural mixity, in which Muslims have been key actors. This paper draws on this specificity to highlight the ways in which the inhabitants of the area experience the encounters between the local consensus on the place of Islam in the landscape, and the weight of the representations that Islam generates in the national sphere. Thus, in contrast to a political-media approach that tends to trivialise an analysis of Islam through events and from the sole perspective of identity. This research paper proposes to analyse the social life of people of Muslim tradition living in the 18ème arrondissement of Paris as a distinct socio-historical formation.