Senegalese migrants’ children, homeland returns, and Islamic education in a transnational setting

Abstract

ABSTRACTHomeland visits and stays have only recently began to receive attention within the growing literature on the religious beliefs and practices of ‘second generation’ Muslims in Western contexts, just as African Muslims have largely been neglected within this emerging field. Drawing on data collected over a total of 14 months among Senegalese migrant communities in the greater New York area, and in Islamic schools receiving migrants’ children in Dakar, Senegal, this paper outlines how young people’s homeland returns for the sake of religious education give rise to complex negotiations of meaning and identity.