Resumen de Narrative islamiche di partecipazione civica. Libertà, responsabilità e attivismo religioso nella Turchia contemporanea
Based on fieldwork conducted between 2009 and 2010 with young students living within two Islamic communities in contemporary Turkey, the paper sheds light on narratives of religiously-grounded civic engagement within these communities. It illustrates how, in their meetings, the students did not only strengthen their faith but also thought about their place and role, as future community members, in the reformist project of their community. In this regard, the paper looks at self-narratives of a good Muslim life and at how young people rely on such narratives to make sense of their individual aspirations and to construct their religious identity in the context of modern-day Turkey. In this light, the paper questions general views that tend to depict religious traditions as simply consisting of normative prescriptions about one’s conduct. As shown, they are also the terrain of deep ethical considerations regarding the state of our society, and how this should be transformed, no matter how participating in such a project of social reform may be demanding for my interlocutors.
