Islam in urban spaces: The residential incorporation and choices of Muslims in Lisbon

ABSTRACT

This paper examines processes of residential settlement and incorporation of Lisbon's Muslims arriving first in the post-colonial period and later as international labour migrants. Issues related with Islam in the city are under-researched and seen as unproblematic in Portugal due to lower levels of segregation and the contemporary narrative of Portuguese tolerance. Based on an analysis of the spatiality of Islam in the metropolitan area and the individual accounts of 102 Muslims, this paper explores processes of incorporation, residential choice and belonging. The fragmented mosaic of Muslim settlement in local communities shows the role that religion can play alongside culture in creating spaces of belonging producing multiple experiences of the city. In three different localities—the inner city, an inner suburb and on the urban margin—I investigate the ways in which the cumulative action and agency of Muslim migrants over time transform local spaces and emerging structures for consecutive migrants. This paper argues that urban diversity and temporality provide a lens through which to reconceptualise the traditional choice and constraint debate to better understand the complexity of minority residential patterns and their outcomes.

KEYWORDS:

• Islam
• choice-constraint
• residential choice
• residential incorporation
• mobility

Acknowledgements

The author thanks Andreia Pinto for her research assistance and Eduardo Ascensão, Lucinda Fonseca and Jared Larson for their comments on an earlier version of this paper and to two anonymous JEMS reviewers for their insightful critique.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

ORCID

Jennifer McGarrigle http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9952-3431

Notes

1. Gonçalves, P. ‘Mesquitas secretas crescem em Portugal’ in Correio da Manhã, 28 April 2012—http://www.cmjornal.xl.pt/exclusivos/detalhe/mesquitas-secretas-crescem-em-portugal.html; Moleiro, R., and H. Franco. ‘A noiva Portuguesa da Jihad’ in Expresso, 3 September 2014—http://expresso.sapo.pt/a-noiva-portuguesa-da-jihad=f888068.

2. The municipality of Sintra now hosts almost the same share of the total Muslim population as the City of Lisbon—with a growth rate of 95% between 2001 and 2011.

3. Segregation index = .

4. The Monastery of Odivelas dates back to 1295. 

5. Given the lack of official neighbourhood data in Portugal, neighbourhood boundaries were approximated based on residents’ subjective sense of place and data for census tracts aggregated to best fit.

6. According to PORDATA, the national unemployment rate in 2011 was 12.7%, peaking at 16.2% in 2013 and dropping to 13.9% in 2014.

7. Albeit, we did see signs that this had changed over time with professional, second generation Indo-Mozambican women playing a more central role in household decision-making.

8. Residents reported increased police presence in the area since the city major had relocated his office there as part of the urban regeneration initiative.

9. At the time of the fieldwork the minimum wage in Portugal was 485 Euros.

Additional information

Funding

The research leading to these results has received funding from the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) [grant PTCD/CS-GEO/113680/2009—‘The Socio-spatial integration of Lisbon's religious minorities: Residential patterns, choice and neighbourhood dynamics’]; the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007–2013) [grant agreement n° 316796].