International Conference Local Diversity and Global Challenges Religions and Migrations in Southern Europe

International Conference
Local Diversity and Global Challenges Religions and Migrations in Southern Europe
30 September – 1 October, 2010 | Faculty of Arts of the University of Porto, Portugal

Since the second half of the 20th century, Western societies have become culturally, religiously and ethnically more diverse. This growing diversity has also paved the way for Southern European countries to gradually turn into global societies. Immigrants bring with them the cultural features of their countries of origin. Some of these cultural features are rooted in ethnicity and religion. As a rule, immigrants’ religious identities are different from their host country’s mainstream religion. Traditionally Roman Catholic, Southern Europe is watching today to the proliferation of other religious groups, among them, Islamic, Eastern Christian, and neo-Pentecostal groups from Africa and Brazil. Having become plural spaces, our societies tend to underestimate the effects of diversity. They are far more concerned with the issue of social integration rather than with that of social identities reconstruction in society as a whole, often ignoring that today religion manifests itself as a plurality of religions.
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