The “Space” of Religion in the Assessment of Asylum Applications

Within an ample study on the role of religion in the migratory and integration processes, this chapter illustrates some of the results of an original research carried out in Italy and based on different sources, among those 20 in-depth interviews with migrants and asylum seekers who, regardless of the entry channel and of their current legal status, have been significantly influenced by their religious belongings, as for both their decision to migrate and the development of migration and insertion processes. In particular, the Chapter is devoted to analysing the role of religion within the procedure for the scrutiny of asylum applications. Given the legislative framework in force in Italy, the Author discusses how the actual implementation of rules and procedures allows (or does not allow) for the emergence and the acknowledgement of those aspects variously connected with asylum seekers’ religious belongings. Here, religiosity has emerged as both an obscured and a sensitive issue.