When Religion Opens Perspectives. Swedish Youth in Interfaith Dialogue

This study centres on the question of how interfaith dialogue can function as a meeting place for young people from different social and cultural backgrounds. The study is based on qualitative interviews with five young participants in an interfaith project taking place in Sweden in 2013 and 2014. For reading the material through a lens of late modern religiosity, Heelas and Woodheads thesis of a spiritual revolution was used. To be able to conclude whether the religiousness of the participants functions as a social resource, Hammack and Cohlers term narrative engagement is used. Lastly Knitters models of theologies of religions was used in the analysis of how the participants reads and understands their own and the others faiths. The study shows that the participants meet in the common aim of defining a religious identity in a late modern and pluralistic society. By sharing perspectives, going through a process of self-reflection and taking part of the activities for social change offered by the project, the participants are able to formulate identities that integrate their religiosity and are defined by a sense of agency and openness for the Other. The study shows that the interfaith dialogue is a process moving through different phases, with the personal contact as the starting point. One aspect to note though is that the project fails to engage more socially stigmatized groups of young people. Future project could aim at explore how these groups could be included in similar projects and analyse the effects along with the frameworks used in this work