Presentation

This project originates in a group of university lecturers, focused mainly on the study of religious alterity and pluralism. The approach of religious minorities is voluntarily interdisciplinary: it brings in sociology and history, it also gives a place to the social debate and always gives priority to case studies. Mineurel is a research project of the religions et pluralisme team, DRES-UMR7354 CNRS / University of Strasbourg

The website addresses the academic world, political deciders, international institutions, NGOs, the media. It aims at:

• rendering available all data, information and analysis concerning religious minorities

• offering an added visibility to studies otherwise unknown or not well known (realised by students, or in countries usually not taken into account in Western Europe…)

• establishing an interdisciplinary and international network of young researchers

As a starting point, we propose the following definition of a religious minority (this definition will certainly be improved):

A religious group or trend, minor in terms of number in a given geographical space, will be considered as a religious minority according to the following decisive criteria:
the consciousness of being a minority, and the will to preserve its cultural and religious belonging. This, whether the group is controversial or not, regardless of the feeling of ethnical belonging as well as of the status given to this group by the State.
The territory taken into account can be a state or part of a state; groups spread over several states will be taken into account only if bilateral or multilateral agreements on the status of the religious minorities have been signed.