Increasing plurality and neglected pluralism. Religious diversity in the suburbs of Rome

The chapter offers an interpretation of the social and political constraints that affect the way religious diversity is addressed and prevented from blossoming into a pluralistic shared frame in Italy. We move from the renewed attention devoted to the ‘spatialization of religion’ with the aim of offering a contextualized understanding of ‘lived religious diversity’ in the urban space of Rome and a critical reading of the normative – cultural and political – responses that are emerging towards this phenomenon. Drawing on the data collected within the research project NEW2US at the University of Rome Tor Vergata, the analysis shows how, although attracted to a space – Rome – that is ideally generous to the expression of ‘The Religious’, recently established minorities must struggle hard to carve out actual living spaces for themselves end are mostly segregated at the margins of the city. The ethnography that has been run within the south-east area of Tor Sapienza digs into the deep and fatal intertwinement between radical alterity, marginality and social tensions in order to give a possible explanation of the reason why in the Italian case religious diversity is still inhibited from triggering cultural and social renewal and a political reflexive awareness.