Donne musulmane e sport in Occidente

In recent times, all Western societies have had to deal with migratory flows, and these have also had an impact on a mass phenomenon such as sport. Since the 1980s, the problem of how to integrate and include these foreigners within their own nation has begun, in order to avoid or mitigate all possible problems that could lead to social conflicts with the natives. precisely with respect to this question, scholars from various humanistic disciplines - sociologists, psychologists, anthropologists, pedagogues - have begun to consider sport a potential factor of social integration (Bortoletto N., Michelini E., Porrovecchio A. 2021), for a series of intrinsic positive values that sport potentially would have, and that could favor the processes of social inclusion of minorities, whether ethnic or religious. However, in the case of the category we are considering here, that is Muslim women in Western diasporic contexts, it is legitimate to ask whether sport always represents a form of social inclusion. Indeed, among Islamic scholars there is a consensus in considering sport as a halal (lawful) activity but with some limits: it must not distract from respect for religious prescriptions, it must be practiced respecting the rules of modesty in behaviour and clothing (Islamic dress code) and separation space between male and female (Fedele, 2017). Therefore, what happens when Muslim women who want to respect the dictates of their religion and at the same time practice sports but clash with a “Western sports world” conceived and structured in a way that can often contrast with the aforementioned Islamic values? In this presentation, I will try to present a general theoretical framework of Islam vision of sport and to analyse several case studies in Europe and try to think if sport can play also a positive role in social inclusion even in the case of Muslim women living in the West.