Religiosity and Attitudes towards Immigrants in Croatia

Sa？etak Migration has become a burning issue of the contemporary world, while immigrants are the “incarnation of outsiders”. Although research shows that most Europeans support open Europe, spreading moral panic is one of the more frequent responses to migration. Politicians and the media, especially those on the right and the far right side of the political spectrum, try to represent immigrants as a security problem and every other kind of problem for all, even potential, recipient countries. Xenophobophilia, i.e. the political exploitation of xenophobic tendencies in the general population, is on the rise together with xenophobia, which forms a kind of social perpetuum mobile of the third kind. The public discourse often associates immigrants coming from predominantly Islamic countries with terrorism, as if they were Islamists, thus instilling the fear of mass migration from the Islamic world and of possibly devastating Islamic influence on the Christian cultural foundations of contemporary immigration societies. In this context, the question of whether traditional immigration countries as well as new or potential ones are ready and able to face the contemporary challenges of religion. In essence, the dynamics of the relationship between immigrants and the receiving society and the need for its understanding make the issue of religion, among other factors, both complex and unavoidable in migration research. This connection was mainly observed either from the perspective of the sociology of migration or the sociology of religion, which determined the focus and aspect of linking the two phenomena. Therefore, this paper first offers a brief insight into previous sociological research from both perspectives, and then tries to pose the issue of sociological research of the relationship between religion and migration with a study conducted in Croatia on a representative sample of adult citizens. An insight into theoretical and empirical research of this relationship shows that they are socially and historically determined in many facets. This is obvious in the differences in the topics that sociologists focus on and which arise from the social and historical context within which they are being explored. Contextual differences in multi-national research represent a problem for researchers, confronting them with theoretical limitations and methodological challenges. Problems of terminological ambiguities arise in these situations, which are further complicated by comparative research and the narrowing of theoretical and analytical focus on theories of