The “greening” of a minority group: Forms of environmental engagement among Muslims in Brussels

This article examines how religious affiliation, marginalization, and environmental engagement intersect. To what extent do the forms of environmental engagement practiced by Muslim citizens living in working-class neighborhoods in Brussels reflect the experience of a minority group? More broadly, what do these forms of engagement reveal about contemporary modes of environmental participation? To answer these questions, the article draws on three activist trajectories that are particularly representative of the links between Islam, working-class neighborhoods, and environmentalism. The central hypothesis is that environmentalism enables political participation for people in minority positions, including when such participation takes place outside partisan politics. Environmental activism thus offers a non-partisan form of positioning in the name of the public interest.