Juliette Galonnier is Assistant Professor at CERI, Sciences Po. She teaches a large course on "Religion, Politics, Society" and a seminar on "Islam in Europe and North America" at the Bachelor’s level. The work completed by her students as part of these two courses is showcased on the website: https://relpolsoc.hypotheses.org/. She also teaches Qualitative Methods for both Bachelor students and Master students at the School of Research. She co-leads the Writing seminar for CERI's PhD students. 

Her research investigates the social construction of racial and religious categories, and how they frequently intersect. Empirically, her work has been mostly focusing on Muslim minorities across various national contexts (India, France, the United States). She received in 2017 a joint PhD degree in Sociology from Sciences Po and Northwestern University. Entitled "Choosing Faith and Facing Race: Converting to Islam in France and the United States", her dissertation was awarded the Best Dissertation Award of the American Sociological Association (ASA) in 2018. Building on 82 in-depth interviews and ethnographic observations in mosques and convert associations, this research provides a comparative analysis of the experiences of Muslim converts on the two sides of the Atlantic. 

She has co-edited two books in French Religion and Social Class (ENS Editions, 2023) and Politics of deradicalization (Presses de Sciences Po, 2022). She has also published several chapters in edited volumes and articles in peer-reviewed journals such as Genèses, French politics, culture and society, Identities, Sociology of Religion, Social Compass, Archives de sciences sociales des religions, Critique internationale, Hommes & Migrations and Tracés.

From 2017 to 2019, she worked as a post-doctoral researcher within the "Global Race" ANR project. In 2018, she coordinated with Pr. Mahamet Timéra a research project on Muslims of Sub-Saharan and Comorian descent in France, funded by the Religions Office of the French Ministry of the Interior. From 2022 to 2024, she is co-coordinating a research project on "Religion and migration: French Caribbeans in the Hexagon". 

She is also a fellow at IC Migrations, a member of Critique Internationale’s editorial board, a member of the ANR project "Islamic socializations", a member of the program "Agenda for a critical sociology of religion" and a member of the research network "Race, religion, secularism".

In the aftermath of her dissertation research, Juliette Galonnier currently seeks to compare religious socialization in French and American families, with a focus on the contrasted ways through which people "talk about religion" with their relatives in France and the United States. Through family ethnographies, i.e. in-depth and repeated interviews and observations with religious converts and their families, she explores the modalities of speech or silence around religion depending on family trajectories and configurations. The French-American comparison enables her to capture how religious arrangements in the private sphere are shaped by secularism regimes and national repertoires of discourse around religion and the self on the two sides of the Atlantic.

Sciences Po

• Religion, Politics, Society (Bachelor)
• Islam in Europe and North America (Bachelor)
• Qualitative Methods Research Workshop (Bachelor)
• Qualitative Methods II (Master)
• Writing seminar (PhD)

Main publications

[direction avec Anthony Favier, Yannick Fer et Ana Perrin-Heredia, Ana], Religions et classes sociales, Lyon, ENS Editions, 2023.

[direction avec Stéphane Lacroix et Nadia Marzouki], Politiques de lutte contre la radicalisation, Paris, Presses de Sciences Po (L'Enjeu mondial), 2022.

« ‘Come as you are to Islam as it is’: Individualisme religieux et travail de conversion dans une organisation musulmane américaine », Genèses, Vol. 124, n°3, 2021, pp. 9-30.

[avec Stefan Le Courant, Anthony Pecqueux et Camille Noûs], « Edito : Ouvrir les données de la recherche ? », Tracés, Hors-Série 2019, 2020, pp. 17-33.

[avec Patrick Simon], « Le Comité pour l’élimination de la discrimination raciale : une approche pragmatique des statistiques ethniques (1970-2018) », Critique internationale, n°86, 2020, pp. 67-90.

[avec Hamzi Khateb, Géraldine Mossière et Amélie Puzenat], « Introduction : Conversions à l’islam, ‘culture’ et ‘religion’ : tensions et articulations », Archives de sciences sociales des religions, n°186, 2019, pp. 11-31.

[avec Solène Brun], « Devenir(s) minoritaire(s) : la conversion des Blanc-he-s à l’islam en France et aux États-Unis comme expérience de la minoration », Tracés, Vol. 16, n°30, 2016, pp. 29-54.

[avec Diego de los Rios], « Teaching and Learning to be Religious: Pedagogies of Conversion to Islam and Christianity », Sociology of Religion, Vol. 77, n°1, 2016, pp. 59-81.

[avec Mahamet Timéra], Les musulmans d’origine subsaharienne et comorienne dans le paysage islamique français, rapport pour le Bureau Central des Cultes du Ministère de l’Intérieur, 2019.

« Moving In or Moving Towards: Reconceptualizing Conversion to Islam as a Liminal Process », in Karin Van Nieuwkerk (dir.), Moving in and out of Islam, Austin, University of Texas Press, 2018, pp. 44-66.

See all publications on Sciences Po Institutional Repository