Navigating continuity and change: a multi-scalar analysis of religion and spirituality among African youth in the UK

This paper applies multi-scalar analytical framework to examine religious and spiritual practices among young Nigerian and Zimbabwean youth in the UK. It analyses how religion operates at individual, communal, national, transnational and intergenerational scales. Drawing from multi-sited ethnography and biographical interviews, the findings of this study demonstrate religion as neither an assimilationist tool nor a barrier to integration, but rather a strategic, hybrid resource employed by young migrants. At the individual level, participants combine traditional practices with digital and contemporary forms. Communally, religious and diaspora institutions facilitate cultural preservation and identity negotiation. At the national scale, religion functions strategically to address racial exclusion and navigate secular multiculturalism. Transnationally, digital religious practices foster sustained connections to African heritage, while intergenerationally, religion becomes a site of continuity and change. These findings contribute to migration studies by challenging static assimilation models and foregrounding the hybrid, digital and intergenerational dimensions of diasporic religious engagement.