Click the star to add/remove an item to/from your individual schedule.
You need to be logged in to avail of this functionality.
Log in
- Convenor:
-
Clara Saraiva
(ICS, University of Lisbon)
- Stream:
- Anthropology, religion and conflict
- Location:
- G52
- Start time:
- 12 September, 2006 at
Time zone: Europe/London
- Session slots:
- 1
Short Abstract:
none
Long Abstract:
This panel pretends to be a space for reflection on the religious fields in prese! nt day Africa , incorporating the transnational linkages that the African diaspora entails, focusing mainly on lusophone Africa, but accepting contributions from other parts and other African traditions. Our starting point is that practices and religious believes in contemporary Africa exist in a permanent flux, within which fragments of diverse cosmologies, dispositions in face of the sacred and ritual practises from other socio-cultural realities are incorporated. These displacements may be observed in many varied forms of indigenous religions, retransformed in the universe of popular culture, in Christian groups which include orthodox and popular catholicism, in the multiplicity of neopentecostal denominations spiritual doctrines derived from kardecism and african Christian religions, in the multiple manifestations of Islamism and the crescent popularization of religious sects, as well as practices and doctrines which have undergone transformation processes. All the! se instancies of the religious field interact with indigenous ! locals f orms of religiosity following a very creative African tradition, originating creolized forms of believes and cults. We will welcome papers based on ethnographic accounts on this creolized religiosity in contemporary Africa or focalizing on the transnationalization of the African religious phenomena, due to the African diaspora, which has as the main visible side the proliferation of African religious specialists in European (namely Lisbon, for the case of the lusophone African diaspora) and American cities.
Accepted papers:
Session 1Liazzat Bonate (Seoul National University)
Paper long abstract:
This essay seeks to explore how contemporary globalizing conceptions of Islam compete, interact and contrast with those more fully-indigenized ones in reshaping the meanings of kinship categories and their social uses in northern Mozambique, in particular with respect to Islamic religious authority.
The paper shares the assumption that Islam has given rise to a variety of cultural forms. In particular, it stresses that northern Mozambique was historically sited within the Swahili cultural domain, and that similar to other Swahili, local Islamic identity and authority were kinship-based and centered on clans claiming a Shirazi lineage/descent. However, in contrast to other Swahili, northern Mozambican Muslims have followed matriliny.
Further on, the essay focuses on the advent of the 'new 'ulama since the late twentieth century, who challenged local historically and culturally rooted conceptions of Islam. The 'new 'ulama view Islam as a 'modernizing' and globalizing force, alternative to 'Westernization'. They emphasize universal character of Islam, and seek uniformization and homogenization of Islamic identity. As these new 'ulama legitimize themselves as bearers of 'true' Islam embedded in the Qur'an and the 'traditions' of the Prophet Muhammad (Hadith)and his Companions (Sahaba), they represent themselves as 'traditionalists'. In fact, they have re-invented Islamic 'tradition' for a globalizing era and their identities are marked by modern cultural elements and modern epistemological outlook. Striving to establish a universal ummah (Muslim community), and to construct a religious identity that transcends local cultures, the new 'ulama found the very notion of African kinship-based Islamic identity, especially the one encompassing matriliny, to be absolutely abhorrent to their understanding of the message of Islam.
Maria Beatriz Rodriguez-Feo (University of Iowa)
Paper long abstract:
Debates over syncretism in cultural antropology in the late 20th century often
focused on African-derived religion in the Brazilian and Caribbean contexts but not on the continent itself. In this study, based on over two and a half
years of field research in Luanda, Angola, I use the examples of Santeria (as
represented by Cubans locally), Rastafari (as practiced by Angolan converts)
and Luandan healing/witchcraft practices referred to as "kimbandismo" that use both regional organic elements as well as Portuguese Catholic ones - to show that there is a relevant relationship between the idea of syncretism and
nation that is at times understood as part of the historical narrative, at
other times standing completely outside of it and finally often at odds
with the internationlist aspects of the practices. Finally, I analyze how
each of these practices relates to the concept of "Africa" from the
perspective of being situated on the continent.