Paper short abstract:

Describing how Muslims in Asante conceive and frame "African Traditional Religion," I discuss how their conceptualizations, translations, and comparisons not only pose a challenge to pre-established Western concepts but prompt one to rethink them.

Paper long abstract:

As an ethnographic contribution to the critical reflection of scientific concepts to study the dynamics of religious diversity and encounters in contemporary Africa, my paper discusses what one can gain from considering the takes of those involved in these dynamics as actual theory. In a religiously diverse country like Ghana, where Christianity, Islam, and "African Traditional Religion" co-exist in the same settings, actors from these traditions constantly encounter, interact, and relate to one another. In these open and, at times, conflictual processes, they commonly conceive their respective others on their own terms. In this paper, I describe and discuss how Muslims in Asante frame "ATR." In their discourses, "ATR" is commonly referred to as "bōkā" - a Hausa term referring to specific dealings with spiritual entities. As neither Muslims nor "ATR" practitioners consider bōkā as religion, there is no conceptual equality between both traditions on that level. However, Muslims also employ Islamic vocabularies and narratives, speaking of jinn or shirk, when referring to "ATR." Conversely, they use "ATR" concepts and narratives in their Islamic discourses as well. Thereby, "ATR" has its reverberations in these too - either as critique or affirmation of certain imaginaries and practices. Thus, Muslims' conceiving and framing of "ATR" in Asante is simultaneously a process of differentiations and translations that are made in one-for-one exchanges and not by a universal middle term. I discuss how such (local) conceptualizations, translations, and comparisons not only pose a challenge to pre-established Western terms and concepts but prompt one to rethink them.