Paper short abstract:

In many parts of West Africa today, everyday religious practices involve the use of sounds which create tensions and sometimes violent conflict between religious practitioners. This study examines the mediation of religious sounds and coexistence in diversifying societies.

Paper long abstract:

Over the years the study of religion and media has received much interest among scholars. Practices of mediation and the use of various kinds of new and old media in Pentecostalism, African Traditional religion and Islam has been well documented. So far, these researches have concentrated mainly on specific religious groups. By contrast, the repercussions of the production and use of media in co-existing religious groups on the level of multi-religious neighborhoods has not been critically examined. Based on my PhD research on Madina Zongo in Accra , this study examines the soundscapes of diversity that entangle Christians, Muslims and to a lesser degree ATR practitioners and demonstrate how these practitioners respond to or appropriate these diverse religious sounds in their everyday encounters. Engaging Brian Larkin's "Techniques of Inattention" and some selected works on the so-called "noise" discourse, I will offer methodological and theoretical reflections on the framing of sounds and mediation of religion in the everyday encounters of religious practitioners, especially between Muslims and Christians in diversifying societies.