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- Convenors:
-
Benedikt Pontzen
(Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient Berlin)
Justice Arthur (Pentecost University)
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- Chair:
-
Justice Arthur
(Pentecost University)
- Format:
- Panel
- Streams:
- Religion (x) Decoloniality & Knowledge Production (y)
- Location:
- Neues Seminargebäude, Seminarraum 23
- Sessions:
- Wednesday 31 May, -
Time zone: Europe/Berlin
Short Abstract:
We invite empirical, analytical, and conceptual reflections on the futures of religion in and from Africa. Which religious futures are envisioned by African actors? How will religions fare in Africa and impact its futures? How can we (re)think religion from Africa and decolonize its study?
Long Abstract:
We invite empirical, analytical, and conceptual reflections on the futures of religion in and from Africa. Empirically, we are interested in different visions of the future that are propagated by various religious actors in Africa. How do religious actors in Africa envision the future? How is this influenced by their religious backgrounds? How does this affect their religions? Analytically, we invite reflections on current trends and challenges as well as future contingencies of religions in Africa. Given the continent's increasing number of interreligious encounters and adaptations, its vivacious religious youth movements, and the hardening of religious boundaries due to the rise of reformist or exclusivist groups, religions in Africa appear as a highly dynamic and contested field. How will religions fare in Africa in the future? How will religions shape and be part of the continent's futures? Which trends can we identify? Conceptually, we seek to (re)think religions from Africa and to decolonize their study. Therefore, we investigate the history of 'religion' in Africa and reflect on the concept's colonial pasts and postcolonial trajectories. Furthermore, we ask how decolonial research on religions in Africa can be realized in theory and practice. How can we (re)think 'religion' from Africa? How can we overcome colonial legacies and global inequalities in the study of religions in Africa? We invite papers that offer thick descriptions of religious visions of the future in different African contexts, analyses of current trends and challenges, and/or conceptual reflections on the decolonial study of religions from Africa.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Wednesday 31 May, 2023, -Judith Bachmann (University of Heidelberg)
Paper short abstract:
Based on West African sources from as early as late nineteenth century, the paper investigates new global genealogies of African traditional practices, particularly Ifá, at the intersection of religion, science, and esotericism. This can open up new approaches to religion in Africa in the future.
Paper long abstract:
Like many African traditional practices, the divination and healing practice Ifá has travelled across national borders and oceans. This kind of globalisation of African traditional practices is often discussed under the rubric of the “neo-traditional,” thereby suggesting that the proper traditional practices are local and idiosyncratic to the indigenous context with which they are often identified as their origin. In the case of Ifá, for example, it is seen as the gateway to Yoruba cosmology, original to the Yoruba in West Africa. This seems to be paradoxical considering Ifá’s obvious ability to transgress these cultural boundaries. The paper seeks to address this paradox by looking into West African sources as early as the late nineteenth century which conceptualized Ifá. In these sources, it is noticeable that Ifá is embedded within global discourses of religion, science, and esotericism. Ifá is seen as a practice comparable with Kabbalah and Theosophy and rising beyond the emerging materialist demarcation of science and religion, uniting both of these entities. The paper argues that this global affirmative comparison was not accidental but arose from and ultimately adapted missionary and travel literature’s perception of African traditional practices. Thus, the paper calls for writing new and different genealogies of African traditional practices in which they did not fall outside of global debates but took active part in the formation of them.
Akinmayowa Akin-Otiko (University of Lagos)
Paper short abstract:
Ifa based religion shows a re-emergence of commitment by Yoruba. More priests are being trained for liturgical functions during the weekly worship, and the government is considering celebrating indigenous feasts. This paper analyses the strategies used to recontest space in South West Nigeria.
Paper long abstract:
The religions of the Africans have emerged through the trajectory of rejection and degradation. The Yoruba were first thought to either have no religion or have an inferior religion compared to Christianity, despite the fact that the first Ifa Temple in Yoruba land was founded in 1848 in Oyo. However, contemporary realities show a re-emergence of commitment to indigenous religion among the Yoruba, Ifa based religion is recontesting space and relevance among the people. Many Yoruba are becoming actively involved in Ifa based religion; priests are being trained for liturgical functions, more temples are being built for weekly worship and the government is considering celebrating some indigenous feasts. This paper analyses the strategies adopted by Ifa based religion to recontest its space in everyday life and realities of the Yoruba in South West Nigeria. This will highlight current trends, challenges and project a picture for the future of Ifa based religion in South West Nigeria. Data will show growth in the number of registered temples, processes of approval to erect a temple, training of priests, planned role of members in the politics and the links with the diaspora. More Babalawo are giving special training to engage in specific religious activities and membership is spreading across formally and informally educated members, the future is evolving significantly. It can be hypothesized that the evolving contestation of space and relevance of Ifa religion among Yoruba will reverse colonial legacies and global inequalities in the study of religions in Africa.
Obafemi Jegede (Institute of African Studies)
Paper short abstract:
Seeking attention in African traditional religion is the intersection of medicine and religion. Most priests/priestesses are healers, and the deities are known to be responsible for sickness and spatial equilibrium. In the future, will medicine be delineated from African traditional religion?
Paper long abstract:
We are looking at the future of the intersection of African traditional religion and medicine in Africa. Colonisation of medical practice in Africa is a factor responsible for the ongoing delineation of medicine and religion, yet both are prominent techniques of solving problems within African lifeworlds. Thus, they can be seen as two key inseparable phenomena. Owing to the intervention of the World Health Organisation (WHO) on the relevance of traditional medicine for the advancement of human health, there is an increasing interest in the study of traditional African medicine. Steadily, therefore, studies in traditional African medicine have gradually delineated from the framework of religion. Given the religious pluralism of Africa, there are even assumptions that to divorce traditional religion from traditional medicine is imperative if it can be useful for the populace. Is traditional medicine “medicine” or “religion” in Africa. There is an entanglement, it is this entanglement of traditional religion and medicine that is responsible for the fact that many Christians and Muslims practice traditional religion surreptitiously by patronising traditional medicine practitioners. Developing this argument, the paper discusses the following questions: In the future of this intersection of African religion and medicine, will African medicine be totally separated from African religion in spite of the decolonisation agenda? Will it ever come to a moment when there will not be any need for delineation because one will subsume the other? What will be the effect of either of this on the practice of medicine and traditional religion in Africa?
Mariam Goshadze (Leipzig University)
Paper short abstract:
Introduced in the mid-twentieth century, the term 'African Traditional Religion' was originally tied to a forward-thinking vision of African spirituality. The paper focuses on the vision(s) of the future that the concept promised and the alternative futures that were disregarded as a result.
Paper long abstract:
The paper explores visionary aspirations behind the technical term ‘African Traditional Religion’. Introduced by Geoffrey Parrinder in the mid-twentieth century and developed by John Mbiti and Bolaji Idowu, the concept was originally tied to a particular, forward-thinking vision of African spirituality. The intention was to challenge a long history of demeaning representation of African religiosities and replace markers like ‘paganism’ and ‘heathenism’ with a positive, collective representation of African spirituality structured along the Judeo-Christian template that revolves around belief rather than practice. Mindful of the controversial reverberations of the concept, the paper focuses on the vision(s) of the future that the term ‘African Traditional Religion’ promised in Anglophone Africa, and the alternative futures that were disregarded or pushed out of the intellectual and scholarly discourse as a result. Particular attention is paid to the preconceptions rooted in the construction of ‘African Traditional Religion,’ as well as foreign additions that have been represented as inherent constituents of timeless ‘traditional religion’ and how these have shaped the way African religions are being taught, understood, and explained by religious actors today.
Benedikt Pontzen (Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient Berlin)
Paper short abstract:
‘African Traditional Religion’ is a colonial invention and inadequate to theorize traditional religious presences in Africa. In its stead, I devise empirically grounded theories from and with the Global South for more nuanced understandings of an integral part of Africa’s multireligious lifeworlds.
Paper long abstract:
Traditional religious presences are an integral part of Africa’s multireligious lifeworlds, but they remain widely ill-conceived as ‘African Traditional Religion’. As indicated by the fact that many African languages have no word for ‘religion’ and as excavated by the genealogical critiques of the concept, the notion of ‘African Traditional Religion’ is rooted in the colonial invention of Africa as Europe’s Other. As such, this concept is inadequate to theorize the complex presences of local religious traditions in African lifeworlds. Drawing on a lived religion approach, I suggest rethinking traditional religious presences from the grounds on which they are lived and considering people’s discourses on them as theories, i.e., as means to contemplate and debate the forms of life that they articulate and find themselves embedded in. Based on research in Ghana’s Asante region and cooperations with Ghanaian scholars, my project aims to devise ethnographic theories of traditional religious presences in an African lifeworld. Such an empirically grounded rethinking of ‘African Traditional Religion’ from and with the Global South results in new conversations with African interlocutors, careful translations, and a thinking across traditions. In the process, my project devises theories from the South, opens new conversations and hermeneutics across traditions, and contributes to the decolonization of religious studies and the study of Africa. In my paper, I discuss the epistemological problems with ‘African Traditional Religion’, present how I aim to rethink traditional religious presences in an African lifeworld from and with the Global South, and delineate the project’s broader theoretical aims.