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- Convenors:
-
Judith Bachmann
(University of Heidelberg)
Mariam Goshadze (Leipzig University)
Diana Lunkwitz (University of Hamburg)
Rose Mary Amenga-Etego (University of Ghana)
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- Format:
- Panel
- Stream:
- Location-based African Studies: Discrepancies and Debates
- Transfers:
- Open for transfers
- Location:
- S68 (RW I)
- Sessions:
- Tuesday 1 October, -
Time zone: Europe/Berlin
Short Abstract:
Religion is studied globally. Yet, irritation and misunderstandings permeate international collaborations in the study of religion. The panel wants to zoom in on the different, yet connected locations for the study of religion in/from Africa, and find new possibilities of communication.
Long Abstract:
Religion is studied and taught globally. Yet, curricula, teaching methods, theoretical approaches, terminologies, as well as expectations of those involved may vary. This can lead to frustration and misunderstandings when students and scholars from particular universities or programs find themselves in various international settings, such as international conferences or collaborative research projects. The study of religion is also not free of asymmetries and power relations that largely dictate the concepts, theories, and approaches that dominate the field, or even the locations of relevant international conferences and funded research programs. The panel wants to focus on the reconfigurations (from empirical as well as conceptual perspectives) which have happened or are about to happen in the study of religion in/from Africa in different locations, specifically in Germany and in different African countries. Thereby, the panel wants to develop new or complicate existing genealogies of current teaching practices and concepts, to make explicit existing points of irritation, negotiation and power relations, and to find possibilities for communication on an eye level across geographically diverse academic environments. We welcome contributions that:
- zoom in on, explicate, and historicise particular academic locations where the study of religion is currently (not) taught (its political and social conditions, theoretical approaches, terminologies, teaching methods, etc.),
- challenge or complicate existing theoretical frameworks, terminologies, or conceptual categories,
- propose new approaches that might facilitate international encounters on an equal footing in the study of religion in/from Africa.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Tuesday 1 October, 2024, -Obafemi Jegede (Institute of African Studies)
Paper short abstract:
Whatever name the religion that is indigenous to Africans is called, these three words: African, traditional and religion are always included. It is also geolocated. Most religions are not named after their place of origins, but African traditional religion is.
Paper long abstract:
One important aspect of the decolonisation agenda is the need to critique the calling of whatever is from Africa traditional. Although African traditional religion could be said to have originated from Africa, it has spread to many parts of the world spanning continents such as Europe, the Americas and Asia, in spite, it is taught as African traditional religion. Even when attempts were made to change its name, it has consistently been geo-located to Africa undermining its transnational dimensions. Its geolocation questions its transnationality. This is asymmetrical to what should be the considerable name. There is as well the need to question the reason why a religion should be called religion to be a religion., this is antithetical. Why should a transnational religion be seeing to be just traditional? This study is therefore designed to problematise the geo-location, traditionalisation and religionisation of African traditional religion. It seeks to stimulate conversations around the need to review the words African traditional religion to enable a reflection of its transnationalisation, and to insight an understanding of other parts of the religion. The geo-location of African traditional religion and it's naming as traditional religion, requires rigorous academic scrutiny. A study is therefore designed to problematise African traditional religion so that there can be a wider engagement of the academic aspect of the transnationalisation of African traditional religion. The study argues that questioning the word African traditional religion is fundamental to the task of reconfiguring Africa.
Judith Bachmann (University of Heidelberg)
Paper short abstract:
Religion is used as a universal category in the study of religion. However, specifically with focus on Africa, this idea has come under criticism. This paper proposes to locate global entanglements as a new way to study religion, not a natural but a promised universal and a shared common.
Paper long abstract:
Religion is taken to be a universal. Yet, especially taken the example of the category of African Traditional Religion, scholars have noted that “religion” (a separate domain, concerning transcendence, private practices etc.) as understood in the study of religion today is foreign to Africans. For some years, scholars of religion have also criticized that “religion” is a European term which supposedly cannot be transferred to other contexts. Comparison or rather: categorization as a core issue of the study of religion was thus perceived as obsolete. However, my own observation is that scholars on the continent seem to find “religion” useful to describe and analyze African contexts. The paper argues that this is due to the fact that “religion” today might not be a natural universal but it is a common, shared term that is transformed through this very quality. To call it European exclusively, blinds out how Africans have used the term and made it their own. The paper introduces the global entanglements of the West African intellectual J. A. Abayomi Cole and how he categorized “religion” with regards to traditional practices, negotiating science, missionary descriptions, and esoteric writings in his quest for an independent, yet true form of religion. These global entanglements draw together antecedents of today's German and Nigerian context. The paper proposes that these entanglements could serve as a new start to the study of religion where Africans have in fact (trans)formed its very subject matter and participated in the making of a globally shared term.
Salvatory Nyanto (University of Dar es Salaam)
Paper short abstract:
This paper weaves through the story of religious teaching, content and contestations in Tanzania since independence. It centers on Tanzania’s secular education system and responses from religious institutions, students, teachers and believers.
Paper long abstract:
On November 30, 2023, Prof. Adolf Mkenda, Minister of Education, Science and Technology in Tanzania launched a new curriculum for Islamic Studies (Mtaala wa Elimu ya Dini ya Kiislam) in secondary schools. The Minister unveiled the curriculum in tandem with the textbook for Islamic studies and the Tanzania Islamic Teaching Association which would be duty bound to oversee the teaching of religion in schools. But leaders of the Community of Muslim Organizations (Jumuiya ya Taasisi za Kiislam Tanzania) objected to the new government curriculum because it was contrary to the Constitution of the United Republic of Tanzania which claims that “the government has no religion” (Serikali haina dini). That Muslims challenged the curriculum provides glimpses into the dilemmas, challenges and contestations which have shaped the production of religious knowledge in post-colonial Tanzania.
This paper relies on the curricular of religion in primary and secondary schools and interviews to weave through the story of teaching, content and contestations in Tanzania since independence. It centers on Tanzania’s secular education system and responses from religious institutions, students, teachers and believers. In the 1960s, Julius Kambarage Nyerere and TANU nationalist leaders envisioned Tanzania as a secular state and that under ujamaa (socialism), citizens were duty bound to fulfill their obligations to the society. Under secularism, the government attached no importance to the numerical strength of any sect or religious community nor did it submit to religious communities’ demands irrespective of their influence.
Diana Lunkwitz (University of Hamburg)
Paper short abstract:
In Liberia, African actors founded educational institutions and preserved practised religions, which only seemed possible under the auspices of Christian civilisation. The paper offers a historicising and theoretical approach for a study of religion that is sensitive to translocal positionalities.
Paper long abstract:
What does an “intra-cultural critique of the epistemological positions and subalternity of knowledge production in Africa” (Appiah 2022:79) demand? In order to develop sustainable collaborations and approaches for the study of Africa-related religions, focussing on the special role of Liberia in the establishment of education institutions in sub-Saharan Africa is advantageous. Numerous missionaries teaching here came from West African places or returned to Africa from the US. Since Momulu Massaquoi (1869/70–1938), a transcontinental politician from Liberia and a leader of the Vai, was represented as a Christian convert in accordance with the European civilization (education), he was given several opportunities and higher positions in Europe and the US. Although he had certain political influence (see the establishment of language schools to teach the Qur’an or the Vai language in Liberia), he also had to follow the educational concepts resulting from transimperialist entanglements. The paper explores these multivalent power asymmetries and options for action in which education – not necessarily related to a concept of religion – was negotiated and established as such. It emphasises how languages and practices produce hybrid realities which are dependent or independent of a location of ‘religion’/‘non-religion’ or ‘secularism’. In consequence, I argue for a study of Africa-related religions that takes translocality and positionality in the specific power dynamics in educational institutions into account.
Rose Mary Amenga-Etego (University of Ghana)
Paper long abstract:
The establishment of the University College of the Gold Coast, now the University of Ghana (UG), in 1948 was a significant landmark for the contemporary academic study of religion in Ghana. The Department of Divinity, as it was called at its inception, would by 1962 be renamed the Department for the Study of Religions reflecting the religio-cultural dynamism and religiously pluralistic nature of the new nation state of Ghana. This change also saw the inclusion of Africa’s Indigenous (Traditional) Religions in the curriculum which over the decades has developed into the nexus of the department’s programmes of study. As the current lecturer of African Indigenous Religions at UG, this contribution is a reflection on the trajectories in its development, taking into consideration the challenges and opportunities. As a lived but not professed religion in Ghana, its study as an academic subject reflects the ambiguity associated with it and how Ghanaians consistently negotiate the realities of daily life.