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Accepted Paper:
Towards a Translocal and Position-Sensitive Decolonizing of the Study of Africa-Related Religions: Insights into the Establishment of Educational Institutions in Liberia
Diana Lunkwitz
(University of Hamburg)
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.