Joint book launch: Studying Religious Plurality in Africa and Histories of Religious Thought and Practice in Africa

SOAS Centre for African Studies and Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient (ZMO, Berlin) are pleased to present a joint book launch, discussing the recent publication of two books by James Currey: Histories of Religious Thought and Practice in Africa: Thematic Perspectives by Louis Brenner, and Religious Plurality in Africa: Coexistence, Conviviality, Conflict, co-edited by Marloes Janson, Kai Kresse, Benedikt Pontzen, and Hassan Mwakimako.

Both books are studies of religious plurality, analysing the internal dynamics of, and interaction among, Christian, Muslim and endogenous religious traditions in Africa. The books speak to each other in their adoption of similar conceptual and analytical frameworks that focus on the lived experience of religious practitioners in Africa, and in how these frameworks are applied in detailed case studies from different regions of the
continent.

The launch will include a brief introduction of each book by the authors and co-editors (Louis Brenner, Marloes Janson, Kai Kresse, and Benedikt Pontzen) and discussants (John Parker and Birgit Meyer), a discussion about how the books relate to one another, and questions from those in attendance, concluding with an informal reception.

About the books

Religious Plurality in Africa: Coexistence, Conviviality, Conflict

Grounded in ethnographic and historiographic research and taking a cross-regional approach, this book explores the complex dynamics of similarity and difference, rapprochement and detachment, and divergence and competition between practitioners of Christianity, Islam and African religious traditions.

Across Africa, Muslims, Christians, and practitioners of African religious traditions live in shared settings, demarcating themselves in opposition to one another and at times engaging in violent conflicts, but also being entangled in complex ways and showing unexpected similarities and mutual cross-overs. However, while encounters and entanglements of African religious traditions with either Islam or Christianity have long been a central research issue, the configuration as a whole has barely been taken into account, even though Muslims, Christians, and practitioners of African religious traditions have long co-existed - and still co-exist - more or less peacefully in many settings in Africa. 

Building on recent interventions to move beyond the compartmentalization of the study of religion in Africa, this edited volume will spotlight why and how an integrated approach to Islam, Christianity, and African religious traditions is important. Bringing together stimulating case studies from Kenya, Nigeria, Zanzibar, Ghana, and Mozambique that offer new directions for ethnographic and historical research, the volume will not only shed light on an important phenomenon out there in the world - the long-overlooked ways in which Muslims, Christians and practitioners of African religious traditions interact with one another in various majority-minority configurations - but will also engage with a critical rethinking of the study of religion in Africa (and beyond).

Histories of Religious Thought and Practice in Africa

This book is a richly detailed comparative analysis of endogenous, Muslim, and Christian religious thought and practice in sub-Saharan Africa.

Organized thematically, the book presents a conceptual and analytical framework for the study of religious traditions as complex and constantly evolving social phenomena. The most salient theme in the book is how different religious traditions defined and provided for the personal and communal wellbeing of their adherents. 

Other major themes explore how religious traditions have influenced one another, how religious practitioners conceptualized and interacted with spiritual entities, how religious knowledge and expertise were acquired and transmitted, how rituals were organized and structured in order to achieve their aims, and how rituals affected those who performed them. Additional topics analysed include the personalization of relationships with spiritual entities, the gendering of religious thought and practice, how personal transformative rituals were conceptualized and enacted with reference to stages of the life cycle, such as birth, marriage and death, and how suffering was seen as integral to the process of personal transformation.

Overall, the book engages with issues that continue to animate the study of religious thought and practice in Africa and African studies more generally.

Registration

Registration for this event is free, but registration is required. 

Image credit: Bradley Pritchard Jones via Unsplash