Multiple Secularities in Africa - An Introduction

Datos Bibliográficos

ID4860373
AutoresM Burchardt (0000-0001-7345-3260, Leipzig University), Magnus Echtler (0000-0002-4984-0014, Study of Religion, University of Bayreuth Bayreuth Germany), Katharina Wilkens (0000-0002-6452-7149, Institute for the Study of Religions, University of Tübingen Tübingen Germany)
Año2024
Volumen54
Número3
Páginas249-264
Fecha de publicación2024-08-06
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessNo
TipoARTICLE
RevistaJournal of Religion in Africa (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0022-4200 • E-ISSN: 1570-0666
EditorialWalter de Gruyter GmbH (PUBLISHER • DE)
DOI10.1163/15700666-12340314
OpenAlexW4401404593
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas1
Referencias citadas33

Raising timely and urgent questions about the forms, scope and boundaries of religious authority and practice, this article offers novel ways for the study of secularities and secularisms in contemporary African societies. In recent scholarly debates on secularity, Africa has been marginal. Part of the reason, it was suggested was that African ways of being in, and knowing, the world lay outside the religious-secular divide. We contest such positions. Secularism was clearly part of modernists colonial ideologies that called for the eradication of African beliefs described as backward and irrational. We find that the colonial encounter had a powerful historical impact, essentializing and othering African societies as marked by holistic indigenous cultures rather than differentiated religions. We suggest that the complex interplay of different African and European cultures has simultaneously shaped the social construction and historical development of multiple secularities. We propose that the concept of multiple secularities provides creative avenues to rethink religion, political authority and belonging. We consider secularities as contested arrangements of religious and other spheres whose dynamics include processes of de-differentiation and de-secularization

Colonialism · CONTEST · Environmental ethics · Ideology · Indigenous · Political science · Politics · Secularism · Secularity · Secularization · Sociology · Yoruba · African history and culture analysis · Gender Studies · Law · Philosophy · Religion and Society Interactions · Religion, Society, and Development

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