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'Connections
and transformations in Africa' : Religion, local and global |
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A workshop at the African
Studies Centre, Leiden, the Netherlands, Tuesday 21
November, 2006 |
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return to: Index
page 'Connections and transformations in Africa'
Religion, local and global
Wouter van Beek
African local religions are many and
varied, (despite attempts to reduce them to one major type) and
face a gamma of challenges in their connections with a
modernizing world. The recent history of Africa has seen a great
number of local religions disappear - or seemingly disappear -
under the impact of colonialism, Christian missions and Islam.
This project aims to study the morphology and dynamics of two
local religions in Africa, in their historical encounter with the
‘other’, be it the long term history of their dealing
with kith and kin, with their neighbours but especially with
Islamic political pressures and raiding, or with the coming of
colonial Christianity. Decolonization has again changed the
religious situation and the types of connections, as both the
dynamics of Islamisation and the indigenization of mission
churches has led to a proliferation of religious presences. These
dynamics of continuously changing connections with the outer
world inform to a large degree both the morphology of the
religions and their reactions to the changing pressures.
In this project the religion of the
Kapsiki/Higi (North-Cameroon & North-Eastern Nigeria) and the
Dogon (Central Mali) will be studied, in their historical
connections with the outer world, informed by processes of long
term and short term change and adaptation. The aim is the publish
a monograph on each religion, highlighting the specific
conditions and connections that have characterized the context of
their genesis and adaptation.
return to: Index
page 'Connections and transformations in Africa'
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