Abstract: Their success is predicated on an ability to produce a theological message that appeals to new followers, to attract financial investments, and redistribute them within a specific community.Islamic and Christian societies in Africa are at the heart of thriving religious developments (Corten and Mary 2000; Fourchard, Mary, and Otayek 2005; Triaud and Villalón 2009). Studies of religion in Africa highlight the extent to which this diversification has been tied to logics of socioeconomic and political liberalization. Neoliberal reforms imposed by international financial institutions and donor countries have generated harsh socioeconomic drawbacks, including cutbacks in public sector jobs (and the financial and social ... Read More PubDate: 2021-03-12T00:00:00-05:00
Abstract: She exemplifies entrepreneurial innovation by branding herself through media and social initiatives. She cultivates the image of a young and pious Muslim public intellectual who demonstrates religious and entrepreneurial leadership.In Côte d'Ivoire, Islam has grown greatly since the 1950s. This religion accounted for around 20 percent of the population at the time of independence (Miran 2006, 61), but now accounts for 43 percent of the population, compared to 34 percent for Christians, according to 2014 census data (Ibrahima 2014). Researchers have shown considerable interest in Islam in predominantly Muslim countries in West Africa, but they have left Côte d'Ivoire relatively understudied. Nevertheless, a growing ... Read More PubDate: 2021-03-12T00:00:00-05:00
Abstract: A focus on economics can therefore obscure sociopolitical and ontological factors that help explain why pastors are (or are not) seen as inspirational figures.About three decades ago,1 Pentecostal churches began to proliferate in the English-speaking regions of Cameroon, along the border with Nigeria. In subsequent years, the movement spread to the already Christianized central and southern parts of the country and even to the Islamic strongholds further north (Akoko 2002; Drønen 2013; Lasseur 2005, 2010). These developments introduced new forms of religious authority and new processes for establishing the social legitimacy of religious leaders. Although Pentecostal pastors tend to be admired, some of them prove ... Read More PubDate: 2021-03-12T00:00:00-05:00
Abstract: As a self-sanctified religious leader, Murid Shifa clearly understands the needs of female migrants and has managed to adapt existing traditions involving gift giving and the transmission of baraka in a way that caters to those needs.Historically, the survival of religious institutions has depended on income from offerings and tithes. Meanwhile, believers have often viewed these contributions as religious acts, which help ensure their salvation (Brown 2013); however, significant changes are on the rise. Offerings and tithes have become increasingly thought of as investments, whereby "believers [exchange] money in the present for multiplied money in the future in a heavily theorized mystical system with God acting … ... Read More PubDate: 2021-03-12T00:00:00-05:00
Abstract: The trajectories of Pastor Schadrac and Mama Kati, although quite different, show how building a career as a pastor is a matter of becoming an entrepreneur—of being able to mobilize social relationships and maximize one's opportunities within a specific socioeconomic context.A few weeks after I had started my fieldwork on Congolese churches in Kampala, I began to wonder why there was such a large number of these congregations;1 in response to my inquiries, one of my refugee friends said something that at the time seemed to be a sarcastic comment on my research: "If a Congolese wants to become someone here in Kampala, he has only two choices: become a Pentecostal pastor, or become a musician—and not everyone is good ... Read More PubDate: 2021-03-12T00:00:00-05:00
Abstract: Women entrepreneurs in hajj-related travel agencies have successfully mobilized various sorts of social capital and networks to create, run, and expand their businesses.From the colonial period up until the early 2000s, the Senegalese state was in charge of most pilgrimages undertaken by local residents. However, under President Abdoulaye Wade, the government increasingly privatized the sector: whereas private agencies took care of roughly 17 percent of pilgrims in 2000 (Diaw 2000), they took care of 85 percent of the thirteen thousand Senegalese pilgrims who flew to Saudi Arabia in 2019 (Ndiaye 2019). This liberalization has led to the creation of dozens of nonstate travel agencies. The state agency in charge of ... Read More PubDate: 2021-03-12T00:00:00-05:00
Abstract: Understanding this type of religious entrepreneurship requires a focus on local interpretations of status, individual skills, and the interplay between the religious and political spheres.Armed conflict that broke out in the Central African Republic (CAR) in 2013 has drawn fresh attention to the persistent overlap and interplay between politics and religion, a topic largely neglected in the academic literature. A coup led by Muslim-majority Séléka rebels from the northeastern part of the country caused considerable bloodshed and destruction of public property. This was the country's first conflict not instigated by the small Western-educated elite based in Bangui (Glawion and de Vries 2018). The rebels clashed with ... Read More PubDate: 2021-03-12T00:00:00-05:00
Abstract: The church-founding avenue—an exercise still largely regarded as laudable—allows bypassing of social and economic impasses associated with personal blockages and above all with the challenge of coming of age.Margaret Wanjiru is a familiar face in Kenya. The self-styled Pentecostal bishop—who began her career in the 1990s as a Nairobi street preacher—is known for her down-to-earth and captivating delivery, unabashed populist directness, and emphasis on wealth generation and prosperity. Claiming to be the first Kenyan woman to be ordained a Pentecostal bishop (Parsitau 2011, 134)—a controversial claim, considering the absence of universally accepted validation mechanisms for Pentecostal ordinations—Wanjiru won a ... Read More PubDate: 2021-03-12T00:00:00-05:00
Abstract: It's been a long haul with these people, but they're people to whom we owe much, and in the Liberian tradition, much is expected of people who work with you that closely.Dr. Ruth M. Stone retired in 2016 following a thirty-six-year career as a faculty member and administrator at Indiana University Bloomington (IUB). She maintains an active research schedule and continues to play a leading role in ethnomusicology and African studies. On May 13, 2020, I interviewed Dr. Stone, who was my PhD advisor (1992–99) and later my colleague (2001–16) in the Indiana University (IU) Department of Folklore and Ethnomusicology. What follows are excerpts from our interview, which explored various aspects of her life and career ... Read More PubDate: 2021-03-12T00:00:00-05:00
Abstract: During the 1980s, Mickey Leland's stature as the US Congress's leading proponent of global hunger relief was largely unrivaled. The Texas representative was widely lauded immediately after his death in a 1989 plane crash en route to a refugee camp in southwestern Ethiopia. In the decades since, however, the dearth of scholarly interest in his legislative tenure and political legacy has been striking. Benjamin Talton's In This Land of Plenty: Mickey Leland and Africa in American Politics is thus a welcome addition to the scholarship on Black internationalism, US-Africa relations, and the nexus of social movements and legislative politics.Talton underscores Leland's historical significance amid the evolving African ... Read More PubDate: 2021-03-12T00:00:00-05:00
Abstract: Msia Kibona Clark's Hip-Hop in Africa: Prophets of the City and Dustyfoot Philosophers contends that, as a practice of cultural representation, African hip-hop constructs social reality for emcees and their young audiences (2). African hip-hop courses through this book as a contemporary expression of a long history of circum-Atlantic musical exchanges between the United States and postcolonial Africa. Clark's text bristles with ambition, engaging songs and emcees from an expansive array of places and communities, from Atlanta and New York to Dakar, Accra, and Dar es-Salaam. This range lends Hip-Hop in Africa a traveling and encyclopedic quality that occasionally concedes deepness. Ultimately, however, the book ... Read More PubDate: 2021-03-12T00:00:00-05:00
Abstract: In Colonialisme et Révolution: Histoire du Rwanda sous la Tutelle, François Lagarde, a professor emeritus of French studies in the Department of French and Italian at The University of Texas at Austin, offers a historical reading of Rwanda's colonial experience under Belgium's protectorate until its independence in 1962. The argument for Belgian colonialism and the idea of colonial progress pervades the book: through a detailed summary of the events that led to independence and the first locally organized elections, Lagarde attempts to prove that Belgian colonialism was necessary and reasonable—that invading and dominating Rwanda was inherently beneficial. He makes a sustained effort to debrutalize Belgian rule and ... Read More PubDate: 2021-03-12T00:00:00-05:00
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