Pub Date : 2019-01-30DOI: 10.5325/JAFRIRELI.7.1.0017
Neelima Jeychandran
Abstract:African sacred spaces in India are carved and maintained by mortal beings mostly hailing from the Sidi African-Indian community and from other subaltern communities, and these spaces are perpetually protected by African spirit beings. Thriving as marginal spaces in the overcrowded Indian cities, coastal towns, and villages, these African sacred topographies are continuously reimagined and reinvented by invested stakeholders to suit contemporary purposes. While addressing the complex connections of some of these sacredscapes with the African Indian Ocean slave trade, this paper examines how shrines dedicated to African Sufi saints and spirits keep African memories alive as devotees continue to seek the intercessions of these saints and spectral deities. By studying the spiritual beliefs and practices at these shrines, I discuss how African sacred geography in India prevails as a relational space connected to the Indian Ocean littoral through the intercessory powers of the African saints and spirits.
{"title":"Navigating African Sacred Geography: Shrines for African Sufi Saints and Spirits in India","authors":"Neelima Jeychandran","doi":"10.5325/JAFRIRELI.7.1.0017","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5325/JAFRIRELI.7.1.0017","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:African sacred spaces in India are carved and maintained by mortal beings mostly hailing from the Sidi African-Indian community and from other subaltern communities, and these spaces are perpetually protected by African spirit beings. Thriving as marginal spaces in the overcrowded Indian cities, coastal towns, and villages, these African sacred topographies are continuously reimagined and reinvented by invested stakeholders to suit contemporary purposes. While addressing the complex connections of some of these sacredscapes with the African Indian Ocean slave trade, this paper examines how shrines dedicated to African Sufi saints and spirits keep African memories alive as devotees continue to seek the intercessions of these saints and spectral deities. By studying the spiritual beliefs and practices at these shrines, I discuss how African sacred geography in India prevails as a relational space connected to the Indian Ocean littoral through the intercessory powers of the African saints and spirits.","PeriodicalId":41877,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Africana Religions","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2019-01-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42261461","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-01-30DOI: 10.5325/JAFRIRELI.7.1.0112
J. McIntosh
Abstract:This article challenges the common assumption that the framework of "syncretism" (in terms of hybridity or blending) neatly characterizes pluralist religious practices. My case study from coastal Kenya suggests that in some communities, religious pluralism may preserve discontinuity between loci of religious power, a model I call "polyontologism."
{"title":"Polyontologism: When \"Syncretism\" Does Not Suffice","authors":"J. McIntosh","doi":"10.5325/JAFRIRELI.7.1.0112","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5325/JAFRIRELI.7.1.0112","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:This article challenges the common assumption that the framework of \"syncretism\" (in terms of hybridity or blending) neatly characterizes pluralist religious practices. My case study from coastal Kenya suggests that in some communities, religious pluralism may preserve discontinuity between loci of religious power, a model I call \"polyontologism.\"","PeriodicalId":41877,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Africana Religions","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2019-01-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42630859","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-01-30DOI: 10.5325/JAFRIRELI.7.1.0152
M. Mccormack
Abstract:This article examines the role of the Muhammad Ali Center, in Louisville, Kentucky, as a significant site for challenging Islamophobia. The article focuses on how representational interventions and programmatic initiatives disrupt intensifications of anti-Black, anti-immigrant, and anti-Islamic sentiments in public discourses while fostering an alternative, inclusive vision of human flourishing.
{"title":"\"I'm a Muslim . . . What's Wrong with That?\": Representational Interventions in Islamophobia at the Muhammad Ali Center","authors":"M. Mccormack","doi":"10.5325/JAFRIRELI.7.1.0152","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5325/JAFRIRELI.7.1.0152","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:This article examines the role of the Muhammad Ali Center, in Louisville, Kentucky, as a significant site for challenging Islamophobia. The article focuses on how representational interventions and programmatic initiatives disrupt intensifications of anti-Black, anti-immigrant, and anti-Islamic sentiments in public discourses while fostering an alternative, inclusive vision of human flourishing.","PeriodicalId":41877,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Africana Religions","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2019-01-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45175412","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-01-01DOI: 10.5325/JAFRIRELI.7.1.0105
S. D. S. Jayasuriya
{"title":"A Hybrid Performance: East African Spirit Possession and Sri Lankan Manhas","authors":"S. D. S. Jayasuriya","doi":"10.5325/JAFRIRELI.7.1.0105","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5325/JAFRIRELI.7.1.0105","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":41877,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Africana Religions","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2019-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"70842775","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2018-06-26DOI: 10.5325/JAFRIRELI.6.2.0290
T. Wenger
Abstract:This essay compares Weisenfeld’s “religio-racial” movements to contemporaneous Jewish nationalist and Zionist movements, suggesting that the axis of nation is just as important as race and religion for understanding their various efforts to reconfigure communal identities and to position themselves in relation to global systems of race and empire.
{"title":"Nationhood and Resistance: New World A-Coming and the (Re)making of Race, Religion, and Nation in African American History","authors":"T. Wenger","doi":"10.5325/JAFRIRELI.6.2.0290","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5325/JAFRIRELI.6.2.0290","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:This essay compares Weisenfeld’s “religio-racial” movements to contemporaneous Jewish nationalist and Zionist movements, suggesting that the axis of nation is just as important as race and religion for understanding their various efforts to reconfigure communal identities and to position themselves in relation to global systems of race and empire.","PeriodicalId":41877,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Africana Religions","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2018-06-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45631724","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2018-06-26DOI: 10.5325/JAFRIRELI.6.2.0269
LeRhonda S. Manigault-Bryant
Judith Weisenfeld’s New World A-Coming pushes the field to rethink its approach to religion and race. To achieve this, she centralizes groups typically relegated to the margins of African American religions, tracks those groups thematically rather than chronologically, and offers the field the concept of “religio-racial” identities.
{"title":"Introduction: But Sometime Between—Living Archives and the Power of Black Agency","authors":"LeRhonda S. Manigault-Bryant","doi":"10.5325/JAFRIRELI.6.2.0269","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5325/JAFRIRELI.6.2.0269","url":null,"abstract":"Judith Weisenfeld’s New World A-Coming pushes the field to rethink its approach to religion and race. To achieve this, she centralizes groups typically relegated to the margins of African American religions, tracks those groups thematically rather than chronologically, and offers the field the concept of “religio-racial” identities.","PeriodicalId":41877,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Africana Religions","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2018-06-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45695705","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2018-06-26DOI: 10.5325/JAFRIRELI.6.2.0300
Danielle Brune Sigler
Abstract:Judith Weisenfeld makes extensive use of government records in New World A-Coming, her study of Black religion during the Great Migration. In combination with archival materials, these records allow Weisenfeld to offer a more complete description of the lives of individual members and to understand how they expressed religio-racial identities.
{"title":"A New World [of Research] A-Coming","authors":"Danielle Brune Sigler","doi":"10.5325/JAFRIRELI.6.2.0300","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5325/JAFRIRELI.6.2.0300","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:Judith Weisenfeld makes extensive use of government records in New World A-Coming, her study of Black religion during the Great Migration. In combination with archival materials, these records allow Weisenfeld to offer a more complete description of the lives of individual members and to understand how they expressed religio-racial identities.","PeriodicalId":41877,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Africana Religions","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2018-06-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41556293","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2018-06-26DOI: 10.5325/JAFRIRELI.6.2.0190
Serawit B. Debele
Abstract:In this article, I present visions of political unity as imagined by Faith of Unity from Uganda and the Waqqeeffana Followers Association from Ethiopia. I describe how politics is mobilized through notions of disunity and unity. The organizations’ critique of politics is articulated using the vocabulary of religion, which is central to political dis/unity. Drawing on ethnographic data generated from Ethiopia and Uganda, I show that indigenous religions are, in their own right, spaces for the production of political thought attuned to the time and context of their existence. Their engagement expands the domains of the “political” from its usual confines—for instance, civil society associations, parties, NGOs, and states. Paying attention to such spaces uncovers more sites in which political subjectivities are formed, shaped, and reshaped.
{"title":"Confronting “Disunity”: Indigenous Religions as Critics of Politics in Africa","authors":"Serawit B. Debele","doi":"10.5325/JAFRIRELI.6.2.0190","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5325/JAFRIRELI.6.2.0190","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:In this article, I present visions of political unity as imagined by Faith of Unity from Uganda and the Waqqeeffana Followers Association from Ethiopia. I describe how politics is mobilized through notions of disunity and unity. The organizations’ critique of politics is articulated using the vocabulary of religion, which is central to political dis/unity. Drawing on ethnographic data generated from Ethiopia and Uganda, I show that indigenous religions are, in their own right, spaces for the production of political thought attuned to the time and context of their existence. Their engagement expands the domains of the “political” from its usual confines—for instance, civil society associations, parties, NGOs, and states. Paying attention to such spaces uncovers more sites in which political subjectivities are formed, shaped, and reshaped.","PeriodicalId":41877,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Africana Religions","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2018-06-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46651485","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2018-06-26DOI: 10.5325/JAFRIRELI.6.2.0272
E. Clark
Abstract:Judith Weisenfeld’s New World A-Coming pushes the field to rethink its approach to religion and race. To achieve this, she centralizes groups typically relegated to the margins of African American religions, tracks those groups thematically rather than chronologically, and offers the field the concept of “religio-racial” identities.
{"title":"The Magic of Comparison: Religio-Racial Identities in Process","authors":"E. Clark","doi":"10.5325/JAFRIRELI.6.2.0272","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5325/JAFRIRELI.6.2.0272","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:Judith Weisenfeld’s New World A-Coming pushes the field to rethink its approach to religion and race. To achieve this, she centralizes groups typically relegated to the margins of African American religions, tracks those groups thematically rather than chronologically, and offers the field the concept of “religio-racial” identities.","PeriodicalId":41877,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Africana Religions","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2018-06-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44612257","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2018-06-26DOI: 10.5325/JAFRIRELI.6.2.0161
E. Clark
Abstract:From 1858 to 1877 a group of Afro-Creole men in New Orleans practiced American Spiritualism and received messages from the spirit world. The spirits of the dead advised the Cercle Harmonique, as they called themselves, on issues of theology and politics. Though the Spiritualism practiced by the Cercle Harmonique was similar to that of white, northern Protestants, the practice of the Afro-Creoles was a distinctively African American religion. One of the clearest ways to navigate the process in which Spiritualism became Afro-Creole Spiritualism is by attending to the group’s use of the language and rhetoric of martyrdom. Martyrdom provided the Cercle Harmonique a language for understanding the racial violence that surrounded them, and that language also offered the proper response to the violence. The Spiritualist martyrs who engaged the Cercle Harmonique were those who died in defense of Black rights and in contest with white supremacy.
{"title":"“To Battle for Human Rights”: Afro-Creole Spiritualism and Martyrdom","authors":"E. Clark","doi":"10.5325/JAFRIRELI.6.2.0161","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5325/JAFRIRELI.6.2.0161","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:From 1858 to 1877 a group of Afro-Creole men in New Orleans practiced American Spiritualism and received messages from the spirit world. The spirits of the dead advised the Cercle Harmonique, as they called themselves, on issues of theology and politics. Though the Spiritualism practiced by the Cercle Harmonique was similar to that of white, northern Protestants, the practice of the Afro-Creoles was a distinctively African American religion. One of the clearest ways to navigate the process in which Spiritualism became Afro-Creole Spiritualism is by attending to the group’s use of the language and rhetoric of martyrdom. Martyrdom provided the Cercle Harmonique a language for understanding the racial violence that surrounded them, and that language also offered the proper response to the violence. The Spiritualist martyrs who engaged the Cercle Harmonique were those who died in defense of Black rights and in contest with white supremacy.","PeriodicalId":41877,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Africana Religions","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2018-06-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46605363","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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