About the Journal

Utambuzi: Journal for the Study of the Religions of Africa and its Diaspora

Utambuzi is a KiSwahili word which can be translated as ‘insight’, ‘diagnosis’ or ‘recognition’, which captures the journal’s central aim and objectives:

  • to provide empirical and theoretical insight into the ever-changing landscape of religion on the African continent and its global diaspora, both historically and today.
  • to diagnose, or critically analyse and evaluate, the complex roles of religious belief and practice in African social, cultural, political and economic spheres, examining how religion intersects with other social categories and structures of power.
  • to recognize the importance of African-centric perspectives, methodologies and modes of theorizing, as a contribution to global knowledge production about religion as well as about Africa and its diaspora.

As an Open Access journal of the African Association for the Study of Religions, Utambuzi particularly seeks to promote scholarship produced by scholars from, based on, and/or writing about, the African continent and its diaspora, and to disseminate this work among a global audience.

Utambuzi welcomes submissions from a range of disciplines and fields, such as religious studies, African studies, sociology, anthropology, history, cultural and media studies, literary studies, gender studies, development studies and law. Theologically informed scholarship is welcome, but the journal does not publish work written from explicitly confessional or doctrinal perspectives.

Utambuzi publishes work in the following categories:

  • Research articles – based on original research (up to 8,000 words, including references)
  • Commentaries – brief discussion of empirical, methodological, or theoretical issues (up to 4,000 words, including references)
  • Book and film reviews (up to 800 words) or review essays (up to 4,000 words)

Submissions should not have been published, or be under review, elsewhere.

All submissions are reviewed by the journal editors, with research articles subjected to double-blind peer review by external referees.

The journal is fully open access to readers and authors. It does not charge an Author Processing Fee, but it expects authors who publish their work in the journal to be members of the African Association for the Study of Religions (to join the Association, visit the website and go to “Join Us”). Membership fees will enable the Association to keep the journal financially viable.