The Future of the Study of Religions in Africa Decolonial-Pluriversal Directions
Main Article Content
Keywords
Africa, decoloniality, pluriverse, study of religion , Berlin conference , cartography , geostrategy
Abstract
There is a theoretically intractable argument about what we might mean by ‘Africa’. The origin and knowledge about ‘Africa’ as an identifier or a construct have continued to dictate the agenda for Africa, religions in Africa, and African Studies in Africa and the diaspora. Although ‘religions in Africa’ are receiving profound empirical and methodological attention, this article argues that they have continued to be approached from the theoretical question of what Africa might mean. It further states that the three main religions in Africa—African Indigenous Religion, Christianity, and Islam—are locked in this theoretical hole, but scholars have continued to navigate the threshold through thematic studies dictated by the names of the continent. It concludes by stating that the study of religions in Africa, though complexified, both now and in the past, will still follow the trajectories dictated outside Africa. But the article also suggests that a decolonial-pluriversal approach could help to appreciate the African worldviews in tension with other worldviews.
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References
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Platvoet, Jan and Henk van Rinsum. 2003. “Is Africa Incurably Religious? Confessing and Contesting an Invention.” Exchange 32 (2): 123–53. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/ 157254303X00190.
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Smith, Edwin W., ed. 1950. African Ideas of God: A Symposium. Edinburgh House Press.
Van Klinken, Adriaan. 2019. “Studying Religion in the Pluriversity: Decolonial Perspectives.” Religion 50 (1): 148–155. https://doi.org/10.1080/0048721X.2019.1681108.
William & Mary. “What is Decoloniality?” Decolonizing Humanities Project. Accessed April 12, 2025. https://www.wm.edu/sites/dhp/decoloniality.
Aderibigbe, Ibigbolade S., and Toyin Falola, eds. 2022. The Palgrave Handbook of African Traditional Religion. Palgrave Macmillan.
Adogame, Afe. 2022. Indigeneity in African Religions: Oza Worldviews, Cosmologies and Religious Cultures. Bloomsbury.
Agada, Ada. 2024. The African Mood Perspective of God and the Problem of Evil. Cambridge University Press.
Akinwumi, Olayemi. 2008. “Political or Spiritual Partition: The Impact of the 1884/85 Berlin Conference on Christian Missions in Africa.” In Christianity in Africa and the Diaspora: The Appropriation of a Scattered Heritage, edited by Afe Adogame, Roswith Gerloff, and Klaus Hock. Continuum.
Antonio, Edward P. 2017. “Indigenous African Traditions as Models for Theorizing Religion.” In Religion, Theory, Critique: Classical and Contemporary Approaches and Methodologies, edited by Richard King. Columbia University Press.
Baum, Robert M. 2024. Ancient African Religions: A History. Oxford University Press.
Bernasconi, Robert. 2024. “Hegel and Egypt’s African Element.” Hegel Bulletin 45 (1): 6–22. https://doi.org/10.1017/hgl.2024.2.
Bewaji, John A. I. 1998. “Olodumare: God in Yoruba Belief and the Theistic Problem of Evil.” African Studies Quarterly 2 (1): 1–17.
Bonk, Jonathan. 2008. “Ecclesiastical Cartography and the Invisible Continent.” In Christianity in Africa and the Diaspora: The Appropriation of a Scattered Heritage, edited by Afe Adogame, Roswith Gerloff, and Klaus Hock. Continuum.
Chidester, David. 1996. Savage Systems: Colonialism and Comparative Religion in Southern Africa. University of Virginia Press.
———. 2013. Empire of Religion: Imperialism and Comparative Religion. University of Chicago Press.
Desai, Gaurav, and Adeline Masquelier, eds. 2018. Critical Terms for the Study of Africa. The University of Chicago Press.
Dores, Hugo Gonçalves. 2022. “The Road to an Agreement on Missions: The Quarrel between Portugal and the Holy See Regarding the Missionary Policy for the Portuguese Empire in Africa (c.1880–1910).” Journal of Religion in Africa 51 (1–2): 86–110. https://doi.org/10.1163/15700666-12340200.
Engelke, Matthew. 2015. “Secular Shadows: African, Immanent, Post-Colonial.” Critical Research on Religion 3 (1): 86–100. https://doi.org/10.1177/2050303215584229.
Gifford, Paul. 2022. “Christianity in the West and Africa: A Brief Comparison.” Ghana Journal of Religion and Theology 12 (1/2): 111–25. https://doi.org/10.4314/gjrt.v12i1-2.9.
Grillo, Laura S., Adriaan Sander van Klinken, and Hassan J. Ndzovu. 2019. Religions in Contemporary Africa: An Introduction. Routledge.
Hacking, Ian. 2002. “Historical Ontology.” In In the Scope of Logic: Methodology and Philosophy of Science, edited by Peter Gärdenfors, Jan Woleński, and Katarzyna Kijania-Placek. Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-0475-5.
Idowu, E. Bolaji. 1996. Olodumare: God in Yoruba Belief. Macmillan.
Igboin, Benson and Josiah Taru. 2025. “Africa.” In The Routledge Handbook of Research Methods in the Study of Indigenous Religions, edited by Afe Adogame and Graham Harvey. Routledge.
Igboin, Benson O. 2017. “Secularisation of African Religious Space: From Perspective to Pluriversalism.” Spectrum: Journal of Contemporary Christianity and Society 2 (1): 60–79.
———. 2021a. “I am an African.” Religions 12 (8): 1–15. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/rel12080669.
———. 2021b. “Esu, Freedom and the Attribution of Evil.” In The Evil Personae in African and African Diaspora Religions, edited by Danoye Oguntola-Laguda. Free Enterprise Publishers.
———. 2022. “The Scramble for Religion and Secularism in Pre-Colonial Africa.” Religions 13 (11): 1096. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel13111096.
———. 2023. “The Risk Being God.” Inaugural Lecture, Adekunle Ajasin University, Nigeria.
Imasogie, Osadolor. 1985. African Traditional Religion. Ibadan University Press.
Kessi, Shose, Zoe Marks, and Elelwani Ramugondo. 2020. “Decolonising African Studies.” Critical African Studies 12 (3): 271–82. https://doi.org/10.1080/21681392.2020.1813413.
Mbembe, Achille. 2016. “Decolonizing the University: New Directions.” Arts & Humanities in Higher Education 15 (1): 29–45. https://doi.org/10.1177/1474022215618513.
Mbiti, John. 1969. African Religions and Philosophy. Heinemann.
Metz, Thaddeus. 2023. “How African Conceptions of God Bear on Life’s Meaning.” Religious Studies 59 (2): 340–54. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0034412522000488.
Mothoagae, Itumeleng D. 2024. The 1840 Translation of the Gospel of Luke as a Technology of Power: A Decolonial Reflection. AOSIS.
Mudimbe, Valentin-Yves. 1988. The Invention of Africa: Gnosis, Philosophy, and the Order of Knowledge. African Systems of Thought. Indiana University Press.
Ndlovu-Gatsheni, Sabelo J. 2013. Coloniality of Power in Postcolonial Africa: Myths of Decolonization. CODESRIA.
Nyamnjoh, Francis B. 2024. Incompleteness, Mobility and Conviviality: Ad E. Jensen Memorial Lectures 2023 Frobenius-Institut, Goethe-University. Langaa RPCIG.
Ogen, Olukoya. 2024. “Reconstructing a Silenced Past: Echoes of Revisionism and Counter Hegemonic History.” Inaugural Lecture, Osun State University, Osogbo, Nigeria.
Onyewuenyi, Innocent C. 1993. The African Origin of Greek Philosophy: An Exercise in Afrocentrism. University of Nigeria Press.
P’Bitek, Okot. 2011 [1971]. Decolonizing African Religions: A Short History of African Religions in Western Scholarship. Edited by Kwasi Wiredu. New revised edition. Diasporic Africa Press.
Parrinder, Geoffrey. 1969. Religion in Africa. Penguin Books.
Pierre, Jemima. 2018. “Africa/African.” In Critical Terms for the Study of Africa, edited by Gaurav Desai and Adeline Masquelier. The University of Chicago Press.
Platvoet, Jan and Henk van Rinsum. 2003. “Is Africa Incurably Religious? Confessing and Contesting an Invention.” Exchange 32 (2): 123–53. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/ 157254303X00190.
Platvoet, Jan. 1996. “From Object to Subject: A History of the Study of Religions in Africa.” In The Study of Religions in Africa: Past, Present, and Prospects, edited by Jan Platvoet, James Cox, and Jacob K. Olupona. Roots and Branches.
Science Encyclopedia. “Idea of Africa – Origins Of The Name Africa.” Science & Philosophy: Adrenoceptor to Ambient. Accessed April 12, 2025. https://science.jrank.org/ pages/8198/Africa-Idea-Origins-Name-Africa.html.
Smith, Edwin W., ed. 1950. African Ideas of God: A Symposium. Edinburgh House Press.
Van Klinken, Adriaan. 2019. “Studying Religion in the Pluriversity: Decolonial Perspectives.” Religion 50 (1): 148–155. https://doi.org/10.1080/0048721X.2019.1681108.
William & Mary. “What is Decoloniality?” Decolonizing Humanities Project. Accessed April 12, 2025. https://www.wm.edu/sites/dhp/decoloniality.
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Apr 28, 2025
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The Future of the Study of Religions in Africa: Decolonial-Pluriversal Directions. (2025). Utambuzi: Journal for the Study of the Religions of Africa and Its Diaspora, 8(1), 9-20. https://doi.org/10.36615/6b0vks65
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Author Biography
Benson Ohihon Igboin
Benson Ohihon Igboin is professor in the Department of Religion and African Culture, Adekunle Ajasin University and Research Fellow, Department of Theology and Religion, University of South Africa.
How to Cite
The Future of the Study of Religions in Africa: Decolonial-Pluriversal Directions. (2025). Utambuzi: Journal for the Study of the Religions of Africa and Its Diaspora, 8(1), 9-20. https://doi.org/10.36615/6b0vks65