Decolonizing the Study of Africa-Related Religions Reflections on Translocality and Positionality Using the Example of Liberia
Main Article Content
Keywords
Translocality , positionality , decolonization , the study of Africa-related religions
Abstract
This article examines the ongoing process of decolonizing the study of Africa-related religions, which has been shaped by the Anglicizing civilizing mission in sub-Saharan Africa and the current state of English-language academic research. It highlights the importance of understanding researchers’ positionality and the power asymmetries involved in the negotiation of Africa, religion, and education. The first part of the article presents a historical example from Liberia around 1900, illustrating the role of agency and language in the institutionalization of religious studies. The second part emphasizes the significance of translocal entanglements and the differentiation of positionalities for academic collaboration. The article argues that the Christian-European civilizing project continues to influence the field, making the decolonization project and efforts to localize knowledge production about Africa an ongoing and unfinished task. Finally, it offers three theses to inspire future research and discussions on Africa, religion, and coloniality.
Article Metrics Graph
References
Aderibigbe, Gbola, and Toyin Falola, eds. 2022. The Palgrave Handbook of African Traditional Religion. Springer International Publishing.
Adick, Christel. 2020. “An African Contribution to the Constitutional Right to Modern Schooling 150 Years Ago.” International Review of Education, DIPF | Leibniz-Institut für Bildungsforschung und Bildungsinformation.
Adogame, Afe, Ezra Chitando, and Bolaji Bateye, eds. 2012. African Traditions in the Study of Religion in Africa: Emerging Trends, Indigenous Spirituality and the Interface with other World Religions. Vitality of Indigenous Religions. Ashgate.
———. 2013. African Traditions in the Study of Religion, Diaspora and Gendered Societies. Vitality of Indigenous Religions. Ashgate.
Appiah, Simon Kofi. 2022. “Fetish Again? Southern Perspectives on the Material Approach to the Study of Religion.” Open Theology 8 (1): 79–94. https://doi.org/10.1515/opth-2022-0197.
Barrows, John Henry. 1893. The World’s Parliament of Religions. An Illustrated and Popular Story of the World’s First Parliament of Religions, Held in Chicago in Connection with The Columbian Exposition of 1893, Vol. I/II. The Parliament Publishing Company.
Barth, Boris, and Rolf Hobson. 2021. “Civilizing Missions from the 19th to the 21st Centuries, or from Uplifting to Democratization.” In Civilizing Missions in the Twentieth Century. Studies in Global Social History 40. Brill.
Carpenter, Joel A. 2017. “Christian Universities Grow in Africa.” International Higher Education 88 (Winter): 25–26. https://doi.org/10.6017/ihe.2017.88.9692.
———. 2019. “To Be Agents of a Life-Giving Transformation: Christian Higher Education in Africa by Joel A. Carpenter, Response by Andrew F. Walls.” Yale Divinity School Library, Occasional Publication 26, June 2019.
Chidester, David. 2004. “‘Classify and Conquer’: Friedrich Max Muller, Indigenous Traditions, and Imperial Comparative Religion.” In Beyond Primitivism: Indigenous Religious Traditions and Modernity, edited by Jacob K. Olupona. Routledge.
‘Constitution of the Republic of Liberia’. In Liberia: Description, History, Problems, Starr, Frederick. 1913. Chicago.
Davies, Ioan. 1998. “Negotiating African Culture: Toward a Decolonization of the Fetish.” In The Cultures of Globalization, edited by Fredric Jameson and Masao Miyoshi. Duke University Press.
Falola, Toyin. 2021. Decolonizing African Studies: Epistemologies, Ontologies, and Agencies. Rochester Studies in African History and the Diaspora 93. University of Rochester Press.
Freitag, Ulrike, and Achim von Oppen, eds. 2010. Translocality: The Study of Globalising Processes from a Southern Perspective. Studies in Global Social History 4. Brill.
General History of Africa: A pioneering corpus covering the history of the entire African continent (UNESCO). n.d. “Global Africa: an innovative concept.” Accessed January 10, 2025. https://www.unesco.org/en/general-history-africa.
Hackett, Rosalind I. J. 1993. “The Study of Religions in Africa: Report on the IAHR Regional Conference, Harare, Zimbabwe, September 15–19, 1992.” Method & Theory in the Study of Religion 5 (1): 63–69. https://doi.org/10.1163/157006893X00074.
Jenkins, Paul. 2007. “The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity.” The Religious Educator 8 (3): 113–25.
King, Noel Quinton. 1975. “Review: The Historical Study of African Religion by T. O. Ranger and I. N. Kimambo.” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 43 (2): 361–62.
Ludwig, Frieder, and Afe Adogame, eds. 2004. European Traditions in the Study of Religion in Africa. Series of the Association for the Study of Religions. Harrassowitz.
Lunkwitz, Diana. 2022. “On Growing Private Christian Universities and a Colonial Heritage of Education in Sub-Saharan Africa.” Unpublished conference paper presented at the Workshop: Multiple Secularities in Africa and the Diaspora, 1–3 June 2022. Leipzig.
Mamdani, Mahmood. 2001. “Beyond Settler and Native as Political Identities: Overcoming the Political Legacy of Colonialism.” Comparative Studies in Society and History 43 (4): 651–64. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0010417501004285.
Massaquoi, Fatima. 2013. The Autobiography of an African Princess. Edited by Vivian Seton, Konrad Tuchscherer, and Arthur Abraham. Palgrave Macmillan.
Massaquoi, Momolu. 1905. “An African’s Appeal for Africa, By Prince Momolu Massaquoi of Ghendimah (Gallinas) Of the British Protectorate of Sierra Leone (Condensed from the Century Magazine).” The Missionary Review of the World 28 (6): 449–53.
———. 1926. The Republic of Liberia/Die Republik Liberia. Translated by Momolu Massaquoi. Hamburg.
Mbembe, Joseph-Achille. 2013. Sortir de la grande nuit: essai sur l’Afrique décolonisée. La Découverte.
———. 2021. Out of the Dark Night: Essays on Decolonization. Translated by Daniela Ginsburg. Columbia University Press.
M’Bow, Amadou-Mahtar. 1990. “Preface.” In Methodology and African Prehistory, edited by Joseph Ki-Zerbo. General History of Africa, I. James Currey; University of California Press; Unesco.
Noffke, Oliver. 2022. “Fort Groß Friedrichsburg in Ghana: Als Brandenburger Sklavenhändler nach Afrika kamen.” Accessed January 10, 2025. https://www.rbb24.de/panorama/beitrag/2022/12/festung-grossfriedrichsburg-ghana-koloniale-vergangenenheit-brandenburg.html.
Nash, CL, Carol Marie Webster, and Greeta Patel. 2024. “Editorial: Black Women’s Radical Religious Epistemologies in Mahogany and Steepled Towers.” Special Issue: Black Women’s Radical Religious Epistemologies in Mahogany and Steepled Towers. The African Journal of Gender and Religion 30 (1): i–xxxii. https://doi.org/10.36615/0anp5403.
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.
Ranger, T. O., and Isaria N. Kimambo, eds. 1972. The Historical Study of African Religion: With Special Reference to East and Central Africa. Heinemann Educational.
Starr, Frederick. 1913. Liberia: Description, History, Problems. Chicago.
Steyn, Melissa, and William Mpofu, eds. 2021. Decolonising the Human: Reflections from Africa on Difference and Oppression. Wits University Press.
Strong, Josiah. 1885. Our Country: Its Possible Future and Its Present Crisis. The American Home Missionary Society. Baker & Taylor.
———. 1894. “Temperance. A Crime of Civilization (Dr. Josiah Strong in the New York Weekly Witness.).” The Christian Cynosure XXVII (8, No. 1.272) (November 1, 1894): 11, col. 1–2.
Walls, Andrew F. 2019. “Response.” In To Be Agents of a Life-Giving Transformation: Christian Higher Education in Africa, by Joel A. Carpenter, Yale Divinity School Library, Occasional Publication No. 26 (June 2019).
Wiredu, Kwasi. 1998. “Toward Decolonizing African Philosophy and Religion.” African Studies Quarterly 1 (4): 17–46.
———. 2011. “Introduction: Decolonizing African Philosophy and Religion.” In Decolonizing African Religions: A Short History of African Religions in Western Scholarship, by Okot P’Bitek. Diasporic Africa Press.
Adick, Christel. 2020. “An African Contribution to the Constitutional Right to Modern Schooling 150 Years Ago.” International Review of Education, DIPF | Leibniz-Institut für Bildungsforschung und Bildungsinformation.
Adogame, Afe, Ezra Chitando, and Bolaji Bateye, eds. 2012. African Traditions in the Study of Religion in Africa: Emerging Trends, Indigenous Spirituality and the Interface with other World Religions. Vitality of Indigenous Religions. Ashgate.
———. 2013. African Traditions in the Study of Religion, Diaspora and Gendered Societies. Vitality of Indigenous Religions. Ashgate.
Appiah, Simon Kofi. 2022. “Fetish Again? Southern Perspectives on the Material Approach to the Study of Religion.” Open Theology 8 (1): 79–94. https://doi.org/10.1515/opth-2022-0197.
Barrows, John Henry. 1893. The World’s Parliament of Religions. An Illustrated and Popular Story of the World’s First Parliament of Religions, Held in Chicago in Connection with The Columbian Exposition of 1893, Vol. I/II. The Parliament Publishing Company.
Barth, Boris, and Rolf Hobson. 2021. “Civilizing Missions from the 19th to the 21st Centuries, or from Uplifting to Democratization.” In Civilizing Missions in the Twentieth Century. Studies in Global Social History 40. Brill.
Carpenter, Joel A. 2017. “Christian Universities Grow in Africa.” International Higher Education 88 (Winter): 25–26. https://doi.org/10.6017/ihe.2017.88.9692.
———. 2019. “To Be Agents of a Life-Giving Transformation: Christian Higher Education in Africa by Joel A. Carpenter, Response by Andrew F. Walls.” Yale Divinity School Library, Occasional Publication 26, June 2019.
Chidester, David. 2004. “‘Classify and Conquer’: Friedrich Max Muller, Indigenous Traditions, and Imperial Comparative Religion.” In Beyond Primitivism: Indigenous Religious Traditions and Modernity, edited by Jacob K. Olupona. Routledge.
‘Constitution of the Republic of Liberia’. In Liberia: Description, History, Problems, Starr, Frederick. 1913. Chicago.
Davies, Ioan. 1998. “Negotiating African Culture: Toward a Decolonization of the Fetish.” In The Cultures of Globalization, edited by Fredric Jameson and Masao Miyoshi. Duke University Press.
Falola, Toyin. 2021. Decolonizing African Studies: Epistemologies, Ontologies, and Agencies. Rochester Studies in African History and the Diaspora 93. University of Rochester Press.
Freitag, Ulrike, and Achim von Oppen, eds. 2010. Translocality: The Study of Globalising Processes from a Southern Perspective. Studies in Global Social History 4. Brill.
General History of Africa: A pioneering corpus covering the history of the entire African continent (UNESCO). n.d. “Global Africa: an innovative concept.” Accessed January 10, 2025. https://www.unesco.org/en/general-history-africa.
Hackett, Rosalind I. J. 1993. “The Study of Religions in Africa: Report on the IAHR Regional Conference, Harare, Zimbabwe, September 15–19, 1992.” Method & Theory in the Study of Religion 5 (1): 63–69. https://doi.org/10.1163/157006893X00074.
Jenkins, Paul. 2007. “The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity.” The Religious Educator 8 (3): 113–25.
King, Noel Quinton. 1975. “Review: The Historical Study of African Religion by T. O. Ranger and I. N. Kimambo.” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 43 (2): 361–62.
Ludwig, Frieder, and Afe Adogame, eds. 2004. European Traditions in the Study of Religion in Africa. Series of the Association for the Study of Religions. Harrassowitz.
Lunkwitz, Diana. 2022. “On Growing Private Christian Universities and a Colonial Heritage of Education in Sub-Saharan Africa.” Unpublished conference paper presented at the Workshop: Multiple Secularities in Africa and the Diaspora, 1–3 June 2022. Leipzig.
Mamdani, Mahmood. 2001. “Beyond Settler and Native as Political Identities: Overcoming the Political Legacy of Colonialism.” Comparative Studies in Society and History 43 (4): 651–64. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0010417501004285.
Massaquoi, Fatima. 2013. The Autobiography of an African Princess. Edited by Vivian Seton, Konrad Tuchscherer, and Arthur Abraham. Palgrave Macmillan.
Massaquoi, Momolu. 1905. “An African’s Appeal for Africa, By Prince Momolu Massaquoi of Ghendimah (Gallinas) Of the British Protectorate of Sierra Leone (Condensed from the Century Magazine).” The Missionary Review of the World 28 (6): 449–53.
———. 1926. The Republic of Liberia/Die Republik Liberia. Translated by Momolu Massaquoi. Hamburg.
Mbembe, Joseph-Achille. 2013. Sortir de la grande nuit: essai sur l’Afrique décolonisée. La Découverte.
———. 2021. Out of the Dark Night: Essays on Decolonization. Translated by Daniela Ginsburg. Columbia University Press.
M’Bow, Amadou-Mahtar. 1990. “Preface.” In Methodology and African Prehistory, edited by Joseph Ki-Zerbo. General History of Africa, I. James Currey; University of California Press; Unesco.
Noffke, Oliver. 2022. “Fort Groß Friedrichsburg in Ghana: Als Brandenburger Sklavenhändler nach Afrika kamen.” Accessed January 10, 2025. https://www.rbb24.de/panorama/beitrag/2022/12/festung-grossfriedrichsburg-ghana-koloniale-vergangenenheit-brandenburg.html.
Nash, CL, Carol Marie Webster, and Greeta Patel. 2024. “Editorial: Black Women’s Radical Religious Epistemologies in Mahogany and Steepled Towers.” Special Issue: Black Women’s Radical Religious Epistemologies in Mahogany and Steepled Towers. The African Journal of Gender and Religion 30 (1): i–xxxii. https://doi.org/10.36615/0anp5403.
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.
Ranger, T. O., and Isaria N. Kimambo, eds. 1972. The Historical Study of African Religion: With Special Reference to East and Central Africa. Heinemann Educational.
Starr, Frederick. 1913. Liberia: Description, History, Problems. Chicago.
Steyn, Melissa, and William Mpofu, eds. 2021. Decolonising the Human: Reflections from Africa on Difference and Oppression. Wits University Press.
Strong, Josiah. 1885. Our Country: Its Possible Future and Its Present Crisis. The American Home Missionary Society. Baker & Taylor.
———. 1894. “Temperance. A Crime of Civilization (Dr. Josiah Strong in the New York Weekly Witness.).” The Christian Cynosure XXVII (8, No. 1.272) (November 1, 1894): 11, col. 1–2.
Walls, Andrew F. 2019. “Response.” In To Be Agents of a Life-Giving Transformation: Christian Higher Education in Africa, by Joel A. Carpenter, Yale Divinity School Library, Occasional Publication No. 26 (June 2019).
Wiredu, Kwasi. 1998. “Toward Decolonizing African Philosophy and Religion.” African Studies Quarterly 1 (4): 17–46.
———. 2011. “Introduction: Decolonizing African Philosophy and Religion.” In Decolonizing African Religions: A Short History of African Religions in Western Scholarship, by Okot P’Bitek. Diasporic Africa Press.
Article Sidebar
Published
Apr 28, 2025
Article Details
How to Cite
Decolonizing the Study of Africa-Related Religions: Reflections on Translocality and Positionality Using the Example of Liberia. (2025). Utambuzi: Journal for the Study of the Religions of Africa and Its Diaspora, 8(1), 21-34. https://doi.org/10.36615/2565ak69
Section
Articles
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Author Biography
Diana K. Lunkwitz, Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen-Nürnberg
Diana K. Lunkwitz is Postdoctoral Research Associate in religious studies and tntercultural theology at
Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg in Germany. She completed her doctoral studies at Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg. Here and at the University of Hamburg, she taught Religions in Africa, the Study of Esotericism, Religion and Ecology, the History of Christian missions
and Orientalism and Intersectionality. She has published in journals and books on these and other topics, with a focus on power dynamics.
How to Cite
Decolonizing the Study of Africa-Related Religions: Reflections on Translocality and Positionality Using the Example of Liberia. (2025). Utambuzi: Journal for the Study of the Religions of Africa and Its Diaspora, 8(1), 21-34. https://doi.org/10.36615/2565ak69