African Witchcraft and Religion among the Yoruba: Translation as Demarcation Practice within a Global Religious History

2021 ◽  
Vol 33 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 381-409
Author(s):  
Judith Bachmann

Abstract For years, self-identified witches have demanded the public acknowledgement of witchcraft as “religion” in Nigeria. These political debates are reflected in a long-ongoing scholarly discussion about whether “witchcraft” in Africa should be regarded as religion or not. At its core, this discussion concerns the quest for African meanings. I argue that we should focus on the translingual practice as the reason for today’s perception of “African” and “European” differences as incommensurable. Tracing back today’s understanding of witchcraft among the Yoruba (àjé), the Alatinga anti-witchcraft movement of the early 1950s becomes the nodal point of Yoruba witchcraft history. Discussing the Alatinga as translingual practice, I understand Yoruba witchcraft concepts as products of a global religious history. Only in the aftermath of the Alatinga, a hybrid movement, did the need arise to demarcate “African” and “European” meanings. Thus, Yoruba translingual practice has also affected European understandings of religion and witchcraft today.

2013 ◽  
Vol 30 (3) ◽  
pp. 39-58
Author(s):  
Tazu Islam

Maqāṣid al-Qur’ān is an emerging science that promotes an understanding of the Qur’anic discourse’s purposive (maqasidic) angle. Beginning with preliminary ideas in the fifth Islamic century, it has now achieved the status, in the eyes of many prominent contemporary Muslims, of being a specific science. Having been the subject of scholarly discussion in articles, books, television programs, seminars and conferences, this subject has created a new academic debate in the very contemporary field of Qur’anic studies. This study explores its genesis and conceptual developments over time by analyzing the root of this science as well as how it has fared at the hands of early and modern scholarship of the Qur’an. Its findings are expected to contribute to presenting this field to the public in a compact form.


Author(s):  
Tiago Ventura ◽  
Kevin Munger ◽  
Katherine McCabe ◽  
Keng-Chi Chang

Recent advancements in online streaming technologies have re-centered the audience as an important part of live broadcasts, including live political events. In fall 2020, each of the U.S. presidential and vice presidential debates were streamed on a number of online platforms that provided an integrated streaming chat where the public could comment in real-time alongside the live debate video. Viewers could simultaneously tune into what the candidates were saying and see what a sample of their peers thought about the candidates. This study examines large samples of comments made in social chat feeds during the livestreamed debates on the ABC News, NBC News, and Fox News Facebook pages to quantify key features associated with the quality of political discussion on these platforms. The results reveal that consistent with the quasi-anonymous, constrained nature of dynamic chat, the comments made are generally short, include a substantial degree of toxicity and insults, and differ significantly in their content across platforms. These findings underscore the importance of further study of online streaming chat as a new source of potential influence on political attitudes and behavior.


Author(s):  
Ken Garfield

This chapter asks whether Billy Graham’s legacy will endure, what Franklin Graham’s effect will be, and what the future holds for mass evangelism. Ken Garfield argues that while time will dim his memory among the public, his place in religious history is secure. But how Franklin Graham, who has an undoubtedly different approach from that of his father, will mark that historical legacy remains in question. Opinions vary greatly as to the costs and benefits of Franklin Graham’s role. Finally, Garfield cites the barrage of distractions that threaten the possibility of another figure like Billy Graham rising to such prominence in mass evangelism. Yet he leaves open that question, recognizing that the possibility exists, but most likely in the form of someone quite different from Billy Graham.


2009 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 106-113
Author(s):  
Eric Barnes ◽  

The problem of dirty hands concerns the apparently inevitable need for effective politicians to do what is ethically wrong. This essay discusses a related problem in democratic elections of politicians being unwilling to commit themselves to precise positions on controversial policy issues. Given certain plausible assumptions, I demonstrate using a simple game theoretic model that there is an incentive structure for political candidates that is damaging to the public good. I contrast this problem with the classic prisoner’s dilemma and then go on to discuss some possible strategies for overcoming this problem by an improved system of political debates.


2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (7) ◽  
pp. 49
Author(s):  
Danilo Araújo Moreira

Durante o século XIX a instrução pública figurou como pauta frequente nos debates políticos do jovem império do Brasil. Nas altas galerias da política nacional e nas salas das assembleias provinciais, a formação escolar dos cidadãos brasileiros foi tema de leis e regulamentos diversos. Iniciava-se neste período a estrutura de ensino público no Brasil independente. Na corte e nas províncias, planejavam-se e fundavam-se faculdades, escolas normais, liceus, externatos, aulas avulsas e outras instituições escolares. Este processo integrou o curso da organização do Estado Nacional no Brasil. No interior deste movimento, a instrução pública foi progressivamente se constituindo como um instrumento a ser utilizado para auxiliar na resolução de algumas questões colocadas às elites imperiais. Pouco ainda tem se discutido, contudo, sobre os discursos e as representações que foram construídas neste processo acerca do valor da instrução, do letramento e da formação escolar. Neste ensaio, buscamos realizar uma reflexão sobre este tema nos orientando pelo seguinte questionamento: ao longo da criação do titubeante sistema de instrução pública da província de Minas Gerais, de que modo a escolarização era abordada nos discursos políticos? A discussão aqui delineada é pautada pelo enfoque sobre uma documentação específica que já foi utilizada em algumas pesquisas em história da educação, mas que ainda consiste em uma fonte de informações importante sobre a organização da instrução pública em Minas Gerais: os Relatórios dos Presidentes da Província.* * *During the 19th century the public instruction has figured as a frequent matter in political debates from the early Brazilian Empire. At the highest galleries of national politics and into the provincial assemblies rooms, the scholar formation of brazilian citizens was theme of a huge variety of laws and rules. In this period, the public education structuration has been started at the independent Brazil. At the court and provincies, it was planned and founded new colleges, normal schools, day-schools, lyceums, single classes and other institutions. This process has integrated the organization course of the National State in Brazil. Within this moviment, the public instruction was progressively constituting itself as an instrument to be used to help finding the answer of some questions posed to the imperial elite. Only a little has been discussed about the topic yet, however, the speech and representation were built at this process around the value of instruction, the literacy and the school education. In this essay, we seek to reflect about the theme, guiding ourselves by the following question: throughout the creation of this hesitant public instruction system in Minas Gerais’ province, in which way did the schooling use to be addressed at the political speeches? The argumentation outlined in this arcticle is marked by the focus on a specific documentation which has already been used in some reaserches in the history of education, but it still represents an important information source about the public instruction organization in Minas Gerais: the Province Presidents’ Reports.


Author(s):  
David McCooey

Since the late 1990s, complaints about the status of poetry, and the parlous state of poetry publishing, have been commonplace in Australia and other Anglophone nations. Concomitant with this discourse of decline (a transnational discourse with a surprisingly long history) is a discourse of return, in which poetry is presented as returning to public culture (often through the literalized voice of the poet) to reoccupy the place it putatively held in earlier, if not premodern, times. Poetry’s engagement with public themes and the public use of poetry continue to be important, if sometimes overlooked, elements of Australian literary culture. Indeed, despite its apparent marginality, contemporary poetry could be said to have what may be called an “ambiguous vitality” in public life. While other forms of media continue to dominate public culture, poetry nevertheless remains public, in part by occupying or being occupied by those other forms of media. In other words, contemporary poetry’s ambiguously vital presence in public culture can be seen in the ways it figures in extra-poetic contexts. Such contexts are manifold. For instance, poetry—and the figure of the poet—are mobilized as tropes in other media such as films and novels; poetry is used as a form of public/political speech to articulate crisis and loss (such as at annual Anzac ceremonies); and it is used in everyday rituals such as weddings and funerals. Public culture, as this list suggests, is haunted by the marginal discourse of poetry. In addition, poetry’s traditional function of commenting on the body politic and current political debates continues, regardless of the size of the medium’s putative audience. Recent poetry on the so-called “War on Terror,” the Stolen Generation, and asylum seekers illustrates this. But contemporary Australian poetry engages in public life in ways other than the thematization of current public events. Poets such as Jennifer Maiden, John Forbes, and J. S. Harry exemplify a group of poets who have figured themselves as public poets in a self-consciously ironic fashion; acknowledging poetry’s marginality, they nevertheless write poetry as if it had or may have an extra-poetic efficacy.


Author(s):  
Vítor Westhelle

Eschatology was until recently a mute locus in the treatment of Luther’s dogmatic, subsumed under the doctrine of justification. There is now a significant agreement as to the eschatological and soteriological significance of the presence of Christ in faith made effective through his cross and resurrection. This pertains to the coram Deo perspective. In the coram mundo perspective, however, eschatology assumes spatial and temporal dimensions and finds expression in mundane boundaries and limits (ta eschata). Luther’s approach to eschatology, then, has two foci, one addressing presence and the other focusing on representations. If in justification all is simultaneous, in works there are distinctions. In one the theological operational category is faith, while in the other it is love. While the two foci of eschatology are expressed by the two perspectives of the relationship humans have to God and to the world, eschatology in the latter entails two aspects of their implications. One deals with the private individual: death, bodily resurrection, eternal life, final judgment, and the soul’s immortality. The immortality of the soul has been a disputed issue in Luther research but in the end largely irrelevant, considering that the resurrection pertains to the whole human being; the soul and the glorified body will enter eternal bliss with the final judgment. As to this judgment, the restoration of all things (apokatastasis pantōn) is clearly rejected, and yet the eternal damnation of the wicked is not a forgone conclusion. The final revelation, when God will be all in all, will be unveiled only in the light of glory (lumen gloriae) whose mystery Luther claims not to know: nescio. The other aspect of the earthly dimension has a social and cosmic component in which it is represented by the limits demarcated by the public spheres or orders instituted by God. These are realms in which reason is publicly exercised in work done for the sake of the requirements of the law. The public spheres are instruments in the earthly realm against the work of the devil (ecclesia, oeconomia, and politia), which are the three public realms under the single canopy of Christian love. And this love demands reason and efficacy for the sake of justice and equity. It pertains to sanctification, not to salvation. In the worldly perspective, Luther was susceptible to the end-time speculations of his days, producing even (as a diversion, he claimed) a world historical calendar predicting the arrival of the cosmic Sabbath. The nodal point connecting these two eschatological foci rests in Luther’s interpretation of the Chalcedonian communicatio. The earthly dimension of eschatology is one with the spiritual, as the person of the incarnate logos cannot be divided. That God creates what God loves is true from creation to consummation; protology and eschatology are one in Christology, while the distinction remains without confusion as long as creation subsists and the love of God abides.


Author(s):  
Stephan Procházka

The ʿAlawis are adherents of an Islamic sect, the origin of which can be traced back to 9th-century Iraq. They are an offshoot of early Shiah Islam with ancient Iranian, Christian, and Gnostic influences. Outsiders often call them “Nusayri,” after the sect’s founder Ibn Nusayr. Practically all ʿAlawis are Arabs. Their total number is about four million, among which some 2.5 million reside in Syria, where they constitute roughly 12 percent of the population. Many ʿAlawi beliefs and rites are still kept secret by the community, being revealed only to initiate male members. One key element in their faith is the belief in a divine triad that has manifested itself to the ʿAlawi community in seven cycles. Other characteristics are an extraordinary veneration for Muhammad’s son-in-law ʿAli, the belief in the transmigration of the soul, and a very large number of holy shrines, which are frequent in all regions settled by ʿAlawis. Because of the esoteric nature of the ʿAlawi religion and the scarcity of authentic written sources, many details of their creed are subjects of vigorous public and scholarly discussion. For many centuries, the ʿAlawis were an economically weak, socially marginalized, and persecuted group whose heartland was western Syria. The public rise of the community began with the establishment of the French mandate over Syria after World War I and reached its zenith when the ʿAlawi Hafiz al-Assad became president of Syria in 1971. Since then, the disproportionate political and economic influence of the ʿAlawis in Syria has fueled confessional conflicts with the Sunni majority, which culminated in the civil war that began in 2011.


Africa ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 90 (3) ◽  
pp. 625-646
Author(s):  
Frédérick Madore

AbstractThe attention paid to the security threats hanging over Burkina Faso, while legitimate, has overshadowed the underlying transformations in Islamic associational life since the fall of President Blaise Compaoré in October 2014. This major political upheaval had a significant impact on the participation of Muslims in socio-political debates, the relations between generations and, more widely, the bases upon which religious authority is claimed. This article analyses the competition for religious leadership between Islamic actors in the public sphere in Burkina Faso by focusing mainly on francophone ‘Muslim intellectuals’. First, the study shows the gap between the gerontocracy at the helm of the main Islamic associations and the Burkinabe youth, which widened throughout the 1990s and 2000s and came strongly to the fore after the popular uprising of October 2014. Second, taking advantage of the space left vacant by traditional community leaders during the transition process, some young francophone ‘Muslim intellectuals’ actively sought to portray themselves as the vehicles of a ‘civil Islam’ and strove to promote new forms of civic engagement through religion. Other Muslim organizations have also tried to take advantage of the new political context to strengthen their presence in the socio-political arena.


2007 ◽  
Vol 27 (3) ◽  
pp. 319-340 ◽  
Author(s):  
CARL DAHLSTRÖM

ABSTRACTThis paper explains differences in the policy objectives and policy programs of Swedish immigrant policy as a consequence of the fact that policy objectives tend to be evaluated in public political debates whereas policy programs are evaluated through administrative reviews within government. Given contrasting contexts, different questions are important for policy legitimacy. The public debate focuses on questions of moral values, while the audit within government deals with issues of efficiency. Policy objectives and policy programs therefore respond differently to criticisms that separate rhetoric and practice. As a result, Swedish immigrant policy rhetoric and practice were from the outset only loosely joined and have failed to converge over time.


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