Mbembe’s Matrix and the Matri-Archive

Achille Mbembe shows how the West’s denigrating projections on Africa as a chaotic void perpetrated a founding epistemic violence. The matrix of Black Reason, Blackness, and The Black worked systematically to justify colonialism and undermine African subjectivity. By maintaining its grip over the psyche, the postcolonial commandement effortlessly and indefinitely sustained subjugation. This is its ‘little secret’. Mbembe suggests that liberation may be possible by appealing to an archive from the ‘underside’ of African history to retrieve a self that is not constituted by toxic colonial projections. Drawing on my work An Intimate Rebuke: Female Genital Power in Ritual and Politics in West Africa, I argue that the traditional appeal by postmenopausal women to their ‘bottom power’ is just such a living matrix – a ‘matri-archive’. Performing this ritual in the context of public protest, the ‘Mothers’ deploy their own ‘little secret’ with the capacity to break the hold of the postcolony’s spell.

Zulu Creation Myths by Credo Mutwa – Ancient Tradition or Mutwa’s Invention?

Vusamazulu Credo Mutwa (1921–2020) was one the most famous and controversial sangomas in South Africa. He is the first sangoma who published books about sangomas’ vocation and work, and revealed his version of Zulu myths. This paper first establishes if Mutwa’s tales can be considered myths, then if those stories are cohesive with versions known to academics and contemporary sangomas. The aim of this article is to analyse the creation myths that Mutwa presents, establish if they are original Zulu myths or his creations, and find international mythological motifs that could have influenced him. Mutwa’s myths are compared with myths collected by other researchers. Mutwa’s opinions, gained during a 2013 field visit to his home in Kuruman, South Africa, are also presented. The field studies among contemporary sangomas were financed by the Polish National Science Centre (Narodowe Centrum Nauki), Poland, project no. 2017/25/N/HS1/02500.

Is Giriama Traditionalism a Religion? Negotiating Indigenous African Religiosity in ‘Interfaith’ Cooperation in Coastal Kenya

This article explores how Giriama elders represent their ‘traditional religion’ (dini ya jadi) through ‘interfaith’ cooperation with Christians and Muslims in the coastal Kenyan town of Malindi. Based on extensive ethnographic research, the article analyses how Giriama Traditionalism relates, in complex and ambivalent ways, to normative assumptions and ideals with regard to what religion entails, and in turn how Giriama elders seek recognition as representatives of a religion in this setting. Such claims are made in a context where Christians, Muslims, and state actors sometimes doubt whether Giriama Traditionalism is worthy of being called a ‘religion’ at all. The article demonstrates that although in the context of interfaith cooperation Christianity, Islam, and ‘Traditionalism’ are formally recognized as equal religions, this does not necessarily create a level playing field. Instead, it requires Giriama elders to appropriate terms, norms, and ideals that are not necessarily of their own making in order for Giriama Traditionalism to be recognized as a religion. Through this analysis, the article aims to contribute to theoretical debates about religious diversity in African contexts by demonstrating how negotiations about what properly counts as (good) religion in coastal Kenya are deeply informed by the copresence of Christianity, Islam, and indigenous African religiosity in one religious field.

Vodún/Vodu, Resistance, and North/South Relations in Undemocratic Togo

Vodún/Vodu have long served as a “way of life” and ontology for making sense of the world along the Bight of Benin, and in the Caribbean and Atlantic world where many slaves were brought. In Togo, the core ethnic groups, the Ewes, continue to turn inward toward Vodún/Vodu traditions as mechanisms of resistance against an autocratic and despotic rule of a northern regime. While the north remains underdeveloped regarding education, economics, and health care delivery—the majority southern Ewes remain locked out of a political process run by the Eyadema regime, who regularly cite north/south conflict as a justification for absolute one-party rule over all of Togo. Vodun/Vodu become motors of modernity through creative assimilation and adaptation to the most pressing geopolitical concerns of the day. This paper assesses the relationship between Vodun/Vodu and contemporary Togolese politics, and its resistance to state-sponsored terror and autocracy.

Pentecostal Theology, Identity Politics, and Racialized Xenophobia: Claiming A New Social Order

Applying the methodological lens of ethnographic theology, the article argues that grounded Pentecostal theologies participate in reimagining a new social order, particularly in relation to racialized xenophobia. This argument is made in the specific context of two Pentecostal churches in Johannesburg, South Africa, both led and frequented by people who have come to Johannesburg from other parts of the African continent. The argument is outlined by unpacking three theological themes prominent in the collected ethnographic data: positive confession, Word-centred ecclesiology, and Christlike lifestyle. Taken together, these themes highlight a social conscience that other societal actors would do well to take seriously when considering combatting xenophobia. Overall, the article challenges the scholarly emphasis on Pentecostal theologies as uninterested in life-affirming structural change, building on Nimi Wariboko’s formulation of blackness, chosenness, and Nigerian Pentecostalism ‘that reads against the existing social order’ within the particular context of xenophobia in urban South Africa.

What Is Religion in Africa? Relational Dynamics in an Entangled World

Addressing the implications of the introduction of the concept of religion to Africa in the colonial era, this essay approaches religion from a relational angle that takes into account the connections between Africa and Europe. Much can be learned about the complexity and power dynamics of these connections by studying religion not simply in but also from Africa. Referring to historical and current materials from my research in Ghana by way of example, my concern is to show how a focus on religion can serve as a productive entry point into the longstanding relational dynamics through which Africa and Europe are entangled. This is a necessary step in decolonizing scholarly knowledge production about religion in Africa, and in religious studies at large.

The Vetting Impasse: The ‘Churches Law’ and Kenya’s Religious Regulation Debate

Over the last decade Kenya has been seeing a lively debate over the regulation of its ever-expanding religious market and demands for a new ‘Churches Law’. Tales of hypocritical abuse of power and of emerging cults coalesced with security concerns regarding religious extremism, leading to the proposal to tighten regulatory control over the religious market, which expanded rapidly since the 1990s. Despite widespread recognition of the problem, new legislative steps have failed so far, notably even leading to a controversial 2014 moratorium on the registration of new religious denominations. This article analyzes this legislative impasse and offers an explanation in terms of the ambivalent yet symbiotic relations between religion and state in Kenya.

Exhibiting Faith against an Imperial Background: Angola and the Spiritans at the Vatican Missionary Exhibition (1925)

In 1925 the Vatican Missionary Exhibition took place, presenting thousands of objects sent by Catholic missions around the world. Resulting from substantial efforts by the Church, the exhibition had a significant public impact, with an estimated one million visitors. It marked a critical moment in the international affirmation of the Church, as well as the reformulation and expansion of its missionary policy in the aftermath of the Great War. Catholic missions and congregations in the Portuguese colonial empire participated in the exhibition. This article focuses on the Angolan case, where the Congregation of the Holy Spirit was the main protagonist of Catholic missionisation. I examine the organisation process, the circulation of norms and objects across imperial borders, and their exhibition at the Vatican. I discuss the tensions between the pontifical message and Portuguese missionary politics, as well as the intermediary position that the Spiritans occupied.