This volume honours one of the great scholars of our era, Professor Jacob Olupona. Although he has conducted significant portions of his career outside of Nigeria, he has not separated himself from his colleagues or from interests in religions in Nigeria and elsewhere in Africa. His publications and presentations offer the international scholarly community important critical insights into a range of religious activities, life ways and ideas originating in Africans and the African Diaspora. In spite of the diversity in the thoughts and opinions expressed, and equally of the range of disciplines and topics contained in the book, one can say that the contributors have developed a shared concern about the role of African Indigenous Religious Traditions in the processes of development and the context within which it (development) had or is taking place. The book guides us to a deep understanding and appreciation of how Africans in their varied situations grapple with existential problems through philosophical ruminations, complex ritual processes, cultivated memory and organized coping strategies.

The Palgrave Handbook of African Traditional Religion interrogates and presents robust and comprehensive contributions from interdisciplinary experts and scholars. Offering a range of perspectives and opinions through the prism of understanding the past about African Traditional religions and, more importantly, capturing their dynamics in the present and projecting their sustainability and relevance for the future, this volume is an essential resource for knowledge and understanding of African Traditional religions in the global space of religious traditions.

Uncovers the influence of Yoruba culture on women’s religious lives and leadership in religions practiced by Yoruba people Women in Yoruba Religions examines the profound influence of Yoruba culture in Yoruba religion, Christianity, Islam, and Afro-Diasporic religions such as Santeria and Candomblé, placing gender relations in historical and social contexts. While the coming of Christianity and Islam to Yorubaland has posed significant challenges to Yoruba gender relations by propagating patriarchal gender roles, the resources within Yoruba culture have enabled women to contest the full acceptance of those new norms. Oyeronke Olademo asserts that Yoruba women attain and wield agency in family and society through their economic and religious roles, and Yoruba operate within a system of gender balance, so that neither of the sexes can be subsumed in the other. Olademo utilizes historical and phenomenological methods, incorporating impressive data from interviews and participant-observation, showing how religion is at the core of Yoruba lived experiences and is intricately bound up in all sectors of daily life in Yorubaland and abroad in the diaspora.

This book offers an overview of the material expressions of Caribbean religious expressions, including those that have been imported through the vehicle of colonialism, and which subsequently changed and adapted within the Caribbean Islands and those religious expressions which developed through the contact of African, indigenous and imported world views. This book takes a multi-disciplinary perspective, drawing from subjects as diverse as archaeology, religious studies, history, human geography and anthropology. It introduces current topical debates around the role of colonialism and religion in the Caribbean, and also considers theoretical approaches to the study of Caribbean religions set within a wider global context. This approach introduces the reader to a number of important and topical concepts around the wider study of Caribbean religions, and illuminates the complex cultural history and interplay of these religions in the Caribbean Islands. Richly illustrated and drawing upon a range of different cultural approaches, it offers new and challenging perspectives on the development and cultural history of Caribbean spiritual and religious expression through the lens of the material world. The book is for anyone interested in the Caribbean as a region and the role of religious behaviour in human society. Students of religions, archaeology and anthropology will find a number of thought-provoking and important case studies which relate complex theories to real-world case studies. Any profits from this book will be donated to UNICEF Eastern Caribbean projects supporting vulnerable children in the region (https://www.unicef.org/easterncaribbean/).

Socio-Anthropological Approaches to Religion: Environmental Hope interprets the fundamental functions of spirituality through the theories and practices of hope and understanding the futuristic aspiration of new religious movements. The book portrays a neutral notion of hope that can be either religious or humanistic in the face of the suffering or despair of present reality. The concept of hope (or hopelessness) is demonstrated in each chapter under the global circumstance of health risk. Part One represents the various theories of hope in Christian history, ecology and climate, the Sabbath and surveillance, and the triune God. The insecure situation that creates the expectation of hope is demonstrated in Part Two, where the case studies of terrorist attacks, immigration, volunteering behavior, religious education, and medieval Islamic tradition indicate social unbalance. The last section illustrates the cultural anthropology of hope through the activities of different native new religious movements including the Moonies’ Unification movement, Yoruba Nigerian indigenous spirituality, and Cosmovisions of Sepik New Guinea. This book examines hope as a crucial element of human’s internal healing beyond medical technology.

The study of African philosophy, like all great philosophical enquiries around the world, is fraught with the wrecks of words, wrenched from their original meaning, widened or narrowed, and forced into a bewildering variety of vessels that chum their ways in seas of semantic confusion. African philosophical studies has acquired and added to the many philosophical verbal transmogrifications that came originally from the Igbo of south-eastern Nigeria. In its turn, it has produced its own eccentric philosophical etymology, of which, perhaps the most striking example is Igwebuike philosophy. A reflection on Igwebuike philosophy reveals that it is a product of a meticulous and critical study of African philosophy. It is in this light that the scrupulous researcher would dissect the profound thinker behind the Igwebuike philosophy. In this book, scholars of different hues and academic endeavours have made excursus into the origin, originator, meaning and relevance of Igwebuike philosophy to contemporary African philosophical scholarship and African societies. Research shows that the brain behind Igwebuike philosophy that is gradually becoming a major part of African philosophical engagement is incontestably Prof Ikechukwu Anthony Kanu, O.S.A. Igwebuike itself is a philosophical principle that is drawn from African primordial practice of solidarity and complementarity; the works of professional African philosophers, African proverbs, African folk tales, African mythology, African symbols, African names and African songs. — Kanayo L. Nwadialor, Ph.D Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka

Crashed Realities? explores the lived realities women Pentecostals encounter in male-founded Pentecostal churches. Idumwonyi demonstrates the gender dynamics at play in Nigerian Pentecostalism by exploring the ‘drama’ that played out in the wake of the nomination of the first woman Pentecostal archbishop in Nigeria and the subsequent attempt to 'erase' her from a significant leadership position and the pages of history. This case underscores how Pentecostalism, which presents as egalitarian, engages in and perpetuates gender disparity, revealing the realities that are crashed every day. This book further explores the profound ambiguities that result from an underlying commitment to patriarchy, making the calls to inclusivity illogical. In contrast, she proposes the advantages of the Pentecost Experience as favorable background to gender inclusivity and, in turn, human flourishing.

This book considers how the establishment and/or improvement of gender equality impacts on the social, economic, religious, cultural, environmental and political developments of human societies in Africa and its Diaspora. An interdisciplinary team of contributors examine the role of gender in development against the background of Africa’s convoluted and arduous history of state formation, slavery, colonialism, post-independence, nation-building and poverty. Each chapter highlights and stimulates further discussion on the struggles that many African and African Diaspora societies grapple with in the perplexing issue of gender and development - concentrating on gains that have been made and the challenges yet to be surmounted.

This book examines the intersection between cultural identities and development in African and the Diaspora from multidisciplinary perspectives. Starting with the premise that culture is one of the most significant factors in development, the book examines diverse topics such as the migrations of musical forms, social media, bilingualism and religion. Foregrounding the work of Africa based scholars, the book presents strategies for identifying solutions to the challenges facing African culture and development. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of African Studies and African Culture and Society.

This edited volume brings together scholars from across disciplines to examine the relationship between religion and alcohol. It examines the historical, social, ritual, economic, political, and cultural relationship between religion and alcohol across time periods and around the world. Twelve chapters are tied together by two major themes: first, gender identity, and its intersection with religion and alcohol; second, identity construction in religious communities, demonstrating how alcohol can be used as a distinguishing factor for religious, ethnic, and national identity. A key focus of the volume is how alcohol can bridge and divide the point at which the sacred and secular meet. With its interdisciplinary approach and engaging style, this book is an essential resource for undergraduate and graduate students in religion departments and appeals to scholars of material culture, food, and alcohol. Additionally, the book is of interest to professionals in the alcohol industry, particularly those involved in microbrewing and winemaking, who are interested in understanding the historical and cultural contexts of their craft.