S8) Western Scholarship on African Religion by Okot p'Bitek

what does p’Bitek criticise with the term “chosen blindness”?

• fixed ideas abt classifications of human societies, they researched with leading questions, blind(ing) assumptions and unwillingness to truly see and understand the African societies, their beliefs and social structures

• they looked for knowledge in the wrong places, applied western social structure to African social structure → looked for experts and priests not asking the ordinary people

• looked for confirmation for their western preconceptions!

are christian ideas and terms applicable to african life philosophies according to p’Bitek

• christianity and it’s ideas are untranslatable into African beliefs/societies

• teachings of christianity are irrelevant because they are not meaningful to the already existing social structures

• christianity was only attractive because it offered power, status and wealth

• christianity aims/aimed to to produce loyal, grateful, inferior, rootless and self-hating Africans

• Ludo do not think metaphysically and therefore christian concepts don’t have any equivalents and are alien concepts

what is the problem with the term ‘belief’?

• belief in european way of thinking: belief in a deity who rewards and punishes, not in daily practices

• christian practices have a metaphysical level (=doing something in order to please a deity instead of just doing something)

→ Africans were seen as without belief and religion because African belief only consists of practices, there is no metaphysical level to it

what does p’Bitek mean with the term ‘intellectual smuggling’?

• import of alien (western) themes and concepts into the African context and then claiming that these are indigenous to African culture

  • e.g. concept of a ‘creator’ who is omnipotent, -scient and -present, mana principle, African theology, animism

• start: belief that there are some universal concepts → finding equivalent names in African languages

(V) definition of religion

• Tylor: belief in spiritual beings

• Geertz: religion is a system of symbols (like rituals, stories, objects, images, sacred texts) that:

  • shape how people feel (deep emotions, like awe, fear, hope)

  • shape how people act (their motivations and behavior)

  • give them a big-picture explanation of how the world works

  • make that explanation feel completely real and true

evolutionism in religious anthro

• evolutionism, Morgan: irrationality of practice and beliefs of non-western societies, ‘correction’ by civilization

• Tylor: rationality but ‘wrong’ development (e.g. animism in Africa), monotheism as right development

functionalism in religious anthro

• understanding religious systems in terms of their role and function in social structures

• Durkheim:

• overcoming the barrier between sacred world and the profane, everyday world

• religion vs magic (devaluation!)

• religion/religious rituals as an emotional-moral bond for social cohesion and discipline

• critique: too purpose-rational!!!

symbolism in religious anthro

• M. Douglas: symbolic relation of humans between world and cosmos

• taboo, purity and dirt as systems of overarching symbolic order → live on in secular modern times (division of state and religion)

• critique: rigid system that lacks diversity, focus on social stability, missing critique on social repression and no focus on processes of change

• Geertz: religion = cultural + dynamic system

• purpose and meaning as central functions

• symbols = ‘model of’ how the world is and ‘model for’ how the world should be

• critique: reduction to personal experience, are there always systems that give meaning? aren’t there other systems that can give meaning

‘traditional religions’

• witchcraft is diverse phenomenon that still exists centuries later even in secular modern times

• E. Evans-Pritchard: witchcraft as an institution for negotiating social tensions in African indigenous societies (Azande)

• witchcraft as inheritable vs sorcery as illicit magic

rites of passage

• marks transition between group belonging, life phases in all societies (e.g. birth, death, marriage, change of social status, …)

• 3 stadiums of rites of passage: seperation, transition and incorporation

ritual, liminal phase and communitas

• Victor Turner: ritual = set way of behaving during special occasions, it’s connected to shared beliefs about spiritual or unseen powers that people think are the ultimate cause behind what happens in the world, symbols are the smallest unit of a ritual

• liminal phase= the in-between phase, betwixt and between,

• communitas: intense community spirit, a feeling of social equality, solidarity, and togetherness experienced by participants during the "liminal" (threshold) phase of rituals

• communitas have the goal of social cohesion and potential sabotage of social order

anthro view on religion

• how does it come to intra- and interreligious diversity? what are internal fragilities and contradictories?

sociological thesis on secularization (3 dimensions)

• legal dimension: religious posessions were taken over by the state

• institutional dimension: differentiation of ‘modern’ societies in independent systems of politics, economics and religion

• cultural dimension: privatisation of religion

was there really a secularization?

• revolution in iran and protestant-fundamentalist influences on US-politics

religion today - migration, modality and urban religions

• religious scattering, worlding of religions

• tensions and belonging in (trans)national contexts

• media as central for making a connection to th intangible spiritual world

• compression in urban religions (many religions in one spot)

decolonisation of religious anthro

• co-constitution of missionary work/religious anthro and colonial expansion

• Religion is not just a category — it’s a product of power relations (Talal Asad)

• decolonisation of disciplinary canon!

• pluralisation and diversification of perspectives and positions