The Public Face of African New Religious Movements in Diaspora: Imagining the Religious ’other’

The growing pace of international migration, technological revolution in media and travel generate circumstances that provide opportunities for the mobility of African new religious movements (ANRMs) within Africa and beyond. ANRMs are furthering their self-assertion and self-insertion into the religious landscapes of Europe, the Americas, and Asia. Their growing presence and public visibility seem to be more robustly captured by the popular media than by scholars of NRMs, historians of religion and social scientists, a tendency that has probably shaped the public mental picture and understanding of the phenomena. This book provides new theoretical and methodological insights for understanding and interpreting ANRMs and African-derived religions in diaspora. Contributors focus on individual groups and movements drawn from Christian, Islamic, Jewish and African-derived religious movements and explore their provenance and patterns of emergence; their belief systems and ritual practices; their public/civic roles; group self-definition; public perceptions and responses; tendencies towards integration/segregation; organisational networks; gender orientations and the implications of interactions within and between the groups and with the host societies. The book includes contributions from scholars and religious practitioners, thus offering new insights into how ANRMs can be better defined, approached, and interpreted by scholars, policy makers, and media practitioners alike.

Afe Adogame is Senior Lecturer in Religious Studies and World Christianity at the University of Edinburgh. His research interests include African New Religious movements, Indigenous Religions, and Religions of the African Diaspora. He is the General Secretary of the African Association for the Study of Religion (AASR); and Secretary/Treasurer of the International Sociological Association Research Committee 22 on Sociology of Religion (ISA/RC22). His most recent publications include: The African Christian Diaspora: New Currents and Emerging Trends in World Christianity; (eds) Religions on the Move: Dynamics of Religious Expansion in a Globalizing World; (eds) African Traditions in the Study of Religion, Diaspora and Gendered Societies; (eds) African Traditions in the Study of Religion in Africa; (ed.) Who is Afraid of the Holy Ghost? Pentecostalism and Globalization in Africa and Beyond; (eds) Religion Crossing Boundaries: Transnational Religious and Social Dynamics in Africa and the New African Diaspora.