Call for Papers: urban-religious worldmaking in Africa

urban-religious worldmaking in Africa
CALL FOR PAPERS
16-20 September 2025
Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study, South Africa
Funded by the German Research Foundation’s “Point Sud” programme

ABSTRACT
This interdisciplinary conference explores the making of urban and religious worlds in and beyond the African continent, demonstrating the importance of African cities for analysing global dynamics of urban-religious transformation.
We use Stephan Lanz’s (2016) term urban-religious to emphasise the mutually constitutive relationship between urban and religious spheres—that is, how they are deeply intertwined with and shaped by one another. The notion of worlds captures the multiple ways in which urban-religious life is configured and envisioned. There is no singular model or enactment of the urban-religious; people live and move through multiple, overlapping urban-religious worlds. Worldmaking underscores the ongoing, unfinished character of these worlds: they are continuously made and remade—not only by planners, developers, and state actors, but also through infrastructures, ecosystems, technologies, desires, and memories. This processual framing foregrounds how ordinary residents actively participate in urban-religious worldmaking through everyday practices.
Rather than treating African urban-religious worlds as isolated or exceptional, we adopt a comparative approach to examine transregional connections and commonalities between urban-religious formations across and beyond the African continent. In doing so, we aim to develop new conceptual tools for understanding global processes of urban-religious transformation. This conference thus invites researchers to analyse urban-religious dynamics across and beyond Africa through comparative and processual lenses, thereby enriching both urban and religious studies alike.

CONVENERS
Asaf AUGUSTO, Human Geography / Study of Religion, Research Associate, Department for the Study of Religion, University of Bayreuth
Johara BERRIANE, Social and Cultural Anthropology / Islamic Studies, Professor of Flight, Migration and Social Mobility, Institute for Cultural Studies, University of the Bundeswehr
Benjamin KIRBY, Study of Religion / African Studies, Junior Professor for the Study of Religion, Department for the Study of Religion, University of Bayreuth
Francis SIBANDA, Urban Studies / Governance Studies, Postdoctoral Researcher, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, University of Fort Hare

DEADLINES
To participate in the conference, please submit a paper title and abstract (max. 500 words) and a CV (max. 2 pages), both in PDF format, using the subject line “URWA 2025”, to: benjamin.kirby@uni-bayreuth.de
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Deadline: 30 April 2025
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Notification of acceptance/rejection: 19 May 2025