2024
Researcher of the Month
In this edition of AASR Researcher of the Month, the focus is on a mid-career scholar, Ibukunolu Isaac Olodude of the Obafemi Awolowo University, Nigeria. In this interview, he recounts the impact of the Association on his career trajectory.
Interviewer: Tell us about yourself; your academic background and your research interests.
I am Dr. Ibukunolu Isaac Olodude, a Researcher and Lecturer in the Department of Linguistics and African Languages, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria. I hold a B.A. degree (2006) in Yoruba Language and Literature from Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria, where I graduated as the best male student in the Faculty of Arts. I also possess an MA (2012) and a PhD degree (2024) in Linguistics from the University of Ibadan, Nigeria. My doctoral research is multidisciplinary and intersects the fields of Linguistics, Religious Studies, Migration Studies, and Sociology. My areas of specialization are African Studies, Sociolinguistics, Applied Linguistics, Critical Discourse Analysis, and African Gender/Sexuality Studies, while my research interests are language, religion, and society; gender and identity studies; migration and environmental studies. I am a member of the West African Linguistic Society (WALS) and the African Association for the Study of Religions (AASR). I am also a Fellow of the Ife Institute of Advanced Studies (IIAS).
Interviewer: Could you give us insight into your current research project(s)?
My current research projects revolve around the ongoing debates about gender, sexuality, and diversity in African societies. They focus on the traditions and language of the Yoruba people of West Africa and explore whether the Yoruba do or allow for queerness. The research aims to advance these debates through cultural hermeneutics and linguistic analysis. One of the approaches is to examine what the understanding of queerness is, in the Yoruba indigenous religion. The research also examines how non-normative categories of gender and sexuality are articulated or silenced in the Yoruba oral literature (including the sacred Ifá literary corpus), as well as in the lexicon of the contemporary Yoruba language. The project also seeks to carry out critical discourse analysis of gendered discourses both in gendered proverbial expressions and in Yoruba movies.
Interviewer: In what ways do you think your research addresses pressing societal challenges?
Queer communities in Africa continue to face discrimination because of the narration that the concept of queerness is un-African with several national policies and legislation outlawing the concept. This research will therefore contribute significantly to gender and queer studies in Nigeria and Africa as a continent. Findings from the research will provoke a social movement towards language engineering to capture other forms of identities within queer groups which lack linguistic expressions in the Yoruba language. The research digs deep into the Yoruba language and literature, as well as Yoruba indigenous religion to spotlight how non-normative gender and sexualities are articulated or silenced. It will thus help both national and international governments and non-governmental organisations in understanding how the Yoruba language and literature capture culturally gendered expressions and queerness. The research findings will be of immense help to both national and international gender and human rights activists by providing more insights into gender and sexuality issues in Nigeria and Africa. Overall, my research has continued to bring to the fore the place of indigenous knowledge in solving global societal challenges and issues.
Interviewer: How do you see your career and research develop and evolve in the near future?
I became a member of the AASR through Professor Adriaan van Klinken of the University of Leeds, and since then, my research continues to align with his research interests, especially in the fields of African religions, ecologies, queer and gender studies. My career/research continues to develop along the longstanding vision and strategy of Prof. van Klinken, to promote and advance African queer and cultural studies, with a particular interest in religion and queerness in African contexts. I hope to continually establish research collaborations through my membership of the AASR that will see me through to the peak of my career and make me an outstanding scholar in African Studies.
Interviewer: From your wealth of experience, what advice would you give younger scholars?
My advice to younger and upcoming researchers and scholars is in two folds. First, the role of mentorship in career development cannot be over-emphasized. In the words of the famous English scientist, Sir Isaac Newton, “If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulder of giants”. My candid advice is that they must recognize the place of mentors in their career growth and development and they should leverage their mentors’ wisdom, expertise, and scholarship. And of course, a place to find such worthy mentors is an association such as the AASR where I found mine. Second, an African proverb says, and I quote, “if you want to go fast, go alone; if you want to go far, go together”. This proverb underscores the need for teamwork rather than being a lone ranger. Here, my advice to younger researchers is to avoid being fixated on one particular research area, rather they should get involved in interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary research that seeks to find solutions to societal challenges from multiple points of view.
Interviewer: What role has the AASR played in your career growth?
Since becoming an active member of the African Association for the Study of Religions (AASR), my academic career has continued to be refined and my research focus sharpened, especially following my participation in a British Academy-funded Writing Workshop convened by Professor van Klinken, at Nairobi Kenya in July 2023. I was also privileged to participate in the AASR conference which was held at the University of Nairobi in August 2023. At the conference, I presented a paper entitled “Kukurúùkúù: Ecospiritual Implications of the Sounds of the Cockcrow in Yoruba Rural Dwellings”. The paper has since been published in the Journal of the British Academy. I was also able to attend the2024 Conference jointly organised by Calvin University, Nagel Institute, and the African Association for the Study of Religions (AASR) with the theme ‘Engaging African Realities’ in Abuja, Nigeria. Through some connections made in the Association, I also participated in two academic conferences in the United Kingdom in August 2024: The African Studies Association (ASA-UK), and the British Association for the Study of Religions (BASR), respectively. At the ASA-UK conference, I presented a paper titled ‘Binary versus Queerness: Negotiating Gender and Sexuality Discourses in Yoruba Films and Expressions’, while at the BASR conference, I presented a paper on ‘In the City of 201 Gods: Religion, Identity Contestations and Construction among Muslim Ile-Ife Indigenes’. Membership of the AASR and the conference opportunities I have participated in have offered me scholarly platforms to present my research and get positive feedback.
Interviewer: Tell us the challenge(s) you encountered in your career and how you surmounted them. What lessons did you learn? Prior to my becoming a member of the AASR, the major challenge I encountered in my career was the absence of opportunities to present my research on a global stage. I had always desired to get a platform to connect with renowned scholars to receive mentorship and positive feedback on my research. Participation in international conferences and workshops undoubtedly requires funding which has also been a major challenge to me. However, to overcome these challenges, I was determined never to lower the standard of my research and to also keep pushing on until I eventually got in touch with some mentors through my membership in the AASR. Since then, I have been provided with global platforms, which I so much desire, for the presentation of my research.
2024
Postponement of 2025 AASR Conference in Botswana
Dear AASR members,
Having considered the potential conflict that holding next year’s conference might cause with the earlier announced conference of the International Association for the History of Religions (IAHR), which our Association is an affiliate, we come to the painful resolution to postpone the 2025 AASR conference to 2026, still in Botswana.
While we regret the inconveniences this postponement might cause you, we believe it would afford you more opportunity to prepare for a more robust social and intellectual engagement in 2026.
New dates for the 2026 AASR conference will be announced in due course.
We also encourage you to fully participate in the 2025 IAHR conference in Poland.
Thank you.
Benson O. Igboin, PhD.
General Secretary, AASR
2024
Studying Religion from Africa, IAHR Congress Roundtable CfP
Call for contributions to a roundtable at the IAHR Congress in Krakow, Poland, 24-30 August 2025
Jointly organised by the African Association for the Study of Religions and the Africa Working Group of the German Association for the Study of Religions
The overall theme of the IAHR Congress 2025 being “Out of Europe”, this roundtable facilitates a conversation about what it means to study religion, not from a Eurocentric perspective, but from Africa. Too often, the African continent has been a place where empirical data about religion have been collected, simply to be analysed and theorised with the help of Western concepts and theories. This problematic, colonial model of knowledge production needs to be interrogated and transformed, not the least in the light of current debates about decolonising academic scholarship, and calls for theorising from global South contexts and perspectives. Hence, in this roundtable we ask: what does Africa contribute to the study of religion more generally, not just in terms of rich empirical data but also, and more importantly, in terms of critical concepts, innovative methodologies, and cutting-edgetheories? How can such African-centred approaches to the study of religion inform and enrich the study of religion in other parts of the world, including Europe? And how does our own positionality as academics – in terms of geographical origins and location, disciplinary training, (non)religious standpoints, gender, etc – affect and shape the ways in which we think about these questions?
We recognise that such questions are not entirely new, but that they have generated longstanding conversation, with key publications such as
• The volume edited by Jan Platvoet, James Cox and Jacob Olupona, titled The Study of Religions in Africa: Past, Present and Prospects, which is based on theproceedings of the regional conference of the International Association for the History of Religions, held in Harare, Zimbabwe, 1992 (Roots and Branches, 1996).
• The volume edited by Frieder Ludwig and Afe Adogame, titled European Traditions in the Study of Religion in Africa (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2004).
• The volume edited by Afe Adogame, Ezra Chitando, and Bolaji Bateye, titled African Traditions in the Study of Religion in Africa: Emerging Trends, Indigenous Spirituality and the Interface with Other World Religions(Ashgate, 2012).
• Birgit’s Meyer’s article “What Is Religion in Africa? Relational Dynamics in an Entangled World”, in the Journal of Religion in Africa (2020).
We invite participants to this roundtable who revisit some of these earlier conversations about the above questions, reflecting on them in the light of current discussions about decolonisation while acknowledging the changing dynamics of religion, and the study thereof, in Africa, the African diaspora, and in the global academy.
Expressions of interest
We welcome expressions of interest for participating in this roundtable, and we especially encourage early-career scholars to apply.
The IAHR Congress allows for physical attendance only, which we realise is a hindrance for participation, especially for scholars based on the African continent.
If you would like to be part of this roundtable, but cannot physically participate, please do write to us anyway, so we can think about other ways of continuing this conversation in the future.
Expressions of interest, of up to 250 words, should give an indication of the angle you will take to approaching the above questions, and of the contribution you want to make to the roundtable discussion. Please also include a short biographical statement.
The expressions can be sent to Dr Anne Beutter and Dr Adriaan van Klinken by 26th July 2024.
Download PDF
2023
Journal for the Study of the Religions of Africa and its Diaspora – Issue 6.1 (November 2023)
On behalf of Afe Adogame, the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal for the Study of the Religions of Africa and its Diaspora, an AASR e-Journal, we announce the publication of Issue 6.1 (November 2023). This is a Special Issue, which has been guest edited by Lovemore Togarasei and Rebecca Kubanji, with the theme “Religious Beliefs, Health Seeking and Health Provision Behaviours in Botswana”. The issue contains an Introduction and 8 original articles related to this theme.
The issue can be viewed and downloaded directly via this page. This and previous issues can be accessed via the journal page on the AASR website.
Corey Williams
2023
Remembering Professor Teresia Mbari Hinga
We are saddened to announce the transition of our dear friend and colleague of many decades, Professor Teresia Mbari Hinga. A Kenyan by birth, she studied religion and English literature at Kenyatta University, Nairobi, and then went on to earn an MA in religious studies at the University of Nairobi. Teresia also earned a Ph.D. in religious studies from Lancaster University, UK, focusing on African Christianity and the place of women and gender matters in African Christianity. Her postdoctoral research explored the question of “Women, Power and Liberation in the African Independent Church.”
Teresia was privileged to serve as a lecturer and associate fellow at the Women’s Studies in Religion Program (WSRP) at Harvard Divinity School from 1991 to 1992, during which she taught Professor Dianne Stewart who recently said that she considers Teresia to be one of her best teachers in graduate school. Teresia was a founding member of the “Circle of Concerned African Women Theologians,” a Pan-African association of women established by Professor Mercy Oduyoye. The Circle, in which Teresia played a major role, is concerned with the study of the role and impact of religion and culture on the lives and affairs of women in Africa. As a Catholic Theologian, she was also an active member of the Black Catholic Symposium of the American Academy of Religion. She has published numerous articles in academic journals and given many public lectures in the academy. For example, she gave the inaugural Kathleen Wicker endowed lecture at Scripps College in February 2006. Teresia was the first regional coordinator of the African Association for the Study of Religions (AASR) in the 1990s when I served as the first president of the Association.
Prior to joining Santa Clara University faculty in 2005, where she taught courses on women and religion, feminist theologies, African Religion and sociality, religion and contemporary moral issues, she worked at DePaul University in Chicago. Among her awards, she published African, Christian, and Feminist: The Enduring Search of What Matters (2017), a semi-biographical collection of essays examining Teresia’s journey from Kenya to Silicon Valley. She also published Women, Religion and HIV AIDS in Africa: Responding to Ethical and Theological Challenges (2008). Her research interests also include environmental/ ecological ethics, gender and sexual ethics, globalization, Biblical ethics, and African feminist theology.
Teresia will be remembered as a conscientious, hardworking, and affectionate scholar who gave her best to the academy, her students, and humanity. She was generous with her time and resources, a strong and indeed compassionate public intellectual. She will be sorely missed by friends and colleagues, but most especially by her two children Pauline and Anthony, her grandchildren, the Church, and the Kenyan and African community.
Respectfully submitted, Jacob K. Olupona, Harvard University
