CfP: African Lived Christianity: Faith Ritual and Power, Lund, Sweden, 16-18 March 2016

The thematic focus of this conference at Lund University, 16-18 Martch 2016, is on the lived experiences of African Christianity, on how religion and religious experience are part of the understanding and explanation of social reality in Africa. By taking this thematic focus, we wish to overcome the dividing lines in the study of African Christianity between theology and the social sciences. We seek to engage with an emerging literature that combines the analysis of religious experience and faith with an analysis of how African Christianity feeds into constellations of power hierarchies and social relationships of dependency, reciprocity and mutuality. One of the aims is to build interpretative bridges between African enchanted worldviews and Western academic interpretations and to add to an emerging dialogue between anthropology and theology.

We welcome paper proposals within the following themes, but are not limited to these:
* Enchantment as resistance
* Writing and orality as religious experience
* Wealth, reciprocity and well-being in African Christianity
* Gender and healing
* Ritual and the search of good life
* Christianity in Africa or African Christianity?
* Theology, African cosmologies and church life
* Popular culture and rituals of performance
* Transnationalism, migration and mission in African Christianities
* Faith in African public life
Paper abstracts (of maximum 250 words) should be uploaded on the conference webpage by the 15th February 2016 at the latest. By 25 February 2016 information on paper acceptance will be send out. Full written papers (of maximum 8,000 words) are expected to be circulated at the conference.
The conference is free of charge but the participants must cover for their travel, accommodation and meals.