Scholar of the Month
This edition of AASR Scholar of the Month features Diana K. Lunkwitz (PhD), of the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, who shared with us her research background, current projects, motivation, and the contributions of the Association to her career growth.
Interviewer: Tell us about yourself; your academic background and your research interests.
I was born in the former German Democratic Republic (GDR), in a context that many people would describe as secularised. In my family, the engineering profession was predominant, and religion was mainly practiced as a community-building tradition. Since childhood, I have been interested in the ways of sense and world-making.
Later, at the Halle-Wittenberg University, I completed my doctoral studies in religions and intercultural theology. Before then, I had studied Protestant Theology with a focus on the study of religions in Germany (Leipzig, Rostock, Mainz, and Berlin) and Italy (Rome). In Halle and at the University of Hamburg, I taught for six years, including topics such as interreligious relations, esotericism, religions in Africa, Africa-related new religious movements, and religion and ecology. Additionally, my research interests include the study of Orientalism and intersectionality, Islam in the ecosystem, the history of Christian missions in African contexts from the nineteenth century to the present, and discourse theories.
I am the founder and first editor of the book series Studies in Religion and Intercultural Theology (https://cuvillier.de/en/shop/series/109-studien-in-religionswissenschaft-und-interkultureller-theologie-studies-in-religion-and-intercultural-theology) and the co-founder of the early career researchers Network of Intercultural Theology (https://dgmw.org/network-intercultural-theology/).
My first book is entitled Unity, Theosophy, and Interreligiosity: From Chicago 1893 to Chicago 1933 (2024); it deals with the conceptualisation of religion and unity and the role of theosophical societies at interreligious congresses, in particular the World’s Parliament of Religions in Chicago 1893. On these progress-orientated stages, worldviews were exhibited, produced, and negotiated which imagined and sought to appropriate Africa in terms of ethnicity, but not religion. I am interested in the constellations of power and processes of marginalisation in the history of missionary work and religion, as well as contemporary questions about constructions of globality, worldmaking and religion. Motivated by the devastating effects of environmental degradation and climate change that most people are directly affected by, my research addresses the connectivity of worldmaking and ecosystems in an entangled history and offers an intersectional reconceptualisation of religion with a decolonising impetus.
Interviewer: Could you give us insight into your current research project(s)?
In my current research project, I investigate how worldviews and worldmaking of Protestant mission workers changed in Cameroonian ecosystems around 1900. On life-threatening expeditions, the foreigners experienced themselves overtaxed (e.g., unable to swim or climb trees) and dependent on local experts (such as translators). In addition, Muslim Hausa helped with orientation in ecosystems and with accommodation, which irritated the missionaries’ pejorative concept of Islam. These dynamics in the concepts of religion, deity, gender, and humans are significant for the emerging disciplines of ethnology and anthropology and the study of religions at that time as a historiography of religions including African religions.
The next step is to criticize the sources of the German Baptist, Basel and United Presbyterian missionaries with empirical research (on oral histories, oral traditions) to enable a new entangled historiography of agency and religion in African ecosystemic spaces.
Besides this project, I am also interested in the institutionalised study of religions on the continent, especially since the mid-nineteenth century – from the Christian missionary schools to the chairs established in decolonisation struggles with secular claims and the foundations of Islamic and Christian universities in the last decades.
Interviewer: In what ways do you think your research addresses pressing societal challenges?
My research questions stem from the current challenges posed by climate change, the globalised economy, and the education system. I am interested in the roles that former colonial rulers played or continue to play. Currently, I focus on the history of religion and economic aspects in terms of gaining impulses for sustainability education, with a focus on worldmaking and Africa. In my view, the power factors, which the Africa-related study of religions has further to reflect on, include China, corrupt politics, forms of exploitation, media and digitality, interreligious cohabitation, and questions about secularities.
Interviewer: How do you see your career/research develop and evolve in the near future?
I will continue networking internationally and collaborating with colleagues from different disciplines on theoretical questions regarding the concept of religion, the academic study of religion, and topics relevant to African societies (such as migration).
Recognising a research gap on new religious movements, coming from China (e.g., Chinese Pentecostals) and the USA (e.g., the Church of Scientology, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) and working in sub-Saharan African countries, for example through humanitarian aid and narrative references to African living worlds, I would like to address this gap for a study of religion that deals with the complexity and variety of worldmaking in African contexts.
Interviewer: From your wealth of experience, what advice would you give younger scholars?
In the academic research landscape, you can never start building collaborations too early! Only networking with fellow students and colleagues can provide the necessary motivation to learn how to shift perspectives on a highly reflective level and encourage you to strategically seize opportunities in international interdisciplinary research and create them, both horizontally and vertically.
Interviewer: What roles have AASR played in your career growth?
The AASR has played a major role in my academic journey. When many young researchers left academia during the global pandemic and lockdown, I became a member and, got the opportunity to present at an international conference for the first time, that was the AASR 2021 Virtual Conference.
I benefited from the experience of a great academic, Chammah J. Kaunda, thanks to the AASR Mentorship Programme. One result, for example, was my first publication in an international journal (Journal of Religion in Africa). Similarly, based on the contacts I made at the AASR Conference in Nairobi in 2023, I was able to support a doctoral student with my professional expertise and experience. As part of the international planning committee, I also co-organised the 2023 conference and the AASR Virtual Conference the year before and thus learned a lot about the organisational procedures for large international conferences.
Thanks to the invitation to the AASR Book Panel at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Religion in Denver and the AASR Travel Grant, I once again had the opportunity to network with established researchers on religion in Africa in 2022.
These are all highlights in my academic career from which I benefit and through which I feel obliged to continue to gratefully contribute to the academic study of religion. I therefore encourage other early career researchers in the field, especially from African contexts, to network collaboratively. The AASR has given my research international visibility, and I hope to continue to collaborate with my colleagues to contribute my expertise to present and future generations of researchers.
Interviewer: Could you tell us the challenge(s) you encountered in your career and how you surmounted them? What lessons did you learn?
For researchers in the early qualification phase, there are a number of challenges under which you have to produce excellent research. With most fixed-term employment contracts, it is not possible to realistically plan long-term or medium-term projects. Nevertheless, I would like to encourage young academics to work in a visionary way, because their commitment can lead to unexpected opportunities, as I have experienced as a member of the AASR.
Again, networking and collaboration are essential for early career researchers. It is important to get your foot in the academic door and then create your own opportunities. In the future, I would like to further contribute to increasing the international visibility of the field by promoting inter- and transdisciplinarity for the next generations of researchers.
I sincerely thank the AASR, its executive committee members, and all my colleagues for their trust. In order to support other colleagues as well, I will continue to engage passionately in collaborations that focus on the study of Africa-related religions.
You can contact Dr Diana K. Lunkwitz via email: diana.lunkwitz@protonmail.com
Website: https://dianalunkwitz.wordpress.com/
