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Author: Toyin Falola
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1350271969
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 305
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Book Description
Focusing on the three leading religious traditions in Africa (African Traditional Religion, Islam, and Christianity), this book shows how belief in the supremacy of sacred words compels actions and influences practices in contemporary Africa. "Sacred words” are taken to mean holy texts as in divination, the Quran and the Bible. Toyin Falola evaluates how religious leaders engage with sacred words, both orals and texts, engendering practices that reveal the expression of religious beliefs, the impact of those beliefs, and the knowledge contained in them. Attention is given to the key ideas in the words chosen by religious leaders, and how they form a continuous knowledge system, impacting the politics of managing society and people.
Author: Toyin Falola
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1350271969
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 305
Get Book
Book Description
Focusing on the three leading religious traditions in Africa (African Traditional Religion, Islam, and Christianity), this book shows how belief in the supremacy of sacred words compels actions and influences practices in contemporary Africa. "Sacred words” are taken to mean holy texts as in divination, the Quran and the Bible. Toyin Falola evaluates how religious leaders engage with sacred words, both orals and texts, engendering practices that reveal the expression of religious beliefs, the impact of those beliefs, and the knowledge contained in them. Attention is given to the key ideas in the words chosen by religious leaders, and how they form a continuous knowledge system, impacting the politics of managing society and people.
Author: Toyin Falola
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1538150255
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 355
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Book Description
Key to African studies is understanding the knowledge systems of the continent and her diaspora. The representation and understanding of Africa are dependent on the observer’s definition of knowledge. Afrocentric knowledge is comprised of a collection of political, religious, and indigenous belief systems. Religious Beliefs and Knowledge Systems in Africa begins with deconstructing the Western philosophy of knowledge before defining and exploring the epistemic disciplines of Africa. It transcends postcolonial critique, through an Afrocentric approach to knowledge divided into three key themes. The first of these is the African worldview, exploring knowledge through eldership, witchcraft, and divination. This is followed up by kingship ideology and epistemologies, exploring discussing how politics, religion, and belief shape African society. Finally, the world religion chapter examines Christianity, Islam, and Pentecostalism in their impact on African ways of knowing. This book calls to action new fields of study in universities, encouraging a greater understanding of African ways of knowing through more nuanced disciplines.
Author: Toyin Falola
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1009059173
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 535
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Book Description
Addressing the consequences of European slavery, colonialism, and neo-colonialism on African history, knowledge and its institutions, this innovative book applies autoethnography to the understanding of African knowledge systems. Considering the 'Self' and Yoruba Being (the individual and the collective) in the context of the African decolonial project, Falola strips away Eurocentric influences and interruptions from African epistemology. Avoiding colonial archival sources, it grounds itself in alternative archives created by memory, spoken words, images and photographs to look at the themes of politics, culture, nation, ethnicity, satire, poetics, magic, myth, metaphor, sculpture, textiles, hair and gender. Vividly illustrated in colour, it uses diverse and novel methods to access an African way of knowing. Exploring the different ways that a society understands and presents itself, this book highlights convergence, enmeshing private and public data to provide a comprehensive understanding of society, public consciousness, and cultural identity.
Author: Munyaradzi Mawere
Publisher: African Books Collective
ISBN: 9956726850
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 138
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Book Description
The debate on the existence of African philosophy has taken central stage in academic circles, and academics and researchers have tussled with various aspects of this subject. This book notes that the debate on the existence of African philosophy is no longer necessary. Instead, it urges scholars to demonstrate the different philosophical genres embedded in African philosophy. As such, the book explores African metaphysical epistemology with the hope to redirect the debate on African philosophy. It articulates and systematizes metaphysical and epistemological issues in general and in particular on Africa. The book aptly shows how these issues intersect with the philosophy of life, traditional beliefs, knowledge systems and practices of ordinary Africans and the challenges they raise for scholarship in and on philosophy with relevance to Africa.
Author: Teboho Pitso
Publisher: African Sun Media
ISBN: 1991201974
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 238
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Book Description
The book focuses on uncovering lies and myths that sustain the colonial and European supremacist agendas and restores Africa’s role in originating civilisation, science, mathematics, philosophy, spirituality, and Christianity. It forms part of questioning the deification of Global North episteme as a universal theory. The volume thus contributes to Southern theorisation that draws from multiple practices and lived experiences of those from the austral geographic location (Global South) whose understanding of time is secular. Such theorisation challenges and denounces the imperialist gaze on contemporary science as the sole spectacle and arbiter of its significance in society. The Global South episteme, whose sources are indigenous practices, collective knowing, and collective experiences, has all the right to claim its stake in hallowed spaces of knowledge production.
Author: Hlumelo Biko
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1040038638
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 207
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Book Description
This book traces the unitary source of all of the world’s major religions. The book underscores the fact that there are many ways in which humanity has sought revelation of God, yet there is a common inspiration behind humanity’s God concept. The author’s analysis of world religions or faiths adopts a multi-interdisciplinary approach taking the reader through historical, anthropological, archaeological, and theological viewpoints to make juxtapositions. God in us is a rich resource that helps the readers understand the origins of human civilisation and how humans began to worship God, domesticate animals like sheep, invent astrology and create languages. Biko’s research also delves deeper into unveiling African indigenous knowledge systems and science that predate the arrival of the colonisers on the African soil. Print edition not for sale in Sub Saharan Africa.
Author: Njoki N. Wane
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 9460916031
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 262
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Book Description
Spirituality, education and society: An integrated approach argues the value of spirituality in education as a way to address the lived experiences and personal knowledge of students, with the goal of creating a more holistic, transformative educational process. This edited volume has a wide array of viewpoints which all point to the importance of spirituality in the authors’ personal lives, their communities and society at large. Spirituality is conceptualised as a base from which to challenge dominant forms of knowing, while in the process being able to center and engage with an important aspect of the student that has been missing from current evaluations – their spiritual selves.Within the diversity of this volume it becomes evident that spirituality cannot be confined to a singular definition and that educators must be willing to create spaces to foster spiritual growth and exploration if we are to break away from the commoditized, disempowering system that is so dominant today. This edited collection is a valuable resource for students, practitioners, educators and administrators who wish to engage in transformational schooling. Its multidisciplinary approach engages ideas around critical pedagogy, sociology of education, and inclusive schooling. There is an increasing need for exploring novel paradigms of studying education in the context of the dynamics that straddle social, economic and technological processes that have come to characterize the world in recent years. This book is a timely contribution in this respect as its focus transcends hitherto applied approaches that depend largely on western orientation. The book breaks new grounds in studying education and society that find significant relevance in societies that are marginalized by the dominant western understanding. The authors draw from the rich heritage of spirituality that is akin to the non-western social paradigms to develop a rigorous but creative concept of schooling. I am sure practitioners, researchers and students of education will find it a valuable source of practical and theoretical information that would widen their horizon of understanding of sociology of education. - Tom Mongare Ndege, PhD, Moi University, Kenya The editors have compiled a brilliant collection of essays. Each piece of scholarly work shows how spirituality is a paramount part of our everyday lives and is connected to teaching, learning, living and healing. This is a timely and most relevant work that is sure to spur critical dialogue and discussion. This collection shows that while the spirit may be wounded it can never be broken. - Erica Neeganagwedgin, PhD, University of Toronto
Author: Allan Charles Dawson
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 232
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Book Description
In the African context, shrines are cultural signposts that help one understand and read the ethnic, territorial, and social lay of the land. The contributions gathered here by Allan Charles Dawson demonstrate how African shrines help to define ethnic boundaries, shape group identity, and symbolically articulate a society's connection with the land it occupies. Shrines are physical manifestations of a group's claim to a particular piece of land and are thus markers of identity--they represent, both figuratively and literally, a community's 'roots' in the land it works and lives on. The shrine is representative of a connection with the land at the cosmological and supernatural level and, in terms of a community's or ethnic group's claim to cultivable territory, serves as a reminder to outsiders of ownership. Shrines in Africa explores how African shrines, in all their variable and diverse forms, are more than just spiritual vessels or points of worship--they are powerful symbols of ethnic solidarity, group cohesion, and knowledge about the landscape. Moreover, in ways subtle and nuanced, shrines represent ideas about legitimacy and authenticity in the context of the post-colonial African state.
Author: Gerrie ter Haar
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 0812241738
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 136
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Book Description
While African Christianity has wholeheartedly appropriated the symbols, scriptures, and traditions of historic Christianity elsewhere, it has also built on the rich history of the continent's indigenous spiritual beliefs.
Author: Nyoni, Bednicho
Publisher: University of Bamberg Press
ISBN: 3863096649
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 352
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Book Description
"Western neglecting traditional religion is an important factor for the failure of many developmental strategies towards Africa. Therefore, religion(s) of the indigenous peoples must be given the neccesary attention. The book presents the example of the Shona religion playing a critical role in the life of the Zimbabweans. If incorporated, it will contribute to the better success of development initiatives." --back cover
