Religious pluralism, as encountered in multi-faith settings such as Nigeria's biggest city La... more Religious pluralism, as encountered in multi-faith settings such as Nigeria's biggest city Lagos, challenges much of what we have long taken for granted about religion, including the ready-made binaries of Christianity versus Islam, religion versus secularism, religious monism versus polytheism, and tradition versus modernity. In this book, Marloes Janson offers a rich ethnography of religions, religious pluralism and practice in Lagos, analysing how so-called 'religious shoppers' cross religious boundaries, and the coexistence of different religious traditions where practitioners engage with these simultaneously. Prompted to develop a broader conception of religion that shifts from a narrow analysis of religious traditions as mutually exclusive, Janson instead offers a perspective that focuses on the complex dynamics of their actual entanglements. Including real-life examples to illustrate religion in Lagos through religious practice and lived experiences, this study takes account of the ambivalence, inconsistency and unpredictability of lived religion, proposing assemblage as an analytical frame for exploring the conceptual and methodological possibilities that may open as a result.
Religious pluralism, as encountered in multi-faith settings such as Nigeria's biggest city La... more Religious pluralism, as encountered in multi-faith settings such as Nigeria's biggest city Lagos, challenges much of what we have long taken for granted about religion, including the ready-made binaries of Christianity versus Islam, religion versus secularism, religious monism versus polytheism, and tradition versus modernity. In this book, Marloes Janson offers a rich ethnography of religions, religious pluralism and practice in Lagos, analysing how so-called 'religious shoppers' cross religious boundaries, and the coexistence of different religious traditions where practitioners engage with these simultaneously. Prompted to develop a broader conception of religion that shifts from a narrow analysis of religious traditions as mutually exclusive, Janson instead offers a perspective that focuses on the complex dynamics of their actual entanglements. Including real-life examples to illustrate religion in Lagos through religious practice and lived experiences, this study takes account of the ambivalence, inconsistency and unpredictability of lived religion, proposing assemblage as an analytical frame for exploring the conceptual and methodological possibilities that may open as a result.
Ideologies and Infrastructures of Religious Urbanization in Africa: Remaking the City, edited by David Garbin, Simon Coleman and Gareth Millington, 2023
In this chapter, we focus on education, which is commonly regarded as the sine qua non of social ... more In this chapter, we focus on education, which is commonly regarded as the sine qua non of social change and economic development in Africa (e.g. Fichtner 2012; Stambach 2006), and which has opened up new opportunities for moral as well as political and market engagement by Christian and Muslim actors at all educational levels against the backdrop of liberalization and privatization since the 1990s (Dilger and Schulz 2013: 370). By means of a comparative ethnographic study of the missions of a range of Christian and Muslim educational institutions in urban Tanzania and Nigeria, we argue that in the context of compromised state education and inadequate infrastructure, religiously motivated initiatives provide youths with the tools and material spaces to negotiate the socio-moral unpredictability of urban living and to convert themselves into moral citizens according to the values of the religiously motivated organizations that run these institutions, as well as civic virtues.
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Papers by Marloes Janson