religion that is found in the villages and cities of the world today. There is
now a growing realization that the study of religions needs to take fieldwork
seriously (Spickard, Landres and McGuire 2002). African scholars were forced
to embark on fieldwork by the very nature of the main religion in their area,
namely, ATRs. In most departments of religious studies in sub-Saharan Africa,
dissertations and theses include an aspect of fieldwork. It is unfortunate that
most of these valuable studies by students do not get published, as they are
often of very high quality.
Within the context of studying ATRs, African scholars have made useful
reflections on the insider/outsider problem in the study of religion. Surprisingly,
overviews of this theme tend to focus exclusively on reflections by European
and North American scholars (McCutcheon 1999). African scholars have
maintained that ‘insiders’, that is those who share the African worldview, have
a greater chance of understanding African indigenous religions than ‘outsiders’,
that is researchers from Europe and North America. The reflexivity of African
scholars has been visible in the willingness to ask whether African scholars
who have converted to Christianity and Islam should be classified as ‘insiders’.
Furthermore, the status of African scholars who are now based abroad has
also come under scrutiny. Women African scholars have illustrated the
complexity of the insider/outsider problem by showing how male African
researchers are ‘outsiders’ in relation to aspects of African women’s experi-
ences. Indeed, religious studies in Africa has provided some of the most heated
debates on the intriguing question of who is best placed to study religion
(Chitando 2001).
A second major idea emerging from religious studies in sub-Saharan Africa
is that religion is an integral part of African life. Like their counterparts in
other parts of the world, African scholars have grappled with the primary
question, what is religion? Without engaging the problematic of the origin of
religion, scholars such as Mbiti and Idowu have maintained that, at least in
Africa, homo Africanusis homo religiosus. Other African scholars have
reiterated that religion permeates all aspects of African life, including morality,
economics, and politics, among others. This challenges the dominant approach
to religion in the West that tends to regard religion as a separate and distinct
entity. Although this notion of religion has come under severe criticism by
some Western scholars, it has continued to enjoy considerable currency. African
scholars have insisted that religion is not a disembodied phenomenon. For them,
it is built into the various aspects of life. Publications on religion by most
African scholars make the all-pervasive nature of religion a basic assumption.
Although this stance is problematic, especially in its logical inconsistency
whereby ‘everything is religious’, it runs through most reflections on religion
by African scholars.
There have been efforts by some scholars in Africa to identify the ‘core
concern’ of religion. According to the phenomenology of religion, or at least110
EZRA CHITANDO