Introduction: Religion and Masculinities in Africa

Schulz, Dorothea; Janson, Marloes

Abstract

This special issue looks at the interplay between the construction of gendered identities and religious practices, focusing on masculinity in relation to born-again Christianity and reformist Islam. The articles examine how masculinity is discursively shaped and enacted in a Christian-majority setting (Zambia), in Muslim-majority settings (The Gambia, Mali), and in settings with a more or less equal division between Christians and Muslims (Nigeria and Tanzania). Contributions: Introduction: religion and masculinities in Africa (Dorothea Schulz and Marloes Janson); Pentecostalism, political masculiniry and citizenship: the born-again male subject as key to Zambia's national redemption (Adriaan van Klinken); Patriarchal masculinity in recent Swahili-language Muslim sermons (Felicitas Becker); Male wives and female husbands: reconfiguring gender in the 'Tablighi Jama'at' in The Gambia (Marloes Janson); Competing assertions of Muslim masculinity in contemporary Mali (Dorothea E. Schulz and Souleymane Diallo); Masculinities, new forms of religion, and the production of social order in Kaduna City, Nigeria (Colette Harris); From swagger to serious: managing young masculinities between faiths at a Young Men's Christian Association Centre in The Gambia (Ross Wignall).