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AEGIS European Conference on African Studies
11 - 14 July 2007
African Studies Centre, Leiden, The Netherlands
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‘Muslim politics and inter-generational tensions in the
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14. New Modes of Sociality in Muslim Africa
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| Paper ID | 403 |
| Author(s) |
Kresse, Kai
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| Paper |
No paper submitted
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| Abstract | This paper will investigate the dynamics among coastal
Muslims in Kenya, with a historical focus on the
social developments taking place during the
postcolonial period and particularly the Moi-era
(1978-2002). Hereby, a look at the dynamics around the
introduction, integration, and internal constestation
of Islamic reformist ideologies in (more and less
public froms of) Swahili discourse and in social
practice will be crucial.
Building up on my own previous work on the region, and
picking up on Soares’ recent work on Mali
(particularly his use of the ‘prayer economy’) and
Lambek’s approach of an anthropology of knowledge in
Mayotte, I seek to sketch out the dynamics between
aspects of knowledge and rhetorics, reasoning and
power, ideology and social practice, in terms of a
‘knowledge economy’ at work in this particular Muslim
context – and perhaps more generally. How the
knowlewdge economy plays a central role in regional
Muslim politics, particularly in relation to the
effect of Islamic reformism and the dynamics of its
negotiation, contestation, appropriation, adaptation,
or rejection in everyday life, will be explored, with
a particular focus on generational differnces. In what
ways do doctrinal or factional affiliations (or their
rejection) coincide with age-groups and their
associated features, backgrounds, and common
experiences?
Hereby, aspects of the connections between ordinary
members of the Muslim community and local Islamic
scholars and figures of Islamic authority will also be
considered. All of this is situated within national
Kenyan politics, and discussed against the background
of a postcolonial state governed by upcountry
Christians with whom coastal Muslims have historically
had a tense and antagonistic relationship.
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