Panel 119: Transnational Islamic NGOs in Africa

This panel proposes to study the reception of transnational Islamic NGOs in Africa by exploring the influence of local contexts on these organisations’ roles and on the effects of their work. Our hypothesis is that at least three aspects are important for the ways in which transnational Islamic NGOs are received in specific African settings: first of all, the political context, and the role(s) Islam plays in the public sphere and in local and national power dynamics; secondly, the characteristics of poverty and the ways people experience deprivation in these specific contexts; and, thirdly, the characteristics of development actors and ‘civil society’, i.e. how ‘development’ is organized. We particularly invite papers that analyze the reception of transnational Islamic charities from this perspective and that highlight the ways in which African actors, such as elites and target groups, are co-shaping these organisations’ engagement in Africa.