Title: Religion
Year: 2018
Issue: 125
Cover image: Moisés Patrício, Aceita? Series, 2014–2017. Photo performance.
Varieties of religious experience across the diaspora–from afro-Catholic processions in Brazil that “heal the Middle Passage” to the spiritual practices of BLM activists–are explored and critiqued. “The adaptive elasticity of African-derived ritual comes to life in the Jamaican dancehall in Kytie Brown’s essay [“The Spirit of Dancehall”]…Although it may seem like this “lewd and lascivious” culture has nothing to do with the country’s overtly Christian landscape, Brown accurately dissects the embodied African spirituality of dancehall as an alternative avenue of religious expression,” writes guest editor, Mariam Goshadze, in her introduction to an issue, which examines religious practice as a form of meaning making across territorial, ethnic, and religious lines. Funlayo E. Wood spends a day in New York City babalawo of the Yoruban religion who assists clients in every shade and ethnicity of black, and also some varieties of white” and Maha Mouram, in her essay “captures the transformation of Santeria from a marginalized tradition to a tourist attraction” according to Goshadze. Don’t miss the photographic essay “ Genesis” by Kudzanai Chiurai as he works “to assemble counter memories” in response to David Livingstone’s missionary expeditions in Africa, and the contemporary impacts of Christianity on the continent. These photographs and the art of Ebony Patterson, Vanessa German, Yeanzi, and Sadikou Oukpedjo constellate this consistently compelling issue.