Drawing on experiences during a fieldwork seminar in Tanzania, this paper explores epistemic decolonization in relation to studies of religion in African contexts. The topic of the seminar was religious coexistence, which was explored through readings and discussions as well as fieldwork in teams. The theoretical extrapolation took place on University of Dar es Salaam campus, while the fieldwork was carried out in various field sites in nearby Bagamoyo district. Drawing on African philosophy and decolonial theory building, this paper discusses religious coexistences in terms of spiritual conviviality, thus pushing beyond dominant notions of religion as a system of belief. While grounding the discussion in some of the readings during the fieldwork seminar, it also reflects on the fieldwork experience, exploring what decolonization of field relations may look like in practice. 

Farming sea cucumbers for export to China is an emerging form of artisanal aquaculture in Tanzania. It is encouraged by the government’s Blue Economy development paradigm, which aims to raise income in fishing communities, while protecting the ocean. This paper interrogates sea cucumber farming in coastal communities, where humans and sea cucumbers have coexisted for many years. Over time, the sea cucumber has become a priced product, collected by divers and sold for export to China. Due to a global depletion of stocks, collection has been banned for the last two decades. Instead, aquaculture is now being promoted, whereby the sea cucumber is grown in fenced areas in the ocean, as a commodity for the global seafood market. Approaching sea cucumbers as fellow creatures (Haraway 2016, Ingold 2022), the paper probes artisanal aquaculture in terms of practices of care and domestication, focusing on embodied engagement and relational forms of knowing (Lien 2015, 2022, Puig de la Bellacasa 2017, Singleton 2010). Thinking with seawater in amphibious environments (Helmreich 2011, Pauwelussen and Verschoor 2017), it also interrogates the politics of landscapes of domestication (Swanson 2018), arguing that caring for ocean creatures as export commodities can disorient people from caring for the oceanic ecosystem. Contrary to the rhetoric of Blue Economy, farming sea cucumbers has yet to improve local livelihoods, while it carries the risk of killing off these ocean creatures and destroying the delicate ecological balance of coastal environments.

Farming sea cucumbers for export to China is an emerging form of mariculture in Tanzania. It is encouraged by the government’s Blue Economy development paradigm, which aims to raise income in fishing communities while protecting the ocean. This paper interrogates sea cucumber farming in Kaole, a coastal fishing community where humans and sea cucumbers have coexisted for many years, although the jongoo bahari has lived as a wild creature in the ocean, not as a commodity in bounded farms. The paper probes the relationship between humans and sea cucumbers, focusing on interdependencies in the politics of care in a pluriversal multispecies world in the making (Escobar 2020, Ingold 2018, Puig de la Bellacasa 2018). It also explores the web of shifting political and ecological relations that are entangled in the practices and politics of domestication in the political ecology of blue growth (Barbesgaard 2018, Swanson et al 2018). The paper draws on ongoing fieldwork for Swahili Ocean Worlds (2022-2024), a research project carried out in collaboration with researchers from the University of Dar es Salaam, supported by the Swedish Research Council/Development Research. See swahilioceanworlds on YouTube and Instagram, and https://www.su.se/english/research/research-projects/swahili-ocean-worlds-fishing-communities-and-sea-sustainability-in-tanzania. 

What can we learn about gender complementarity from water deities in Igbo cosmology for a more nuanced appreciation of gender disparity and religion in Africa for sustainable development? This paper explores femininity and spirituality in Flora Nwapa´s literary worldmaking (Uimonen 2020), through the lens of African womanism (Ogunyemi 1996). Focusing on the Lake Goddess, it discusses the ideals of gender complementarity and human-environmental balance in traditional Igbo society as well as the impact of religious colonialism (Jell-Bahlsen 2008, 2016). The Lake Goddess (also known as Ogbuide, Uhammiri, or Mammy Water) is a recurring character in Flora Nwapa’s fiction, but she is also an important deity in Igbo/Oguta cosmology, signifying how water is life. From an African womanist perspective, we can also appreciate the Lake Goddess in relation to the cultural ideals of gender complementarity, alongside her river husband Urashi. Although Christian fanatics have tried to wipe out the position of water deities in Nigeria since colonial times, they continue to be served and worshipped by devotees. While recognising the social significance of religion in everyday life in African societies, this paper insists on a broader appraisal of divine power and spirituality, as exemplified by water deities. Historically anchored in pre-colonial African cultural contexts, such sacred water beings can inspire more sustainable models of development, especially in this age of climate crisis, environmental destruction and patriarchal capitalism.

Inshallah! God willing! On the Swahili coast, God is in charge of the future. When engaging with the ocean, local fishers appeal to God for protection as well as productivity. Before each fishing period, ritual prayers are carried out with the help of religious specialists. Sometimes rituals are performed along the shore, to cleanse the spirit or to avert spiritual attacks and misfortunes. Such rituals are connected to the tides, which are directed by the power of God.  This paper interrogates how people in Kaole relate to the ocean spiritually. Kaole is a fishing community where everyday life is lived alongside and through the ocean. Located on the Swahili coast in Tanzania, it has a long history of transoceanic connections. This paper shares some initial findings from preparatory fieldwork for a new research project on Swahili Ocean Worlds.  Swahili ocean worlds draws on the anthropology of water, which has ascertained the centrality of water in the making of social worlds. To grasp the spiritual relationality of the ocean, the project adopts a pluriversal approach, with an emphasis on multiple worldings in an emergent world of many worlds. The aim is to go beyond the focus on materiality and sociality in the anthropology of water, to interrogate the spirituality of the ocean in terms of spiritual beings as well as becomings. 

While world literature scholars oscillate between close and distant readings, anthropologists engage in contextual readings, foregrounding the cultural specificities of literary texts. Oftentimes literature is approached as ethnography, read for cultural insights into different social worlds, a method that has been critiqued for its failure to capture the cultural imaginaries of literary fiction. This paper argues that cross breeding anthropology with world literature offers methodological advances for scholarly reading. It uses literary gendering as an example of how a combination of anthropological and world literary readings can offer a more refined understanding of aesthetic worldmaking.  

The discussion on aesthetic worldmaking focuses on a comparison of Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart (1958) and Flora Nwapa’s Efuru (1966). These pioneering works were written by authors who are considered to be the Father and Mother of modern African literature respectively.  Both novels focus on social change in late colonial Igbo society, with rather different literary representations of gender. This paper uses the concept literary gendering to probe the cultural intricacies of aesthetic worldmaking in these novels, thus exploring transdisciplinary methodologies of world literary reading. 

This article interrogates how people in Kaole relate to the ocean spiritually. Locatedon the Swahili coast in Tanzania, with a long history of transoceanic connections, Kaole is afishing community where everyday life is lived alongside and through the ocean. Drawing onexploratory fieldwork in preparation of our new research project Swahili Ocean Worlds, in thisarticle we share some of our initial findings, which we contextualise with the help of scholarlywork on the Swahili world and Islam in Africa. To broaden our scope, we also engage with somecomparative material from other parts of the world. In conceptualising Swahili ocean worlds, wedraw on the anthropology of water, which has ascertained the centrality of water in the making ofsocial worlds. But to grasp the spiritual relationality of the ocean, we adopt a pluriversal approach,with an emphasis on multiple worldings in an emergent world of many worlds. Our aim is togo beyond the focus on materiality and sociality in the anthropology of water, to interrogate thespirituality of the ocean in terms of spiritual beings as well as becomings.