Exploring the entanglement of race and religion in Africa

ABSTRACT This special issue is meant to begin to address the lacuna in research on the entanglements of race and religion by focusing on one specific geographical region – Africa. The reality of political communities in Africa cannot be understood properly independently of colonial racialisation. The formation of colonial political communities on the African continent was based on racial exclusion in terms of the colour line. While most research focuses on the latter, slowly more research is being done on the race-religion constellation which takes account of the impact and force of religion in the processes of racialisation, and political exclusion as religion is at the centre of the colonial and racial project. Nonetheless, much less scholarly and philosophical attention has been given to understanding and unravelling the role of religion in conceptions and practices of colonial and postcolonial political practices of racial exclusion in Africa.