Description

In collaboration with Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, UNC Charlotte will develop a project that seeks to show how attention to and engagement with Africana religions—especially African ancestral (sometimes called African traditional) religions and African American Islam—can serve to deepen efforts to analyze and reduce anti-Black racism. Partnering with and supporting a diverse cohort of scholars and religious practitioners, the project will locate African American religion and spirituality in a resolutely transnational perspective, engaging diasporic adherents who connect with one another across national lines, and tracing networks of teaching, pilgrimage, travel, and study that defy expectations that religion focus primarily on domestic concerns. In connection with the organization and hosting of an intensive international workshop, the project will issue nearly two dozen mini-grants to anticipated workshop participants, supporting engagement and learning within a diverse array of local communities, and subsequently making its broader research findings available through an open access website.