Religion plays significant roles in contemporary African societies and cultures. Positively, it may facilitate liberation and development. Negatively, it may cement oppression and marginalization. Christianity is part of this picture, as the 20th century made Christianity an African religion and the Bible, i.e. the key document of Christianity, an African book. The Bible is approached from a wide range of perspectives in Africa, often, however, with a more or less explicit sensitivity to the relationship between the ancient texts and the socio-cultural context of the reading communities. This contextual sensitivity is found both at the grassroots levels of ordinary readers and the academic levels of critical scholars.
The present research project approac hes this field with an analysis of 'potentials' (for liberation and development) and 'problems' (of oppression and marginalization) in popular interpretation of the Bible amongst the Maasai. The project obtains many of its questions and much of its material from the biblical interpretation of this traditionally semi-nomadic people of East Africa, but the Maasai experiences with the Bible are constantly being related to the wider African context. As such the project serves both as an illustrative case study and as a theory development study of a key factor of one of the most striking examples of religious change in modern time.
The project consists of three sub-projects: (i) an empirical study asking to what extent biblical ideals of nomadic life can str engthen the traditional nomadic identity of the Maasai, (ii) an empirical study asking to what extent oppressive gender structures in the biblical texts tend to strengthen oppressive structures in the Maasai tradition, and (iii) a theory study relating th e Maasai experiences and concerns to postcolonial theory.