Slump, Jan
(2025)
‘One Who Abandons Culture is a Slave’: The Politics of Religion and Culture in Kenya.
Bachelor thesis, Bachelor Religiewetenschappen.
Abstract
This paper explores how the categories of ‘religion’ and ‘culture’ are strategically deployed by
participants in projects on the freedom of religion or belief in Kenya. It takes as its starting point Lori
Beaman’s thesis about the ‘culturalization’ of majoritarian religion in Europe and America, in which
Christian symbols are reframed as ‘culture’ or ‘heritage’ in order to elevate them above minority religion.
I argue that in the Kenyan postcolonial landscape, ‘religion’ – which is commonly associated with
Christianity and Islam – is the more privileged category over ‘culture’ – which is commonly identified
with African Traditional Religion and ‘Harmful Cultural Practices’. Moreover, I argue that in Kenya, the
term ‘culture’ is used to exclude certain symbols, ideas and practices from this more privileged category
of ‘religion’, and subsequently construct them as ‘backwards’ or ‘outdated’. African Traditionalists and
those who identify as religious minorities strategically use the rhetoric of ‘religion’ over ‘culture’ in order
to claim the power and protection of this category, while others challenge the implicit assumptions
connected to both terms by deliberately framing their practices as instances of ‘culture’ in order to
construct them as relatively ‘benign’ or ‘civil’.
| Type: |
Thesis
(Bachelor)
|
| Supervisors (RUG): |
| Supervisor | E-mail | Tutor organization | Tutor email |
|---|
| Wilson, E.K. | | Faculteit GGW, Faculteit Religie, Cultuur en Maatschappij | E.K.Wilson@rug.nl |
|
| Degree programme: |
Bachelor Religiewetenschappen |
| Academic year: |
2024-2025 |
| Date of delivery: |
03 Feb 2026 10:48 |
| Last modified: |
03 Feb 2026 10:48 |
| URI: |
https://rcs.studenttheses.ub.rug.nl/id/eprint/861 |
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