Ile-Ife and the Oduduwa shrine in global entanglements: Religion and esotericism among the Yoruba in the 19th and 20th century

• Applicant: Dr. Judith Bachmann
• Subject Area: Protestant Theology
• Term: since 2022
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 499454274

The aim of the project is a critical reappraisal of today's conflicts of interpretation around Ile-Ife and the Oduduwa Shrine against the background of their global entanglements in the 19th and 20th centuries, taking into account their colonial and postcolonial contexts. On the one hand, this enables new perspectives on current political independence movements and the associated social conflicts in Nigeria. On the other hand, it is an extremely relevant contribution for intercultural theology and religious studies to the fundamental problem of religion and African tradition. For African traditional practices, the assumption prevails that their classification as "religion" is difficult and therefore only possible to a limited extent. They are often described as expressions of a "philosophy", "cosmology" or "tradition". However, considering the sources around Ile-Ife and the Oduduwa shrine, the exact dynamics that historically generate these categorisation difficulties in the first place and at the same time make them obsolete, can come into view. Both, Ile-Ife and the Oduduwa shrine, are perceived as the centre of Yoruba religion as well as the centre of a traditionally oriented Yoruba nationalism. In this context, there are also conflicts of interpretation in research of Ile-Ife as a holy city, as a politically unifying ancestral city or as sacred kingship, as well as of Oduduwa as a goddess, god, or human national hero. The few studies available on Ile-Ife and Oduduwa, however, are already based on exclusive interpretations as "religious" or "political". This obscures local strategies and interests that led to a classification as Yoruba religion or Yoruba nationalism. By critically examining the written and oral sources on Ile-Ife and the Oduduwa shrine, it is precisely these local interests that underlie the conflicting narratives on the town and the shrine that are to be brought to the fore. According to current knowledge, the following types of sources are to be consulted for the historicisation: Missionary and travel literature, colonial, ethnological, archaeological, and historical sources, daily newspapers and magazines, and writings from the Nigerian political independence movement. The oral sources are to be collected as interviews in the sense of oral history. According to the preliminary research, the sources also indicate that there were connections to global esotericism, especially on the part of the indigenous voices, and references were made to these in order to substantiate their own positions on Ile-Ife and Oduduwa. This can make plausible why a classification as "religion" is considered so difficult or inappropriate since esotericism in particular insists on crossing the boundaries of "religion". Of course, other types of global entanglements, if they are hinted at in the sources, must also be explored in order to avoid a one-sided contextualisation.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants