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About this book
The Nigerian diaspora is now world-wide, and when Yoruba travel, they take with them their religious organizations. As a member of the Cherubim and Seraphim church in London for over thirty years, anthropologist Hermione Harris explores a world of prayer, spirit possession, and divination through dreams and visions.
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Table of contents (9 chapters)
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Front Matter
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Back Matter
Reviews
"The Yoruba community in London was one of the largest African groups, already substantial when Harris began her fieldwork in 1969, and is now an established and significant ethnic minority. Her account is based on extensive participant observation, interviews, and written records kept by the church members at her request. The narrative is lively, and enriched with a number of fascinating descriptions ofAládùúrà services, and illuminating testimonies, reminiscences, and comments by the worshippers. It is clear that Harris was an excellent field worker, endowed with both resilience and empathy, and the material she presents is full and detailed. As a study of religious change, this book is important for its documentation of a substantial but neglected topic: the nature of Aládùúrà churches in Britain. Extensive and important work has been done on the Aládùúrà churches in Nigeria by Harold Turner, J. D. Y. Peel, and others, but very little on the variants found among Yoruba communities in Britain. It explores the interaction of traditional and Christian spiritual repertoires in commendable depth. As a study of the religious dimension of a particular community - Yoruba labor/educational migrants in late-twentieth century London-it is a pioneering piece of work which will find a readership in several academic disciplines." - Karin Barber, University of Birmingham, England
"Deeply researched, beautifully written, and informed by a lively sympathy for itssubjects, Hermione Harris's book is by far the richest study that has yet been done of an African Christian church in the Diaspora. Reaching back to the first big wave of Nigerian settlement in London over forty years ago, Harris's subtle analysis shows how indigenous Yoruba notions of spiritual power fuse with Bible interpretation to shape the life-worlds of Nigerian students and workers, and underpin the rituals of prayer and revelation that answer to their practical and existential needs. This will surely prove a benchmark study for anyone interested in the religious life of the African Diaspora for many years to come." - J. D. Y. Peel, SOAS (London)
"At a time when contemporary anthropological and sociological scholarship on African Christianity has concentrated on multifaceted processes of globalizing Pentecostalism, Hermione Harris's new book is an important reminder that a fresh understanding of the so-called African Initiated (or Indpendent/Instituted) Churches (AICs) is necessary in putting African Pentecostalism in proper (global) perspective... Scholars and students of African religions/Christianities across the disciplines will find this book of much use in their work." - Asonzeh Ukah
About the author
HERMIONE HARRIS is an Anthropologist, currently a research associate at the School of Oriental and African Studies, London University, UK.
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Yoruba in Diaspora
Book Subtitle: An African Church in London
Authors: Hermione Harris
Series Title: Contemporary Anthropology of Religion
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230601048
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan New York
eBook Packages: Palgrave Social & Cultural Studies Collection, Social Sciences (R0)
Copyright Information: Hermione Harris 2006
Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-4039-7480-8Published: 03 November 2006
Softcover ISBN: 978-1-349-53550-7Published: 03 November 2006
eBook ISBN: 978-0-230-60104-8Published: 16 September 2006
Series ISSN: 2946-3475
Series E-ISSN: 2946-3483
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: IX, 294
Topics: Social Anthropology, African Culture, Religious Studies, general, Sociology of Religion, Comparative Religion, Anthropology