African Traditional Religion in Global Scholarship

Those who appreciate the pertinence of objectivity as being critical to understanding any given phenomena as the availability of any historical account that supports its validity have always insisted on strict adherence to ethical and methodological research guidelines when interacting with sources. Unfortunately, the study of African religion, as a component of a larger African culture, has not been exempted from the deliberate misrepresentations of a prejudiced form of scholarship that not only has come to be institutionalized (elevated to dictating conventional methods of knowledge validation) but has in its traditionally unethical interaction with the area compounded the possibility of achieving genuinely representative research outcomes on its religious activities. When this is added to the customary research challenges peculiar to the area, cultural diversity and linguistic variations, contrasting worldviews, creeds of secrecy, and the absence of corroborative documents, the prospects for an objective evaluation of African religion become bleaker. African Traditional Religion (ATR) has nonetheless, through its dynamism, remained relevant in the face of these onslaughts in the form of institutionalized racism and collaborated criticism from its Abrahamic counterparts. This is the basis for further research around the topic of African traditional religion to provide more understanding and better scholarly information. And this can be achieved by first getting both practitioners and academic interests on the same page by ensuring that the former appreciates the value of having their religion documented for global reach and then the generational preservation of their legacy. Other recommendations for ensuring a thriving African traditional religious practice are establishing a regulatory system that would constitute the required media of research, which would be saddled with the responsibility of disseminating information and documenting findings across different countries and boundaries. This way, ATR can rise to its full potential as an academic and social resource.