ABSTRACT
The first version of this chapter was prepared for a conference on the interaction of history and anthropology in Southern Africa. It seemed to me that there were two areas in which this interaction had been most productive. One was the study of colonial political economy in which historians had increasingly drawn on the work of French Marxist anthropology. The other was the study of Central African religion, in which there had been over the previous fifteen years increasing co-operation between historians and anthropologists. At the same time it seemed to me that there had been little awareness among either of these two clusters of scholars of the work that the other was producing. In particular, while some students of Central African religion, such as van Binsbergen and Schoffeleers, had made use of many of the concepts of radical political economy, there was little sign that political economists were aware of the relevance to them of studies of Central African religion. I therefore resolved to focus on one aspect only of the religious historiography; to set aside for the moment most of its insights on religious experience, on ritual and on symbolism, and to focus particularly on the study of Central African religion as an aspect of the study of political economy.
