ABSTRACT
This collection of papers on theoretical and methodological perspectives in the study of African religion is the outcome of a conference which the editors were asked to convene on behalf of the African Studies Centre, Leiden, in December 1979.1
This introduction sets off with a brief description of the conference itself and the considerations which guided its organization. Following this, we discuss the papers in the present volume against the background of current debates in the field of African religious studies. While dealing with such rather divergent topics as a cross-cultural perspective on divination, the political significance of the Islamic revival in nineteenth-century Senegal, and the symbolic imagery of Southern African Christian churches - to mention but a few - the collection nevertheless displays a surprising convergence of theoretical problematics, as will be made clear in section 3. In section 4 we examine the specific arguments of the papers, adding our editorial comments. Throughout, we shall try to pinpoint some of the blind spots that we think can be discerned both in this volume and in other writings on African religion. These will be summarized in the conclusion in an attempt to define the limitations and the possible significance of the present collection.
