ABSTRACT
The focus on women and religious identification makes it possible to think about the nature of the linkages between ethnicity, gender and religion in the construction of self-identity. This introduction chapter provides three rough sketches concerning Black identity, African-Caribbean women and African-Caribbean religious participation. The sketch of Black identity traces the debates and transformations in post-war Black identity in Britain and the implications of dominant representations for structuring social interaction between Blacks and Whites in British society. The sketch regarding African-Caribbean women presents the ways in which they were portrayed in early accounts up until the mid 1970s and how recent developments in thinking about gender have informed our way of approaching African-Caribbean women. The sketch of religious participation presents the different academic interpretations of the significance of African-Caribbean religious participation and how in recent years representatives of the churches and Black feminists have entered into the politics of representation by defining the role of Black churches for themselves.
