Affective Trajectories

“This amazing collection of highly evocative and sophisticated essays makes a cutting-edge intervention into current debates on the role of emotions and affect in religious practice as well as the study of urbanity in African studies and beyond. There is no doubt that Affective Trajectories will be of keen interest to those researching African urbanities and religion and urban studies more broadly.” - Birgit Meyer, author of Sensational Movies: Video, Vision, and Christianity in Ghana

“Providing a diverse range of case studies of how religious experience plays out and is expressed affectively, this unique and timely volume pushes forward the study of affect and emotion in religious contexts. An innovative and original contribution.” - Kai Kresse, author of Swahili Muslim Publics and Postcolonial Experience

"Linking affect, emotion, and religion in urban African settings, this volume contributes to studying how new modes of existence may emerge in Africa. Published before the emergence of the 2020 coronavirus pandemic, Affective Trajectories is particularly useful for considering its consequences on the continent." - E. P. Renne, Choice

“Affective Trajectories is a clarion call for more systematic engagement by scholars of religion with affect and the importance and vitality of such efforts in the African context.... Affective Trajectories and its many unique contributions provide an impressive point of departure for such work.” - Nathanael J. Homewood, Journal of Africana Religions

“This collective work offers very rich and original reflections and case studies embracing diverse theoretical and conceptual challenges.... This book leaves a very inspiring mark for further research in other big or small African cities and beyond—revealing the potentialities of the intertwinement of emotion, (im)materiality and spirituality to see and navigate cities.” - Édith Nabos, Connections

“... [A]n intriguing image emerges out of the diversity of the case studies and contributions, leaving the reader with original insights but also exciting new questions about the changing nature of, and relationship between, religious practices, personhood, and urban life. This makes Affective Trajectories a valuable contribution to the study of religion in Africa.”

“Clearly written, with a feast of new concepts and insights of broader relevance to anthropological theory, Affective Trajectories does scholars in religion, affect and urban studies an invaluable service by richly mediating these three terrains.” - Ray Qu, Social Anthropology

“This anthology is a welcome addition to the body of migration literature that has tended to center on material conditions as the underlying driving force of the movement. An analytical perspective that highlights affections and emotions—religious or otherwise—is thus refreshing.” - Arne Tostensen, African Studies Review

“The strength of [Affective Trajectories] resides in the rich ethnographic descriptions, and these have led to a number of novel concepts, which are likely to generate new analytical discussions.... This volume will speak to anyone interested in religious subjectivities or in urban African mobilities.” - Katrien Pype, Journal of Southern African Studies

"These are ethnographically rich, theoretically sophisticated essays which, taken together, allow the volume to stand as an important contribution to the emerging conversation around the value of affect theory and emotions studies in African Studies. . . . [T]he volume will be of great interest to the readers of this journal and researchers in urban studies and religious cultures." - Kathryn M. de Luna, Emotions