Veranstaltungen

"Frontiers of Faith" is a multidisciplinary academic network for scholars working on religion in the China-Africa space. Economic and political dynamics in this field have been central in scholarly and popular debates, but the complex cultural side of China-Africa encounters has been conspicuously absent. If factories, construction sites and mines have been the paradigmatic sites of China-Africa engagement, what can we learn from the small but increasing number of churches, monasteries and mosques on the complex and multifaceted ‘frontiers’ between Africa and China?

Tanhua Temple, founded in 2018, is the first Chinese Buddhist mission in Tanzania, and part of a broader expansion of Chinese Buddhist institutions across the continent. Tanhua Temple was a ‘superdiverse’ social space, with residents and visitors including people of different religions, languages nationalities, socio-economic statuses and other positionalities. Theo Stapleton's thesis asks how people dealt with these various differences, and does so by taking a thick comparative approach inspired by Matei Cadea’s work on comparison in anthropology and recent work in the Global China literature.

Time: 13:00-14:30 CH; 14-00-15:30 UK