‘An outward sign of an inward grace’: how African diaspora religious identities shape their understandings of and engagement in international development

ABSTRACT

Mainstream development discourse and practice often marginalise the significance of ‘religion’ and ‘faith’ for international development and humanitarianism. However, recent geopolitical events have prompted attitudinal and epistemological developments, with religion and faith considered an almost obligatory agenda for development scholarship. Despite current celebrations, scant attention is paid to the paramount role of religion for faith-based development actors such as African diaspora individuals and communities. Using focus group discussions, this article examines how the religious-faith identities of UK Nigerians specifically, shape their meanings for and engagement in international development. I reveal that Nigerian remittances and non-monetary contributions and services to their heritage country are constituted within moral (and cultural) obligations, justifications and values that are distinctly ‘religious’. So too, that Nigerians largely construe international development as a demonstrable ‘practice’ of their faith-based identities. Consequently, I call for a (re)theorisation of development to subsume transnational Afro-religious diasporic performativity. While focused on Nigerians, these findings are nonetheless relevant for wider UK-based African diaspora.

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KEYWORDS:

• African diaspora
• religion
• Nigerian
• faith identities
• international development
• remittances

Acknowledgments

Thanks to my PhD supervisors Uma Kothari and Dan Brockington who supported the research from which this paper is taken. I would like to also extend my gratitude to Adriaan van Klinken and Eleanor Power for their feedback on early drafts. The comments of anonymous reviewers were extremely helpful in shaping this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. There is no authoritative definition of religion. Adopting a substantive perspective which analyses Religion in terms of its content and essence such as a widespread belief in (a) God and the ‘supernatural/transcendental’, this article interprets religion as, a unified system of [doctrinal and/or scriptural] beliefs and practices relative to the worship of a supernatural being that is, a personal ‘God’ that is above nature and which transcends scientific comprehension (See, e.g., Berger 1974 ‘Substantive versus Functional Definitions’). Within this framing, religion is understood here as ‘organisational’ or as an institution in which systems of belief are formally organised, codified and ratified via interpretations of sacred authoritative scriptures (e.g. The Bible, Quran) and/or rites.

2. Intimately-tied to this article’s interpretation of ‘religion’, ‘faith’ is used here to describe those with private, personal and ‘individualised’ relationships with a supernatural being that is, ‘God’ without necessarily attending (or feeling the need to attend) an organised place of worship – for a variety of reasons. These people ‘of faith’ may also (partially) subscribe to, and constitute certain (sometimes obligatory) doctrinal, scriptural, and/or ceremonial values and observances in their everyday lives.

3. The term diaspora is historicised by conceptual and definitional inconsistences (See, e.g., Kenny 2013), here it applies to migrant communities who moved from their continent/countries of heritage and have now settled (and in the case of their offspring, born) in the UK.

4. The ‘Global South’ is used here to refer to countries and world regions often called developing/underdeveloped, ‘Third World’, non-Western. When used, the term is placed in quotation marks. For a detailed discussion of the problems with, and pitfalls of, these terminologies, see, e.g., Chant and Mcllwaine (2009).

5. Non-Governmental Organisations.

6. Nigerian-born migrants and British-born children of.

7. Adapting Meynaud’s (1969, 31) definition, technocratic rationality refers to ‘[an approach to and understanding of international development] in which technically trained experts rule by virtue of their specialised knowledge, [expertise] and position in dominant political, [academic] and economic institutions’

8. See, e.g., Onwuegbuzie, Leech, and Collins (2010) ‘Innovative data collection’, for critical discussions about methodological and theoretical issues such as ‘group think’ and reflexivity.

9. In the context of this research, this included those people born and/or who schooled in the UK, having arrived as children, or those who were the children of parents who had.

10. See, Goodhew (2012) ‘Church Growth in Britain’

11. Black majority church, a church in which over half of its congregation is Black. According to Aldred (2007) ‘Black Churches’, there are 500,000 Christians in black majority churches.

12. See Rogers (2013) ‘Being Built Together’

13. Those Christians who look to the experience of the Holy Spirit by Jesus’ disciples at Pentecost

14. A Nigerian ethno-linguistic community and an indigenous Nigeran religion

15. A Yoruba title for certain royal rulers.

16. A Yoruba religion and system of divination

17. A knighthood awarded by the Pope as the head of the Catholic Church intended to honour the Roman Catholic laity who are actively involved in the life of the church.

18. ‘Alhamdulillah’ is Arabic for ‘all praise is due to God alone’

19. ‘Inshallah’ is Arabic for ‘God Willing’ or ‘if God wills’

20. A self-coined lingo-poetic phrase, to describe reverential statements of gratitude, awe and respect towards a higher being that is, ‘God’

21. Evangelism is the sharing of the Christian gospel

22. Tithe is a one-tenth part of annual earnings, paid as a contribution to the Church and clergy.

23. Zakat is annual payments under Islamic law for charitable and religious purposes

24. According to Walters (2018) ‘Religious Imaginations’ describes interactions of religion in contemporary geopolitical life.

25. See Stevanovic-Feen (2012) ‘Remittances and Moral Economies’ and Garbin (2017) ‘Sacred remittances’ for similar observations (in the context of migrant remittance-giving) with UK Congolese and Bangladeshi New York immigrants, respectively.

26. Not to be confused with the indigenous or autochthonous religions of continental and diaspora Africa(ns). Borrowing from De Castro and Dawson (2017) ‘Religion, Migration and Mobility’ The term ‘Afro-religious’ – a portmanteau of African and Religious – is used here to refer to the religious and faith subjectivities and practices of/by Black racialised individuals and communities of African heritage.

Additional information

Funding

The material is based upon PhD research supported by the University of Manchester.