Regulating Religious Coexistence: The Intricacies of 'Interfaith' Cooperation in Coastal Kenya

Abstract

This ethnographic study analyses modes of religious coexistence in the coastal Kenyan town of Malindi, by studying Christianity, Islam, and indigenous African religiosity (or ‘Traditionalism’) within one conceptual framework. This is relevant, since earlier scholarship in religious studies and anthropology has primarily focused on either Christianity or Islam, or the relations between one of these religions with Traditionalism. The topic is approached through a focus on civil society organizations which receive Western funding to organize ‘interfaith’ cooperation to ‘build peace’ and to ‘counter violent extremism’. Taking inspiration from the anthropology of secularism, the thesis also analyses religious coexistence in relation to historical modes of regulating religious diversity. The thesis asks how modes of religious coexistence are negotiated and contested in ‘interfaith’ civil society settings, and how present modes of coexistence intersect with historical patterns of interaction. The main contribution of the thesis is that it provides a detailed analysis of how modes of religious coexistence in coastal Kenya are shaped and constituted by transregional entanglements and encounters – both past and present – between three important religious traditions of the coastal Kenyan region, namely Christianity, Islam, and Traditionalism. Drawing upon extensive ethnographic fieldwork, the study has found that in coastal Kenya, Christian morality and the strategic interests of Western donors and political elites often set the standard of what (good) ‘religion’ ideally entails. Within this context, Muslims and Traditionalists who participate in ‘interfaith’ cooperation in Malindi are often confronted with suspicion and (implicit) accusations that their religions are immoral and/or (potentially) violent, because they are associated with problems such as ‘child marriages’, ‘witchcraft’ and ‘violent extremism’. Muslims and Traditionalists respond to these dynamics by conforming themselves to mainstream ideals about ‘religion’, which align with a model of political secularism that has historically developed in Kenya. They do so by stressing that their religions support civil ideals such as peace, morality, and national unity, even if this means that they have to appropriate terms, norms, and ideals which are not necessarily of their own making. Through such reasoning, Muslims and Traditionalists simultaneously respond to Western policy analyses which often make distinctions between ‘moderate’ and ‘radical’ aspects of particular religious traditions. Instead of encouraging the ‘moderation’ of religion, religious leaders in Malindi conceptualize religion as a solution to violence and immorality and not a possible contributor to it. The study found that such a positive understanding of religion also informs attempts of religious leaders in Malindi to educate and morally instruct youth via peace and development programs, which frequently become entangled with a distributional politics that often characterizes political governance in Kenya. In this way, the thesis demonstrates how the implementation of ‘interfaith’ cooperation is not simply determined by Western donor policies, but also deeply entangled with established patterns of political governance and religious coexistence. By doing so, the thesis emphasizes the significance of paying detailed attention to the complex transactions and translations that characterize the mobilization of religious actors for development work and ‘interfaith’ cooperation, in coastal Kenya and beyond.