Secularism within the ANC in South Africa

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

This study investigates why South Africa has a veryreligious population, and yet a politics that has (so far)remained secular. I focus on the African National Congress(ANC), the long-dominant political party, and the role ofreligion in their members' electioneering and debates aboutpublic policy at a branch-level. This study employs politicalethnography at six branches of the ANC over a year, as wellas an historical analysis of the changing relationshipbetween religion and politics in the ANC's history.The study of secularism is concerned with how thecategories of the religious and the non-religious are definedand negotiated. However, this scholarship has focused onthe US and Europe, with some (limited) coverage of theMiddle East and North Africa. There are still few studies ofsecularism in Sub-Saharan Africa - and this is especiallytrue of South Africa. This impoverishes theories ofsecularism, which are strained in application beyond 'theWest'.This study furthers a decolonial understanding ofsecularism in a post-colonial context that is significantlyunder-researched. It will further our understanding of thenuances of religion and African nationalism, both at presentand in the 20th century, as well as how the boundaries ofthe public sphere and private belief are negotiated beyondthe political and religious elite. It is the first study tocomprehensively investigate secularism in South Africathrough fieldwork, rather than archival research.