Professor David Maxwell wins Cambridge-Africa ALBORADA research grant
Having recently published Religious Entanglements, a monograph about missionary interactions with the Luba in colonial Belgian Congo, it has been a great pleasure to return to the religious history of Zimbabwe. I have spent over five years living and working in Zimbabwe and I devoted the first half of my career to writing a study of the social and cultural history of Christianity in the north-east of the country, followed by a book on a Zimbabwean transnational Pentecostal movement. My latest research is a synoptic study of church, state and society since Independence.
The initial stage of this new project is supported by the Cambridge-Africa ALBORADA Research Fund which aims to catalyse new and strengthen existing collaborations between researchers in Africa and Cambridge. With Dr Munetsi Ruzivo from the University of Zimbabwe, I am co-convening a workshop on Ecumenism and Political Transitions in Zimbabwe, 1980 to the Present. This meeting of Zimbabwean Church leaders and academics, hosted by the Zimbabwe Council of Churches, will explore the role of the major denominations and church councils in advocacy, peace-making and reconciliation, constitution writing, and in the creation of a democratic political culture. We are interested in how the churches have responded to key political transitions since independence in 1980: the challenges of building a new post-colonial state; the socio-political crisis beginning in 2000; period of inclusive government 2008-2011; and the party coup in 2017 which replaced Robert Mugabe with Emmerson Mnangagwa. Given its recent occurrence, Dr Ruzivo is conducting research on the Church’s response to the coup, (officially known as the ‘military assisted transition’).
The workshop will take place in September 2023. Speakers include: Fr Tryvis Moyo, Secretaary General of the Zimbabwe Catholic Bishops Conference; Rev Dr Kenneth Mtata, Programmes Director for the World Council of Churches and former General Secretary of the Zimbabwe Council of Churches; and Bishop Never Muparutsa, President of the Evangelical Fellowship of Zimbabwe. They will be joined by local civil society activists and academics from the Universities of Zimbabwe, Basel, Cambridge and Edinburgh.
Professor David Maxwell