Critical Reflections on Indigenous Religions

The study of indigenous religions has become an important academic field, particularly since the religious practices of indigenous peoples are being transformed by forces of globalization and transcontinental migration. This book will further our understanding of indigenous religions by first considering key methodological issues related to defining and contextualizing the religious practices of indigenous societies, both historically and in socio-cultural situations. Two further sections of the book analyse cases derived from European contexts, which are often overlooked in discussion of indigenous religions, and in two traditional areas of study: South America and Africa.

James L. Cox is Emeritus Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Edinburgh. From 1993 to 1998, he directed the African Christianity Project at the Centre for the Study of Christianity in the Non-Western World at the University of Edinburgh. Prior to his appointment in Edinburgh, from 1989 to 1993, he was Senior Lecturer in the Phenomenology of Religion at the University of Zimbabwe. His other academic posts have been at Alaska Pacific University and Westminster College, Oxford. He has published broadly in the fields of indigenous religions and methodologies in the studies of religion, including An Introduction to the Phenomenology of Religion (2010); From Primitive to Indigenous: The Academic Study of Indigenous Religions (Ashgate, 2007); He is past President of the British Association for the Study of Religions and is currently Deputy General Secretary of the European Association for the Study of Religions.