Re-thinking the Study of Religion: Lessons from Field Studies of Religions in Africa and the African Diaspora

Three stories, recorded from my field notes, comprise this chapter. These encounters provide insights into how I formulated my work with, and study of religion among, different societies from the African continent. The first occurred in the early 1980s in Ethiopia, when I was studying Ethiopian Jews at the beginning of my academic training. The second took place in the late 1980s, when I was about to begin my PhD fieldwork in Kenya, and the third in Israel with African Christian labor migrants, nearly 20 years later. For 30 years, I have studied Judaism, Christianity, and local religions, mainly through