Robert Baum

Dartmouth College, African and African American Studies, Faculty Member

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I am a historian of religions, focusing primarily on indigenous African religions. I have been conducting research and living in a Diola community in southern Senegal, periodically since 1974. My research combines historical, anthropological, and comparative religious studies approaches and relies on both ethnographic and archival sources. I am currently editing volume one of a three part history of indigenous African religions.

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State University of Moldova

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University of Cyprus

Alessandro Bausi

Sapienza University of Roma

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Université Paris-Sorbonne (Paris IV)

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Papers by Robert Baum

Shrines of the Slave Trade

In this groundbreaking work, Robert Baum seeks to reconstruct the religious and social history of... more In this groundbreaking work, Robert Baum seeks to reconstruct the religious and social history of the Diola communities in southern Senegal during the precolonial era, when the Atlantic slave trade was at its height. Baum shows that Diola community leaders used a complex of religious shrines and priesthoods to regulate and contain the influence of the slave trade. He demonstrates how this close involvement with the traders significantly changed Diola religious life.

Prophecy and Power: Muhammad and the Qur'an in Light of Comparison

Islam and Christian–Muslim Relations, 2013

manhaj – as Wagemakers himself correctly notes (228) – simply flows from al-Maqdisī’s belief in t... more manhaj – as Wagemakers himself correctly notes (228) – simply flows from al-Maqdisī’s belief in the complementarity of daʿwa and jihad, and from his preference for the kind of fighting in which there is a chance of seizing power (qitāl al-tamkīn) over the kind in which one merely inflicts losses on the enemy (qitāl al-nikāya). I fail to see the similarity between these positions and the manhaj of quietist salafism, whose principled prohibition against fighting the regimes flows from different premises. In addition, it is unclear why a “manhaj of fighting only” should be seen as “more purely Jihadi-Salafi” (235) than alMaqdisī’s own. Indeed, part of the difficulty with the “quietist Jihadi-Salafi” formulation is simply that the hugely influential al-Maqdisī, perhaps more than anyone else, practically defines what al-salafiyya al-jihādiyya is for its adherents. The use of any additional qualifier thus seems unnecessary; and since many of the elements that Wagemakers identifies as “quietist” are in reality simply “salafī” – and common to both the quietists and the radicals – there does not seem to me any reason to describe al-Maqdisī as anything other than a salafī jihādī. That said, none of the preceding should be taken to detract from the value of Wagemakers’ book and, were it not for the prominence accorded to the “quietist” theme, most of these issues could in fact have been passed over as largely semantic. A Quietist Jihadi is a truly impressive work of scholarship that delves deep into a field that was, until recently, largely terra incognita, and emerges with a compelling portrait of a key figure in both contemporary salafism and the world of radical militancy. This is a major accomplishment, and Wagemakers’ A Quietist Jihadi is surely destined to be remembered as a milestone in these emerging fields of study.

Nuer

Khartoum, Sudan

Nubian

Nimeiry, Gaafar Muhammad al

Rational conversion and the Diola-Esulalu religious experience

From a Boy Not Seeking a Wife to a Man Discussing Prophetic Women

Men and Masculinities, 2008

In this article I reflect on thirty-years of conducting field research in the Diola communities o... more In this article I reflect on thirty-years of conducting field research in the Diola communities of southwestern Senegal. Initially this work was a community religious and historical study, but it gradually shifted to a focus on the history of Diola prophetism, most notably women prophets in the twentieth century. During that time, I shifted from an unmarried youth of twenty-two to a middle-aged married man. This article examines the continual intersection of the shift from a community religious history, including women's fertility shrines, to a study of women prophets whose followers included men and women. Assumptions about my place within the communities gradually changed as people got to know me and as aging changed my social status. Complicating this picture is the dramatic erosion of Diola social norms since the 1970s, which have created far greater fluidity to gender relations in Diola townships and among Diola in urban areas.

SCHLOSS, Marc R., The Hatchet's Blood: Separation, Power, and Gender in Ehing Social Life, Tucson, University of Arizona Press, 1988, 178 pp., $29.95, 0 8165 1042 3

Journal of Religion in Africa, 1992

Garoutte, C., & Wambaugh, A. (2007).Crossing the water: A photographic path to the Afro-Cuban spirit world. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 280 pp., 157 photographs. $89.95 (hardcover), $24.95 (paperback)

Journal of Media and Religion, 2009

There are many books that combine photographs with descriptive essays focusing on religious commu... more There are many books that combine photographs with descriptive essays focusing on religious communities in Africa or the diaspora, but few of them manage to present such keen insight and understanding of the religious life that they portray as Claire Garoutte and Anneke Wambaugh. Their technical skills combined with the strong relationship they developed with an AfroCuban priest have produced a powerful collection of visual images and an illuminating written commentary that make this a unique book. This richness results from a long-standing interest by both photographers in Afro-Cuban religious communities and their development of a strong personal connection to a religious group led by Santiago Castaneda Vera. For five years, these two women returned to Castaneda Vera’s home and to his religious community, becoming Castaneda Vera’s godchildren and members of the community. Their photographs reflect that: in their choice of subject matter, in the empathy reflected in their pictures, and in their textual commentaries. These are photographs of people they know well, of rituals they observed and participated in over the years, and whose ritual and personal significance they understand. Garoutte and Wambaugh also read the major works on Afro-Cuban religion, in English and Spanish, and rely on them to supplement their own experiences of field research and participant observation. Still, they readily acknowledge the role of Santiago Castaneda Vera’s explanations of Afro-Cuban religious concepts and ritual practices that shape their own interpretations of what they witnessed and experienced. On the first page, the reader discovers that this work reflects far more than a quick visit to an exotic religious community. The authors open their narrative by citing Karen McCarthy Brown’s classic work Mama Lola: “Ethnographic research, whatever else it is, is a form of human relationship (p. 1).” The ethnographers met their religious teacher through the host of a restaurant in Santiago, once he discovered that they were eager to learn about the cluster of religious traditions that have profoundly influenced Cuban society. Castaneda Vera received them without any visible sense of surprise, later confiding to them that the spirits had guided them to his home.

Une introduction a un voyage en Casamance: Enampor, un village de riziculteurs en Casamance, au Senegal

The International Journal of African Historical Studies, 2001

Book ReviewOf Revelation and Revolution.Vol. 2,The Dialectics of Modernity on a South African Frontier.By John L. Comaroff and Jean Comaroff. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997. Pp. xxiii+560. $70.00 (cloth); $24.95 (paper)

American Journal of Sociology, 1998

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Of Revelation and Revolution: Christianity, Colonialism, and Consciousness in South Africa, Vol. 1. JEAN and JOHN COMAROFF

American Ethnologist, 1995

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Christians and Chiefs in Zimbabwe: A Social History of the Huasa People

American Ethnologist, 2000

Christians and Chiefs in Zimbabwe:. Social History of the Huasa People. David Maxwell. Westport, ... more

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The Hatchet's Blood: Separation, Power, and Gender in Ehing Social Life . Marc R. Schloss

American Anthropologist, 1989

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Rituals of Fertility and the Sacrifice of Desire: Nazarite Women's Performance in South Africa

African Studies Review, 2001

nosis was her dreams and visions and a fear that hospital officials were trying to poison her. Th... more nosis was her dreams and visions and a fear that hospital officials were trying to poison her. The next section examines the attempts of Nontetha's followers to secure her release, including petitions and pilgrimages to the hospitals where she was confined. In two extraordinary (though unsuccessful) efforts to generate popular support, they traveled six hundred miles on foot to the mental hospital in Pretoria to which Nontetha had been transferred. Then the story moves to the 1990s, to Edgar's attempts to find Nontetha's grave and return her remains to her followers in the Eastern Cape. He provides a fascinating description of the way in which he became incorporated into the corpus of Nontetha's teachings—as a person from America who brought help to her followers, just as she had prophesied. While the two authors provide an extraordinary study of Nontetha's prophetic movement and her subsequent confinement, I would have liked to learn more about the movement which continued without its leader for over sixty years after her death. I would also have liked a broader discussion of the theoretical significance of Nontetha's movement for the history of religions and within the context of women's history, something that moves beyond I. O. Lewis's functional analysis as a way of explaining women's prophetic movements and delves more deeply into the nature of women's religious experience in southern Africa. Nevertheless, this is a complex and multifaceted study that will be valuable to Africanists interested in South African history, the history of colonial psychiatry, and the study of colonial religious movements. Robert M. Baum Iowa State University Ames, Iowa

The Enigma of Colonialism: British Policy in West Africa

African Studies Review, 1992

ethnic and social barriers. While O'Fahey accepts Ibn Idri's central role in the developm... more ethnic and social barriers. While O'Fahey accepts Ibn Idri's central role in the development of tariqas such as the Sanusiyya in Libya, the Mirghaniyya in the Sudan, and the Sahiliyya in Somalia, he rejects the assertion put forth by Henri Duveyrier and others earlier in this century that Ibn Idris was specifically a pan-Islamicist, or that he had entertained any ambition of establishing a brotherhood of his own. O'Fahey also argues forcefully that to understand Sufism properly, the karamat or miracles of the saints cannot be dismissed as "hallucinatory contrives." They should instead be perceived as an integral part of the worldview of Ibn Idris and his followers that informed their lives and influenced their behavior. Perhaps the greatest contribution this book makes to studies on nineteenth-century Sufism is its stress on the transnational nature of the Idrisi tradition. This is evident not only from the extensive travels of Ibn Idris himself, but also from the fact that his students came from far and wide. As an illustration, the most frequently printed work of Ibn Idris was his lecture notes compiled by a Sudanese student from Darfur and passed to a student from Afghanistan who eventually printed them as al-Iqd al-nafis. Enigmatic Saint is an intelligently written and well documented book. It should find its place in the library of every serious Islamicist.

Religion in Africa: Experience and expression

African Affairs, 1996

... Francis Deng on humanitarianism and the UN, Ibrahim Gambari on foreign intervention, Marina O... more

Setting out on the <em>Awasena</em> Path: Conducting Field Research in Diola Communities in Senegal

Mande Studies, 2018

ABSTRACT:This article examines the author's initial field research in southwestern Senegal, f... more ABSTRACT:This article examines the author's initial field research in southwestern Senegal, focusing on the religious and social history of the Diola during the precolonial era. It examines his initial decisions to focus on language acquisition, his informal research style, and his efforts to incorporate women's perspectives into his oral histories of the small Diola communities of Esulalu.

Themes in West Africa's History

The English Historical Review, 2007

Themes in West Africa's History. Edited by Emmanuel Kwaku Akyeampong. Athens: Ohio University... more Themes in West Africa's History. Edited by Emmanuel Kwaku Akyeampong. Athens: Ohio University Press, 2006. Pp. xvi, 323; illustrations. $49.95 cloth, $24.50 paper. For many years African historians have been troubled by the lack of choices for suitable textbooks for survey courses in their field. Some presented Eurocentric or romantic images of Africa; others overwhelmed the student with far more detail than most undergraduates could absorb. Within the field of West African history, the situation has been somewhat better with what we now might consider classical works by John Fage, John Webster, and Adu Boahen, as well as the two volume anthology edited by A. J. E. Ajayi and Michael Crowder.1 Still, this new collection of essays, edited by Emmanuel Akyeampong serves as a valuable addition. In sharp contrast to other surveys, Akyeampong directed his contributors to emphasize both methodological issues and broad thematic issues. Akyeampong enriched the collection to include archaeologists, anthropologists, economists, and historians of religion. This collection allows students to be exposed to major issues in West African history and to see how scholars from different disciplines as well as from different continents understand this history. Many of these essays are useful to specialists, as well. Akyeampong divides the anthology into three sections: an initial section that focuses on some distinctive research methods; a middle section focusing on broad themes in West African history; and a final section on contemporary West Africa. I will examine each section in turn. The first four essays offer archaeological, ecological, and linguistic approaches, and an analysis of oral traditions. Susan McIntosh provides an interesting overview of archaeological evidence for early West African history. Her attention to the relationship between ecological changes, the beginnings of agriculture, the spread of iron technologies, as well as the way that archaeologists analyze this data is very useful. My only criticism is that the decision to use both BCE and BP systems of dating confuse readers who are not used to the BP designation. Unfortunately, there is considerable overlap in the materials presented by McIntosh and James Webb's ecological chapter. M. E. K. Dakobu provides a history of historical linguistics and the specific techniques of interpreting linguistic data historically, as well as an analysis of some of the methodological problems in utilizing these methods in a West African context. David Conrad's analysis of oral traditions confines itself to epic narratives of the Mandinka and provides a skillful analysis of the limitations and utility of analyzing these texts in reconstructing a history of Mali. The essay could have been strengthened, however, by broadening to include a wider variety of oral traditions, such as women's nanatives and those of slaves, or by including examples from less stratified societies. The second section provides six thematic essays on West African history. Patrick Manning presents a clear analysis of the dramatic increase in the West African slave trade, from the relatively small volume of the trans-Saharan trade to the dramatic increase in the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century trans-Atlantic slave trade. While examining the role of various European powers and the influence of the plantation system of the Americas, Manning could have examined more closely the impact on both centralized and acephalous African societies, in terms of economic development, international relations, and religious practices. …

Shrines of the Slave Trade