Feminising faith: a reflection on personal and academic journeys

bibliographic database
Line

Periodical article

Title:	Feminising faith: a reflection on personal and academic journeys
Author:	Gaitskell, Deborah
Year:	2010
Periodical:	Journal for the Study of Religion (ISSN 1011-7601)
Volume:	23
Issue:	1-2
Pages:	71-103
Language:	English
Geographic term:	South Africa
Subjects:	religious history historiography gender studies Christianity
Abstract:	The author combines personal reflection on the feminization of faith with a broader historiographical overview. The 1970s seemed unpropitious times for researching women of faith in South Africa. The author shows which wider perspectives, changing trends and scholarly networks over the ensuing decades have sustained her own research and that of others in related fields. First, anthropology threw light on African religious and social developments, while historians like Richard Gray focused on African Christian agency. By the 1980s, feminist analyses and a new social history were enriching South African scholarship. In the 1990s, the Comaroffs gave mission history fresh cachet, wile others developed new academic collaborations on Christianity. Meanwhile, gender research and advocacy acquired a higher profile in South Africa's nascent democracy. Further advances after 2000 suggest that both mission history and female religiosity now have a much stronger standing in the academy. Bibliogr., notes, ref., sum. [Journal abstract]