African Sacred Spaces: Culture, History, and Change is a collection of carefully and analytically written essays on different aspects of African sacred spaces. The interaction between the past and present points to Africans' continuing recognition of certain natural phenomena and places as sacred. Western influence, the introduction of Christianity and Islam, as well as modernity, have not succeeded in completely obliterating African spirituality and sacred observances, especially as these relate to space in its various iterations. Indeed, Africans, on the continent and in the Diasporas, have responded to the challenges of history, environmentalism, and sustainability with sober and versatile responses in their reverence for sacred space as expressed through a variety of religious, historical, and spiritual practices, as this volume attempts to show.

Negotiating Identities in Contemporary Africa: Gender, Religion, and Ethno-cultural Identities explores the changing dynamics of identities in Africa, with a focus on gender, ethno-cultural, and religious identity. Toyin Falola and Emmanuel M. Mbah argue that because identity defines who we are as individuals or groups, studies on African identities must focus on understanding the changing dynamics in the socio-economic and political spheres in the continent. These chapters cover subjects such as women’s career identity, gender roles and knowledge, childlessness, ethnocentrism and democracy, cultural identity through theater, Black identity in the diaspora, and diasporic consciousness. Using existing scholarship, the chapters in this edited volume challenge our understanding of what identity entails and provide new discussions on the hitherto politicized historiography of some identities in Africa.

African Sacred Spaces: Culture, History, and Change is a collection of carefully and analytically written essays on different aspects of African sacred spaces. The interaction between the past and present points to Africans' continuing recognition of certain natural phenomena and places as sacred. Western influence, the introduction of Christianity and Islam, as well as modernity, have not succeeded in completely obliterating African spirituality and sacred observances, especially as these relate to space in its various iterations. Indeed, Africans, on the continent and in the Diasporas, have responded to the challenges of history, environmentalism, and sustainability with sober and versatile responses in their reverence for sacred space as expressed through a variety of religious, historical, and spiritual practices, as this volume attempts to show.