Africa Journal for Social Transformation

Understanding and Studying Social Transformation in Africa

Francesco Pierli, Sahaya G. Selvam — Tue, 20 Sep 2022 00:00:00 +0000

<> Interest about Social Transformation is on the increase in academic circles, but also among practitioners of human development, policy making, health and other disciplines. This paper wishes to offer a bird eye view of the birth and development of the notion of Social Transformation. It also tackles the issue of religion as a factor in this process. Particular attention is given to the Social Teaching of the church as evidence of religious bodies’ attention to critique from social sciences. A section on methodological considerations suggests that the study of Social Transformation should be empirical but also conceptual. This paper is an attempt at conceptualising Social Transformation with particular attention to the African context.

Religious Leaders and Kenya Members of Parliament

Giuseppe Caramazza — Tue, 20 Sep 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Leaders of the various Christian churches and denominations have always interacted with the political world in Kenya. This relationship changed through time. During the colonial era, the Church Mission Society (Anglican church) and Protestant churches had friendly relationship with the British rulers. The Catholic church kept a low profile, somehow feeling ‘foreigner’ within a British environment. A shift in relationship appeared after independence. Church leaders became more and more aware of their social role. They questioned Presidents Kenyatta’s and Moi’s actions. The rift between religious leaders and the Kenyan political world reached its apex in the 1990s, when Protestant and Catholic leaders took a clear stand against President Moi’s regime. The churches were instrumental in fighting for a multi-party state and in making people aware of their rights in a modern state. Today, the relationship between religious leaders and the political world has changed again. In this article, the author argues that politicians feels exploited by religious leaders. Politicians would like a new relationship where religious leaders engage them positively, supporting their work with clear religious and ethical considerations. Politicians also wish to be involved in the life of their faith communities because of their expertise and good will, beyond financial considerations.

Social Transformation

Giudici Stefano — Thu, 15 Sep 2022 00:00:00 +0000

The article deals with a general presentation of the concept of social transformation, focusing on the author’s positionality and ministerial experience, the African context, and the possible future applications in the area of pastoral ministry in the Church. The working definition of social transformation as the transformation of social structures and people’s consciousness is supported by examples of scholars and transformers in the last century and a reference to the author’s personal pastoral experience in ministry. The selection of scholars and the reading of the personal experience is made through the lens of decoloniality, which is considered essential in today’s African context and beyond. While this paradigm has gained relevance among scholars from Latin America and Africa, it is still entirely unacknowledged in church environments and among Church pastoral agents for social transformation. The article concludes with the wish that the new decolonial perspective applied to the Church’s social action can favor the rethinking of Church’s theology and praxis for social transformation.

Christian Liturgy and Social Change

Rinaldo Ronzani — Tue, 20 Sep 2022 00:00:00 +0000

In the past decades, theologians have drawn an interesting link between liturgy and social issues. From being seeing as a stress-free way of escaping from the challenges of life while maintaining the status quo, liturgy is now regarded as a place where the dichotomy between faith and life finds a unifying factor. There is a growing awareness on the social implications a true liturgical celebration conveys. The author concludes that without active commitments, worship is comfortable entertainment, empty ritual, a pretence of worship - in short, negligent diakonia”. This paper was prepared thirteen years ago and presented to a congress in Nairobi. It was never published. It is published today with permission from the author who did not revise it.

African Politics and the Role of the Church

Laurenti Magesa — Tue, 20 Sep 2022 00:00:00 +0000

African states face difficult choices for their citizens, indeed for their own future. In most countries, public policies have shown to be inadequate. Observers underline a few causes: the lack of legal institutions that would guide on the path of good governance, the lack of integrity by political leaders, and the departure from the values of good governance of local traditions. The church could help by taking a prophetic role: by being more consistently involved in advocacy and civil education, by engaging politicians on issues of transparency and accountability, and offering support to policy makers through adequate training in skills of social analysis.

The African action toward social transformation

Robert White — Thu, 15 Sep 2022 00:00:00 +0000

The present article analyses processes of social transformation that African people have promoted since independence fostering the realization of human rights, human creativity and the realization of human aspirations. This research, with the perspective of the critical tradition of analysis of social transformation, discusses eight processes of transformation in Africa authored by African people which potentially create social conditions of human realization: 1) cultural, political and development initiatives of African independence leaders; 2) movements to promote the rule of law defending constitutional rights, 3) developing the organizational capacity of the poor, 4) civil society action defending rights; 5) free participatory public debate; 6) promoting indigenous cultural identity and development initiatives; 7) the informal action of the poor and 8) devolution of governance to the local level.

Perception of Refugees towards International Humanitarian Aid in the Kakuma Refugee Camp, Kenya

Henryk Tucholski — Tue, 20 Sep 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Most academic reports on encamped refugees deal with the immediate needs of the displaced people with no reference to their socio-cultural value system. The theory and praxis of humanitarian assistance emerge from concerns of international community for making it truly humanitarian and impartial. This paper explores the perceptions of African refugees concerning the international aid provided by humanitarian agencies in Kakuma Refugee Camp. A mixed method research design guided the quantitative and qualitative process of data collecting, analyzing and triangulation protocol. Simple random, strata and purposive techniques were used to sample 484 participants. Statistical descriptive analysis and thematic organization of qualitative data facilitated validation of results and construction of meta-themes. The results revealed the imbalance in relationship between “powerful” givers and “powerless” recipients in the refugee camp, and unveiled the African perception of hidden power behind the “gift” offered by a powerful giver. The findings suggest that a purely pragmatic approach to humanitarian assistance hampers positive social transformation of encamped refugees. This calls upon the international agents to adopt a broader and more flexible interpretation of humanitarian assistance conventions and their application to externally displaced people