Christianity and Acts of Citizenship in Sub-Saharan Africa/Uganda: A Scoping Study
Claire Blencowe

This scoping study is about establishing the groundwork for a major new programme of research on Christianity as a site of the global/local formation of political agency, citizenship and empowerment in Africa. I am particularly interested in the role of 'theology of life' in shaping discourses and ideas about political development.

Scoping work has involved running a symposium at Warwick called Religion and the Architecture of Political Agency (May 2013) and undertaking three field work studies. First I visited the archives of the WCC in Geneva. Second I visited Kampala for six weeks to undertake preliminary research exploring the citizenship activities of different Christian groups, including Churches, ecumenical organisations, and NGOs in Uganda. Third, I attended the WCC General Assembly in Busan. Through this I hope to identify appropriate case studies and community partners for more in depth field work in future.

This project is kindly funded by a Strategic Investment Award from Warwick Research Development Fund, a Research Grant Acceleration Award from Warwick IAS and a field work award from Warwick Global Research Priority - Connecting Cultures.