Primitive Religions? Africa as a Marker for Transformation in European History of Religion

Abstract

The 19th and early 20th-century European discourse on religion in Africa is coined by colonial taxonomies. While postcolonial criticism raised awareness of this problem, my paper proposes an analysis of the discourse on ‘primitive religion’ not as a way of analysing religion in Africa, but ‘religion’ in Europe. The article, therefore, outlines how writing about religion in Africa reveals Europe’s self-representation and the late 19th-century study of religion. The discourse on religion is further disclosed as the construction of a world-order by positioning the category of «religion» in references to other values, positions and features.