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The end of slavery, famine and food aid in Tunduru -- Changing configurations of poverty in the colonial southeast and the myth of communalism -- The struggle to trade -- Independence and the rhetoric of feasibility -- Villagisation and the pursuit of market access -- The politics of development in the era of liberalisation -- Performing and pursuing development in Kineng'ene.

For a time, Tanzania enjoyed a reputation for mostly free elections and public debate. But after President John Magufuli was elected in 2015, he introduced measures to stifle the media and tilt the electoral playing field in favor of the longtime ruling party. The turn toward authoritarianism is not due to any one personality or stereotypical "mad dictator," however (notwithstanding Magufuli's pandemic denialism, which may have cost him his life). It is part of the legacy of the early postcolonial period and the revered founding president, Julius Nyerere, who set the foundations of one-party rule and wielded the rhetoric of economic nationalism.

Becker's article focuses on similarities between arguments about funerary ritual, in particular the rite of telkin (admonition), among Muslim congregations in Highland Aceh, Indonesia, and in parts of Tanzania. It discusses the Sufi and scholarly networks that most likely explain the presence of this rite in both regions. The intensity of recent arguments about telkin, though, is connected to changing social and political constellations in the colonial and postcolonial period, which have left villagers in both locations unsure of their ability to maintain everyday sociality while also managing their relations with national and transregional power centers. The dispersal of the telkin ritual in two very different locations shows that the traditional rituals attacked by Muslim reformists cannot be construed as "local" additions to "orthodox" Islam; rather, this ritual is evidence of exchanges within Islamic networks that predate the reformist ones. Moreover, the debates show the extent to which even apparently isolated rural locations participate in global exchanges and are in some ways even more vulnerable to them than the cities more often seen as hubs of globalization.

The rise of occult powers, AIDS and the Roman Catholic church in western Uganda / Heike Behrend -- Christian salvation and Luo tradition : arguments of faith in a time of death in western Kenya / Ruth Prince -- The new wives of Christ : paradoxes and potentials in the remaking of widow lives in Uganda / Catrine Christiansen -- AIDS and the power of God : narratives of decline and coping strategies in Zanzibar / Nadine Beckmann -- Competing explanations and treatment choices : Muslims, AIDS and ARVs in Tanzania / Felicitas Becker -- 'Muslims have instructions' : HIV/AIDS, modernity and Islamic religious education in Kisumu, Kenya / Jonas Svensson -- 'Keeping up appearances' : sex and religion amongst university students in Uganda / Jo Sadgrove -- Healing the wounds of modernity : salvation, community and care in a Neo-Pentecostal church in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania / Hansjörg Dilger -- Gloves in times of AIDS : Pentecostalism, hair and social distancing in Botswana / Rijk van Dijk -- Leprosy of a deadlier kind : Christian conceptions of AIDS in the South African Lowveld / Isak Niehaus -- Subjects of counselling : religion, HIV/AIDS and the management of everyday life in South Africa / Marian Burchardt -- Therapeutic evangelism : confessional technologies, antiretrovirals and biospiritual transformation in the fight against AIDS in West Africa / Vinh-Kim Nguyen

In recent years, anthropologists, historians, and others have been drawn to study the profuse and creative usages of digital media by religious movements. At the same time, scholars of Christian Africa have long been concerned with the history of textual culture, the politics of Bible translation, and the status of the vernacular in Christianity

In recent years, anthropologists, historians, and others have been drawn to study the profuse and creative usages of digital media by religious movements. At the same time, scholars of Christian Africa have long been concerned with the history of textual culture, the politics of Bible translation, and the status of the vernacular in Christianity. Students of Islam in Africa have similarly examined politics of knowledge, the transmission of learning in written form, and the influence of new media. Until now, however, these arenas--Christianity and Islam, digital media and "old" media--have been studied separately. Religion, Media, and Marginality in Modern Africa is one of the first volumes to put new media and old media into significant conversation with one another, and also offers a rare comparison between Christianity and Islam in Africa. The contributors find many previously unacknowledged correspondences among different media and between the two faiths. In the process they challenge the technological determinism--the notion that certain types of media generate particular forms of religious expression--that haunts many studies. In evaluating how media usage and religious commitment intersect in the social, cultural, and political landscapes of modern Africa, this collection will contribute to the development of new paradigms for media and religious studies.--Publisher's summary