African religiosity as identity is an invented tradition

Evidence

According to Platvoet and Van Rinsum (2003, 2008), the paradigm of Africans as deeply religious is an invention of tradition, a paradigmatic identity constructed by a particular group of people at a time of change, by which they claim continuity of identity with a suitable, but mainly mythical, past (Hobsbawm, 1992). — Frans Dokman, Beyond Bantu Philosophy_…, 804

Categorization

• XREF: Directly invokes Hobsbawm’s invented traditions — the same framework used to analyze nationalism and colonial identity construction elsewhere.