People

Partner organisations

Academic participants

Academic lead

Dr Adriaan van Klinken

Adriaan van Klinken is Professor of Religion and African Studies at the University of Leeds (UK), where he also serves as Director of the Leeds University Centre for African Studies and of the Centre for Religion and Public Life. His research interests are in religion in contemporary Africa, and in religion, gender and sexuality. He recently published the book Kenyan, Christian, Queer: Religion, LGBT Activism, and Arts of Resistance in Africa (Penn State University Press, 2019). He also is editor, with Ebenezer Obadare, of Christianity, Sexuality and Citizenship in Africa, and with Ezra Chitando, of Public Religion and the Politics of Homosexuality in Africa and Christianity and Controversies over Homosexuality in Contemporary Africa.

Dr Barbara Bompani

Barbara Bompani is a Reader in Africa and International Development at the Centre of African Studies in the School of Social and Political Science, the University of Edinburgh and a Research Associate at the African Centre for Migration and Society at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. Dr Bompani’s work focuses on the intersection between religion, politics and development in Sub-Saharan Africa and on the way religion shapes the life of African citizens in the everyday life. For many years her research has investigated the relationship between religious organisations and their activities and socio-political action in post-apartheid South Africa. She has also been involved in a research project looking at the Christian churches in Kenya and their role in promoting agricultural biotechnology for development. Since 2012 she is researching the role of Pentecostal-charismatic churches in framing the public and political discourse around morality, sexuality and nationhood in Uganda.

Dr Damaris S. Parsitau

Damaris Parsitau is Senior Lecturer of Religion and Gender Studies at Egerton University, Kenya. Her research interests include African Pentecostalism, gender and sexuality in Kenya. In 2018-2019 she was a Research Associate at Harvard University’s Women Studies in Religion Programme (WSRP) and carried out research on Pentecostalism and women's bodies in Kenya. She previously held Visiting Research Fellowships at the University of Cambridge in England and the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. She is a project advisor for the Nagel Institute/John Templeton Africa Theological Advice Project where she advises research teams in Ethiopia and East Africa. She is also a beneficiary of many research grants and awards.