CCCW Talk “Migration, Pentecostalism, and Islam in Northern Cameroon” by Prof Tomas Sundnes Drønen
07 May 2024, 16:00 - 07 May 2024, 17:30 Divinity Faculty, Room 7
Speaker
Professor Tomas Sundnes Drønen
Tomas Sundnes Drønen is Professor of Global Studies and Religion at VID Specialized University, Stavanger campus, Norway. Among his research interests are religious change in Africa with a particular focus on mission history, Pentecostalism, and Islam. He has also published scholarly works dealing with globalisation, development studies, and migration. Drønen has served as Vice-Rector and Dean at VID for more than ten years but has spent the last year in Africa for further field studies.
Abstract
Cameroon has until recently been an island of political stability in a Central-African region that has experienced civil wars, coup d’états, and violent Muslim extremism. In the last ten years this has changed. Cameroon now hosts more than 2.2 million forcibly displaced persons in addition to almost 500,000 refugees. Many of these seek to leave the refugee camps and areas troubled by terrorism and ecological crises to settle in the southern countryside, or in the three big cities Maroua, Garoua and Ngaoundéré.
This seminar investigates the approach of some protestant churches in northern Cameroon and sees how different theological and social approaches impact their encounter with the migrants. Whereas the established missionary churches have administrative resources and international networks, the newly established Pentecostal churches use their entrepreneurial skills to integrate the newcomers.
