College of Liberal Arts & Sciences

College of Liberal Arts & Sciences

• Back to Africa

  Twenty-five years of research has netted Robert Baum a book award

• Robert Baum says his journeys to Africa will result in at least four books. If the next three are any indication of what's to come, he may have to get a new trophy case.
  
  "When I was working on my dissertation, I thought had enough material for two books," Baum said. "Now I realize that I have at least four books."
  
  Baum's first book, Shrines of the Slave Trade: Diola Religion and Society in Precolonial Senegambia, was published by Oxford Press. It has been selected to receive one of the American Academy of Religion's (AAR) Awards for Excellence in the Study of Religion in the Best First Book in the History of Religions category. The associate professor of philosophy and religious studies will be presented the award at the annual meeting of the AAR in November.
  
  Shrines of the Slave Trade is a study of the religious and social history of a small cluster of Diola communities in southwestern Senegal in West Africa. The book focuses on the time period (primarily 17th to 19th century) before the French, British and Portuguese established colonial rule in this part of Africa.
  
  "Prior to the colonial conquest, the Diola experienced a series of profound changes that affected nearly every aspect of community life," Baum says. "By focusing this book on the history of the Diola traditional religion before Muslims and Christians became important influences in the region, I have been able to examine the ways in which an indigenous system of thought both shaped a community's responses to rapidly changing social conditions and how it was affected by that very act of interpretation."
  
  The book also examines how the Diola became active participants in the Atlantic slave trade including the involvement of religious leaders and spirit shrines into new cults. Those cults eventually became directly involved in the slave trade.
  
  Baum says he has enough material to continue the study in books on detailing the Diola religion both in the colonial period (1880 to 1960) and after independence was granted in 1960. He is currently working on another book on the region's female and male prophets before the French conquest.
  
  Baum first journeyed to the Senegal region prior to beginning graduate school in 1974. He has since returned 11 more times, spending a little over four years in Kadjinol, an agricultural community of 3,000 with no electricity or running water whose residents are primarily rice farmers.
  
  Over the years, a Kadjinol family has adopted Baum, initiating him into the social and religious aspects of the community. He has built a house in the town and even owns chickens.
  
  Currently on a faculty leave this academic year, Baum plans to return to his African home this winter when he will continue to research his prophet book.
  
  "At this point in my life it's like a visit home," he said. "There are advantages of living both here (the U.S.) and in Kadjinol. And there are disadvantages to both. "I like to think I have the best of both worlds traveling back and forth."
   

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October 9-15, 2000

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