Mapping Yoruba Networks: Power and Agency in the Making of Transnational Communities

Mapping Yoruba Networks is an ethnographic and anthropological study that was carried out through a participatory approach. The book is divided into two main parts. The first part makes historical, cultural, and religious connections between Oyotunji Village, South Carolina, and its origins in West Africa. The second part focuses on specific social and religious practices in Oyotunji Village. Analytically and powerfully written, Mapping Yoruba Networks establishes a circuit of religious connections from Yorubaland in Nigeria, to the Caribbean, to Oyotunji Village, as well as to groups residing in the Bronx, New York. The book is a study of the globalization of Yoruba culture and religions through the network.

The presence of Yoruba cultural and religious practices outside West Africa resulted from the Atlantic slave trade. Although the slave trade dealt a devastating blow to the growth of African cultures and customs, it brought about the practice of African religions in the Caribbean and North America. Since the period of the slave trade, Africans in Diaspora have tried to find means to maintain their African identity, and have continued to search for a reconnection with their African roots. Religion, as the author rightly points out, is one of the ways by which fragmented but historically and culturally related peoples are brought together. The Yoruba religions uniquely perform this role in the United States and the Caribbean. The revivalist form of Yoruba religions in Oyotunji Village and the Bronx resembles what Frances Henry (2003) described as going on in Trinidad with the Orisha religion, which serves as a popular means of promoting African identity, Black Power, and Black Nationalism. It is not surprising that the constituencies of Yoruba religious beliefs and practices continue to become wider as practitioners migrate from West Africa to other parts of the world, and the more they spread, the more they increase their cultural and religious networks (p. 5). How well connected the Yoruba religions are to those in Yorubaland is a pertinent question to examine, and that is one of the things that Mapping Yoruba Networks has brilliantly done. Historical authenticity of the slave trade does not necessarily translate to the accuracy of Yoruba religious practices, but Mapping Yoruba Networks tries to prove that Yoruba culture and religions are capable of adaptation outside their environment of origin.

The author, Kamari Maxine Clarke, has indicated that irrespective of distance and language, Yoruba religions have been practiced in America without losing a substantial core of Yoruba culture. Dress, music, and rituals are patterned after Yoruba culture in West Africa. There are indications that Oyotunji Village occupies a conspicuous position in the Yoruba networks. It was established in 1970 as a multinational and multicultural village with a common revivalist form of Yoruba cultural values, sociopolitical institutions and structures, and religious beliefs and practices. One of its goals is to provide African Americans with a good connection to the operative institutions and systems in their homeland. Many African Americans who patronize Oyotunji Village and practice the religion eventually adopt Yoruba names. In Oyotunji Village, Yoruba political systems and institutions are adopted, and economic dimensions are introduced through divinatory consultations and the sale of African materials to tourists. These measures not only promote Yoruba religions, but also encourage the practice of Yoruba culture in America.

The book, however, fails to emphasize how Oyotunji Village maintains a strong connection with centers of religion in Yorubaland. It would have been more informative to discuss the connection between Yoruba cities (such as Ile-Ife, Oyo, and Abeokuta) and their rulers with Oyotunji Village, its leader, and its community. Such an analysis would strengthen the understanding of the network and the religious interactions among these Yoruba centers of religion and Oyotunji Village. It is worthwhile to mention the innovations that the Oyotunji Village has made to the practice of Yoruba religions to make them more attractive to its international community. Another question is what makes the Oyotunji Village...