Genevieve Nrenzah
University of Ghana
Institute of African Studies
Dr. Nrenzah’s research interests and areas of expertise include Africa’s diverse indigenous religious beliefs and ceremonies and their extensions in the African Diasporas; Religion and Economics; Religion, Culture and Decolonization; Sacred Spaces, Pentecostalism and Neo Religious Movements; Sexuality, Religion, and Human rights; Religious Infrastructure and Neo feminism.
Under the Other Universals project, she is working with an overreaching theme– Decolonization, Religious Economy, and Spiritualties in Ghana. She aims at analyzing impacts of strategies used by religious agents in contending others as an ‘alternative universal’ in religious spaces but also to evaluate the impact of overriding spiritualties as a cultural revolution in contemporary Ghana. Relevant publications under the project are: Religion and Commodification: The Ghanaian Churches’ Covid-19 Economy (2021) Ghana Journal of Religion and Theology, https://journals.ug.edu.gh/index.php/gjrt/index; Sacralising Natural Spaces: Competitive Performances in Contemporary Ghanaian Religiosity (2019) Ghana Journal of Religion and Theology. She has two forthcoming articles, a book chapter and work in-progress on Religion, Aesthetics and the Politics of Hair in Contemporary Ghana’
Her forthcoming publications are as follows
Nrenzah, Genevieve. Interrogating the Other: Belief in Witchcraft among the Akan Nzema People in Pentecostal-Charismatic Africa. Accepted for publication in The Sage Handbook of Global Social Theory, edited by Gurminder K Bhambra, Lucy Mayblin, Kathryn Medien, Mara Viveros Vigoya.
Aesthetics, Capitalism and Religious Infrastructure in Ghana. Accepted for a Special issue under the theme Reconceptualizing infrastructure to be published in the Journal of Religion in Africa.
Nrenzah, G. Decolonizing the Ghanaian religious landscape: Re-centering Sankofa. Accepted for review in a special issue on Theorizing African Political and Social Thought for Knowledge Production to be published by the Contemporary Journal of African Studies.
Her other publications are
Nrenzah, G. (2019). Polished Violence: Changing Notions about the Spirituality of the Todↄlε (Vagina) in Popular Nzema Indigenous Religious Philosophy. Nyangweso M. and Olupona JK (eds), The Role of Religion, Gender-Based Violence, Immigration and Human Rights, Routledge: London.
Nrenzah, Genevieve. (2021) Doing Feminism on the Street: Culture, Media Perspectives, and Neo-Gender Groups in Ghana, Journal of Black Women and Religious Cultures, vol.2, no.2] Published by University of Minnesota Press. DOI: 10.53407/bwrc2.2.2021.100.09
Nrenzah holds editorial, review and advisory board positions on several journals in addition to professional affiliations with African Studies Association of Africa, Deutsche Gesellschaft für Missionswissenschaft, American Academy of Religions, Golden key International Honour Society and International Association for the History of Religions.
She is currently on a research leave at the University of Rostock, Germany finishing her new book on ‘Suffering in God’s Kingdom on Earth: Rights, Ritual, Discourse and Abuse in Ghanaian Pentecostalism’.