Abstract:
This paper explores the significance of the turn to the religion of the family and
the clan (i.e., indigenous African religion) taking place under the contemporary
conditions of Covid-19 in many African countries. It does this in order to exhibit
the Africanity that is hidden by this otherwise pragmatic turn. The paper explores
this Africanity by drawing from the classical African story of Seila-Tsatsi, which
it argues has its roots in religious education. The key aim of its examination of
this Africanity is to interrogate a politics of health it claims the World Health
Organisation advances. The paper does not explore this turn by accounting for
the meanings individuals attribute to it but is rather abstract and conceptual in
its approach. The argument it makes is that the contemporary turn to the religion
of the family and the clan exhibits desire for an inclusive form of relationality
that ought to inform fair, equitable and just health outcomes. It argues that the
WHO’s politics of health is blind to this model because it stubbornly upholds
binary thought.
