Genealogy

19 pages, 284 KB

Open AccessArticle

The Depth of the Colonial Project: The Entanglement of Race, Gender, Religion, and Class in the Emasculation of Africa

by Masiiwa Ragies Gunda

Genealogy 2026, 10(3), 80; https://doi.org/10.3390/genealogy10030080 - 10 Jul 2026

Encounters between Africa and Europe have occurred since ancient times, yet a decisive turn in these relations occurred during the height of European imperial and colonial expansionist explorations from the 15th century. The central question behind this article is how did Europe succeed [...] Read more.

Encounters between Africa and Europe have occurred since ancient times, yet a decisive turn in these relations occurred during the height of European imperial and colonial expansionist explorations from the 15th century. The central question behind this article is how did Europe succeed in emasculating Africans and Africa? Through a multi-focal analysis combining systems-thinking and intersectionality approaches to analyzing these encounters, this article makes the following findings—Europe constructed an asymmetrical relationship in which race, gender, religion, and class were instrumentalized and weaponized, erasing or blurring the distinctions between the sacred and the secular to achieve the total domination and control of Africans while assuring themselves of access to all African resources. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Sacred and the Secular: Race, Gender, and Religion in Historical Context)

15 pages, 353 KB

Open AccessArticle

Everyone Is Ndukwo: An Onomastic Appraisal of Namesake Practices Among the Bende People

by Eunice Kingsley Ukaegbu, Kwita Ojong Adomi and Genevive Chimezie Osuji

Genealogy 2026, 10(3), 79; https://doi.org/10.3390/genealogy10030079 - 3 Jul 2026

Abstract

Traditional namesake practices are indisputable naming conventions among the Bende people, through which old names are maintained without infiltrating the community with new ones. It is believed that, when a person who had lived earlier on, had led an impactful life, there is [...] Read more.

Traditional namesake practices are indisputable naming conventions among the Bende people, through which old names are maintained without infiltrating the community with new ones. It is believed that, when a person who had lived earlier on, had led an impactful life, there is the need to keep their memories immortalized in the life of another, rather than creating an entirely new one. Thus, the Bende people in Abia State have been consciously identified by the recurring naming identity pattern in which as many as qualified people can bear a particular name in a particular extended family. This peculiar onomastic practice has been so misunderstood by others that it has become imperative to study and investigate why certain names are repeated, by whom, and to also identify the cultural events that herald such processes. To achieve this, this study adopted a descriptive qualitative research design to investigate the linguistic and cultural significance of namesakes. Forty participants were selected, using purposive sampling from the area of study, through whom data was elicited. Participant observations, semi-structured interviews, and focus group discussions were primarily used for data collection. The collected data were translated and analysed using thematic analysis to identify and categorise patterns. This study was based on socio-onomastic theory, and revealed the names recycled, the reasons behind them, the cultural significance of this onomastic practice, the conditioning of names in Bende, the namesake ritual, and the perceptions of the namesake pattern by the community. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Names as Heritage: Tracing Family and Community Identity Through Naming)

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16 pages, 227 KB

Open AccessArticle

Genealogy of Ethnomotography: Rituals and Identity of a Women’s Motorcycle Group in Adana (Türkiye)

by Berivan Can

Genealogy 2026, 10(3), 78; https://doi.org/10.3390/genealogy10030078 - 2 Jul 2026

Abstract

This study examines the rituals and identity formation processes of a women’s motorcycle group in Adana (Türkiye) through an autoethnographic perspective. While motorcycles are often associated with male-dominated cultures, women riders have increasingly established their own communities and collective practices. Drawing on participant [...] Read more.

This study examines the rituals and identity formation processes of a women’s motorcycle group in Adana (Türkiye) through an autoethnographic perspective. While motorcycles are often associated with male-dominated cultures, women riders have increasingly established their own communities and collective practices. Drawing on participant observation, the study introduces the concept of “ethnomotography” to describe autoethnographic research conducted within motorcycle culture. Data were collected through long-term participation in group activities, meetings, rallies, and everyday interactions as a member of the group between September 2022 and June 2024. The findings demonstrate that group identity is constructed and maintained through a series of rituals that resemble “rites of passage”. These rituals include initiation processes, the symbolic use of club insignia and vests, participation in weekly meetings and rallies, collective social responsibility projects, and mechanisms regulating membership continuity. The findings demonstrate that these rituals function as cultural mechanisms through which belonging, solidarity, and collective identity are produced. At the same time, the study shows that while the women’s motorcycle group provides an important space for mutual support, visibility, and empowerment within a predominantly male motorcycle culture, it also selectively reproduces organizational norms commonly associated with motorcycle clubs. Finally, the study suggests that belonging may persist beyond formal organizational membership, indicating that ritual participation produces identities that extend beyond institutional boundaries. By introducing ethnomotography as a perspective for studying motorcycle cultures from within, this research contributes to discussions of ritual, gender and identity. Full article

20 pages, 339 KB

Open AccessArticle

The Genealogy of Ritual Belonging: Strategic Litigation, State Feminism, and the Recognition of Muslim Marriages in South Africa

by Gerald Mandisodza

Genealogy 2026, 10(3), 77; https://doi.org/10.3390/genealogy10030077 - 1 Jul 2026

Abstract

For over a century, the South African secular state refused to legally recognise Islamic marriages (nikah), primarily due to their potentially polygynous nature. This statutory exclusion left Muslim women without civil legal protections during marriage, upon divorce, and at the death [...] Read more.

For over a century, the South African secular state refused to legally recognise Islamic marriages (nikah), primarily due to their potentially polygynous nature. This statutory exclusion left Muslim women without civil legal protections during marriage, upon divorce, and at the death of a spouse. This article examines the fifteen-year strategic litigation campaign led by the Women’s Legal Centre (WLCT), which culminated in the landmark 2022 Constitutional Court judgment. Utilising a qualitative analysis of public court filings, legal pleadings, and judicial decisions, the author explores how marginalised Muslim women used civil courts to bypass and challenge the exclusive authority of conservative male clerical councils (ulama). The article analyses this legal trajectory through two primary theoretical lenses: Robert Cover’s concept of jurispathy (the state’s suppression of a community’s laws) and Afro-feminist frameworks. The findings reveal a critical tension in state-led legal reform. While the 2022 judgment secured vital financial and proprietary protections for women, it simultaneously introduced the limitations of ‘state feminism’ by replacing informal religious control with a rigid state bureaucracy. The paper argues that developing an authentic decolonial family law requires a jurisprudence that enforces the material and financial rights of African Muslim women without forcing their religious unions to conform entirely to Western, secular concepts of civil marriage. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Exploring Gender Roles and Identities in African Rituals and Culture)

13 pages, 238 KB

Open AccessArticle

Genealogy Research and Higher Odds of Family Health History Confidence: A Cross-Sectional Study of US Adults Affected by Cancer

by Lynette Hammond Gerido

Genealogy 2026, 10(3), 76; https://doi.org/10.3390/genealogy10030076 - 1 Jul 2026

Abstract

Family health history (FHH) is an important tool for cancer risk assessment, yet its clinical utility is undermined by incomplete data, particularly among historically marginalized communities whose family records have been systematically disrupted by slavery, forced displacement, and undocumented status. I conducted a [...] Read more.

Family health history (FHH) is an important tool for cancer risk assessment, yet its clinical utility is undermined by incomplete data, particularly among historically marginalized communities whose family records have been systematically disrupted by slavery, forced displacement, and undocumented status. I conducted a cross-sectional online survey of 1885 US adults affected by cancer to examine associations between genealogy engagement and FHH confidence and to assess variation across sociodemographic subgroups. Genealogy research was the single strongest modifiable predictor of FHH confidence, with participants reporting genealogy research more than twice as likely to report high confidence compared to those who did not (OR = 2.07, 95% CI 1.72–2.50), a relationship that persisted after full adjustment for age, sex, race, income, and education. Despite comparable rates of genealogy engagement, Black and Hispanic respondents reported substantially lower FHH confidence than White respondents. These findings suggest that while interest in genealogy is already widespread and self-motivated in the population, current clinical tools for FHH collection are inadequate to leverage this interest equitably. Next-generation FHH tools should be designed to reflect the dynamic, collaborative features of genealogy platforms rather than static medical forms, and their development must be grounded in community-centered design principles that prioritize populations for whom incomplete family history poses an added burden. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Exploring Family Ancestral Histories Through Genetic Genealogy)

18 pages, 298 KB

Open AccessArticle

Between Pulpit and Hearth: A Genealogical Reading of Reformed Liturgy and Gendered Identities in African Ritual Life

by Ndidzulafhi Mudau

Genealogy 2026, 10(3), 75; https://doi.org/10.3390/genealogy10030075 - 25 Jun 2026

Abstract

This study analyses the Reformed liturgy as a site of ritual contestation that both shapes and facilitates the reconstruction and transformation of gender roles and identities in African contexts. Rooted in genealogical and decolonial scholarship, it examines how a ministry, long-reformed yet fundamentally [...] Read more.

This study analyses the Reformed liturgy as a site of ritual contestation that both shapes and facilitates the reconstruction and transformation of gender roles and identities in African contexts. Rooted in genealogical and decolonial scholarship, it examines how a ministry, long-reformed yet fundamentally integral to African-congregational communities, continues to express masculine forms of agency already present in reformed worship that influence perceptions of power, belonging, and identity. The emphasis is on Reformed communities in Southern Africa, where the arrangements of liturgical practices, preaching, eldership, sacramental administration, and life-cycle rites persist in grappling with a colonial past from an African epistemological perspective. This study examines the intersections of baptism, marriage, funerals, and ordination with customary rites such as lobola (bridewealth), initiation, and ancestor veneration, drawing on liturgical theology, ritual studies, and African gender scholarship to reveal both reproductive and resistant dynamics while simultaneously reshaping a new order within these practices. This article examines the ways in which worship facilitates continuity, rupture, and transformation within African gender identities, while seeking to situate Reformed liturgy within an African context of ritual ecologies rather than to contrast them. This approach may enhance decolonial discourse by illuminating contemporary discussions on liturgical studies and gender. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Exploring Gender Roles and Identities in African Rituals and Culture)

13 pages, 242 KB

Open AccessArticle

Bordered Imaginations: The Politics of Crafting and Reading Southern African Writers’ Literary Texts in Transnational Spaces

by Muchativugwa Liberty Hove

Genealogy 2026, 10(3), 74; https://doi.org/10.3390/genealogy10030074 - 25 Jun 2026

Abstract

Neither women’s studies nor lesbian and gay studies offers an adequate theoretical or political base for disruptive scholarship. Reading and interpreting Southern African writers, especially Sindiwe Magona and Ngugi wa Thiong’o, promotes women’s studies as an academic and political approach to both gender [...] Read more.

Neither women’s studies nor lesbian and gay studies offers an adequate theoretical or political base for disruptive scholarship. Reading and interpreting Southern African writers, especially Sindiwe Magona and Ngugi wa Thiong’o, promotes women’s studies as an academic and political approach to both gender and the erotic. Drawing on genealogies of rupture and intergenerational studies, we argue that the feminist is a positionality that must be widely available to challenge heterosexual perspectives and become a catalyst for audiences to engage in nuanced analyses of discourses on places and genres—narrative in particular—where memories are rearticulated and elaborated. This article explores how the narratives of Magona, Ngugi, and Soyinka inform and complicate the erasure, erosion, and amnesia that accompany contemporary imaginaries of what is re/membered. We challenge the tendency to evaluate African feminisms as only either oppressive or empowering and read the selected texts and their prototypical characters as dynamic embodiments that inform gendered spaces across both the attachments that people hold to particular gender identities and styles and recognising the punitive realities of dominant gender expectations. The article takes a positionality on the often troubled relationship between feminism and femininity, a critical but generous reading that highlights the potential for an affirmative orientation towards identity politics. This study utilises the theoretical lenses of border thinking and decolonial and African feminisms to interrogate matrifocal borderlands and the sociohistorical and cultural dis/continuities of being and becoming. We explore notions of the entanglement of motherhood, daughterhood, wifehood, and sisterhood as morphing identities. These are identities at the margins of political, sociocultural, and gender normativities in African literature. Magona’s “threshold people”, like Ngugi’s perfect nine, destabilise, disrupt, and refuse to be subordinated as they codify living differently in the in-between worlds. Magona, for instance, laminates the challenging discourse of contestation to map difficult, dangerous, and marginal spaces where women live at the borders of sociocultural, religious, ethnic, and gendered norms. These are spaces suffused with affective possibilities—defensiveness, shame, anxiety, anger, curiosity—and the women have to develop relational solidarities in negotiating hyper-visibilities or (in)visibilities within the 21st-century global south. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Qualitative Methods in Genealogical Research: New Approaches to Studying Intergenerational Memory)

17 pages, 321 KB

Open AccessArticle

Coming in to Whānau: Takatāpui and Irahuhua Relationships and Decolonisation

by Maia Berryman-Kamp

Genealogy 2026, 10(3), 73; https://doi.org/10.3390/genealogy10030073 - 24 Jun 2026

Abstract

Whānau (family) is a foundational unit of Māori social organisation, and the replacement of Māori family structures with Western nuclear models is widely regarded as among the most significant tools of colonisation. As Māori move toward decolonisation and re-Indigenisation, approaches to family and [...] Read more.

Whānau (family) is a foundational unit of Māori social organisation, and the replacement of Māori family structures with Western nuclear models is widely regarded as among the most significant tools of colonisation. As Māori move toward decolonisation and re-Indigenisation, approaches to family and identity are shifting from imported structures. However, takatāpui and irahuhua (LGBTQ+ and gender-diverse Māori) are rarely explicitly included in these movements. Contemporary framings of whānau within Māori discourse can inadvertently reiterate colonial talking points, particularly regarding binary gender roles, divisions of labour, and the boundaries of what constitutes whānau. Building on takatāpui scholarship and the findings from three separate wānanga (targeted collective conversations) across a 1.5-year period with 18 irahuhua participants, the article examines the contrasts and connections between “coming out” and “coming in” to tradition and whānau. These conversations revealed that when participants enact self-determination and “come in” to their whānau, they demonstrate pathways to strengthen and restore Māori understandings of whānau and challenge the role of historic inquiry in modern Māori politics. Grounded in one wānanga participant’s understanding that “family pressures that make you feel divided [are] just what the coloniser wanted,” this article explores how takatāpui and irahuhua strengthen their communities and demonstrate sovereignty in settler contexts. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Across Bodies and Roles: Indigenous Identity, Gender, Sexuality, and Resistance to Colonial Power)

14 pages, 251 KB

Open AccessArticle

Strategies for Heritage Language Maintenance: Mitigating Language Attrition Among Anaañ—English Bilinguals of Southern Nigeria

by Victoria Enefiok Etim and Jude Terkaa Tyoh

Genealogy 2026, 10(2), 72; https://doi.org/10.3390/genealogy10020072 - 19 Jun 2026

Abstract

Language embodies traditions, values, and collective identity, bridging gaps between generations and geographies. Maintaining consistent language policies at home and in communities remains challenging, with research showing that only a few families have explicit rules about language use and few enforce them regularly. [...] Read more.

Language embodies traditions, values, and collective identity, bridging gaps between generations and geographies. Maintaining consistent language policies at home and in communities remains challenging, with research showing that only a few families have explicit rules about language use and few enforce them regularly. The study explores strategies for heritage language maintenance (HLM) to mitigate language attrition among Anaañ bilinguals residing in the Akpabuyo and Calabar South Local Government Areas of Cross River State, Nigeria. The study draws on social identity theory, which links language use to identity, motivation, and group affiliation, thereby influencing language maintenance. Using a qualitative approach, data were collected through semi-structured interviews with 40 participants, selected purposively from Anaañ speakers in the study areas. Thematic analysis is employed to identify patterns and themes, revealing approaches for heritage language maintenance to curb language attrition. Findings reveal that despite some Anaañ speakers’ negative attitude towards their HL, others value it, keep it alive, and are ready to pass it to the future generations. This will preserve cultural identity and foster a sense of pride, belonging and shared values among Anaañ people, especially those residing in Southern Cross River State. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Language, Education, and Genealogy: Heritage Language Maintenance in Families, Communities, and Schools)

11 pages, 217 KB

Open AccessArticle

The Fate and Struggles of the Mexican Americans in the Age of Trump

by Kieran E. James and Sheikh A. Tanzil

Genealogy 2026, 10(2), 71; https://doi.org/10.3390/genealogy10020071 - 16 Jun 2026

Abstract

Although Marx’s industrial reserve army (IRAL) theory suggests that Mexican Americans should be acknowledged by the capitalist class and perhaps resented by the white working class and middle class who compete with them in the labor market, the ideology and discourse of Trump [...] Read more.

Although Marx’s industrial reserve army (IRAL) theory suggests that Mexican Americans should be acknowledged by the capitalist class and perhaps resented by the white working class and middle class who compete with them in the labor market, the ideology and discourse of Trump and his supporters has labelled them as an illegitimate foreign body which pollutes the racial and cultural purity of America. In fact, this discourse has overshadowed earlier discourses that pointed to their contributions to local economies. Even capitalist business owners and major shareholders may give their commitment to this newly reinvented, but actually very old, discourse even when it goes against earlier ideas and their own self-interests. If anything, the discursive pattern of vilifying Mexican-descended people ensures their persistence—in the mind of capitalists—as a potential IRAL. We connect our ideas to related sociological events such as the establishment of “whitopias” and the whitening of the gated communities. Full article

10 pages, 175 KB

Open AccessArticle

Living with Nuclear Bodies: The Spirituality of Fermentation

by Seoyoung Kim

Genealogy 2026, 10(2), 70; https://doi.org/10.3390/genealogy10020070 - 12 Jun 2026

Abstract

Nuclear contamination challenges assumptions that harm can be contained through technological control, political borders, or bodily separation. Across the Asia-Pacific, radioactive exposure moves unevenly through racialised, gendered, and colonial histories, rendering some bodies more vulnerable to ecological violence than others. Nuclear regimes continue [...] Read more.

Nuclear contamination challenges assumptions that harm can be contained through technological control, political borders, or bodily separation. Across the Asia-Pacific, radioactive exposure moves unevenly through racialised, gendered, and colonial histories, rendering some bodies more vulnerable to ecological violence than others. Nuclear regimes continue to depend upon theological logics of purity, sacrificial exclusion, and protected innocence. This article develops a spirituality of fermentation through Asian eco-feminist theology and the Korean practice of sakhim. Fermentation becomes a practice of sustaining wounded life through endurance, permeability, and communal care. From this spirituality of fermentation, I develop the concept of Vital Fluidity as an ethical and theological framework for understanding how life continues through shared vulnerability, where bodies, nourishment, and histories remain deeply entangled. The article contributes to intersectional debates in theology, religion, gender, and ecology by approaching contamination through relation rather than separation. Under nuclear conditions, ethical responsibility emerges through practices that hold grief, contamination, memory, and nourishment together within shared existence. Fermentation therefore becomes a practical theological model for living with nuclear bodies. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Sacred and the Secular: Race, Gender, and Religion in Historical Context)

16 pages, 353 KB

Open AccessArticle

The Sacred and the Secular in Race, Gender and Religion Since the 19th-Century Southern African Missionary and Colonial Epochs: A Decolonial Perspective

by Themba Shingange

Genealogy 2026, 10(2), 69; https://doi.org/10.3390/genealogy10020069 - 5 Jun 2026

Abstract

The conceptualisations of the “sacred” and the “secular” are shaped by diverse entities in different epochs and spaces of society. Again, these conceptualisations often exhibit power dynamics, epistemic privileges, and the classification of people using the notions of human and non-human zones. In [...] Read more.

The conceptualisations of the “sacred” and the “secular” are shaped by diverse entities in different epochs and spaces of society. Again, these conceptualisations often exhibit power dynamics, epistemic privileges, and the classification of people using the notions of human and non-human zones. In Africa, the historic intersectionality of the empire, mission, and conversion shaped, and continues to shape, the nuances of the sacred and secular in race, gender, and religion. Thus, this article used a desktop approach to analyse both the primary and secondary literature to explore the nuances of this phenomenon in this historic intersectionality and how its legacies continue to dominate the contemporary context. The preliminary findings showed that the historic missionary/colonial conceptualisations of the sacred and secular on race, gender, and religion remain the fulcrum of the contemporary narratives and their consequences. Thus, the article argues that decoloniality can serve as a lens in exploring this phenomenon and as an option to transform the current status quo. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Sacred and the Secular: Race, Gender, and Religion in Historical Context)

22 pages, 355 KB

Open AccessArticle

Decolonial African Agency and Same-Sex Relations: Beyond the Religious-Secular Divide

by Josias Tembo

Genealogy 2026, 10(2), 68; https://doi.org/10.3390/genealogy10020068 - 1 Jun 2026

Abstract

In this article, I show how discourses of African tradition, human rights, and African indigeneity circumscribe and curtail the emancipatory potential of discussions of same-sex relations in Africa. The terms of the debate on both sides—those who claim that same-sex relations are ‘un-African’ [...] Read more.

In this article, I show how discourses of African tradition, human rights, and African indigeneity circumscribe and curtail the emancipatory potential of discussions of same-sex relations in Africa. The terms of the debate on both sides—those who claim that same-sex relations are ‘un-African’ and the critics who rightly challenge this view—are circumscribed by what I call the religious-secular divide. This divide continues to entrap discussions of African humanity and agency within racial-colonial strictures of tradition/religion and secularity/modernity. Instead, by engaging with the work of Amilcar Cabral and Aimé Césaire, I develop a notion of decolonial or emancipatory African agency and a way of understanding African humanity as an alternative basis for engaging with the question of same-sex relations in Africa, African traditions, and African indigeneity, and with questions of African humanity and decolonial agency more generally. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Secularism and Race-Religion Entanglements)

8 pages, 182 KB

Open AccessArticle

White Skin, Black Masks: Blackface Minstrelsy

by Therese Smith

Genealogy 2026, 10(2), 67; https://doi.org/10.3390/genealogy10020067 - 31 May 2026

Abstract

In this article, I explore Blackface Minstrels as a burlesque representation of African Americans. Black minstrelsy was an American nineteenth-century entertainment sensation that was subsequently exported to Europe and sustained there. While it would be impossible in this article to give an overview [...] Read more.

In this article, I explore Blackface Minstrels as a burlesque representation of African Americans. Black minstrelsy was an American nineteenth-century entertainment sensation that was subsequently exported to Europe and sustained there. While it would be impossible in this article to give an overview of the history of blackface minstrelsy, it is necessary to first tease out some of the characteristics of the genre, at particular historical moments, in order to reach an understanding of the genre’s popularity, how it sat in its social (and primarily race-sculpted) landscape, and examine some of the inherent contradictions therein. I scrutinise in particular blackface minstrelsy’s reception by Irish audiences, probing the politics of representation therein involved. To this end, I also investigate issues of social and cultural visibility in an Irish landscape that was remarkably homogeneous racially until at least the 1990s. As two core documents in this regard, I firstly examine the BBC’s ‘Black and White Minstrel Show’, created by George Inns in 1958, which ran from 1958 to 1978, in black and white, ironically, until 1967, and thereafter in colour. The second document that I examine is the very successful Irish Lyons Tea Company’s advertisement from the 1980s, which featured stick-figure black-and-white minstrels in stereotypical makeup and ‘standard minstrel Kentucky dress’ singing and dancing to a simple but memorable jingo. Full article

32 pages, 7227 KB

Open AccessArticle

Patrilineal Genetic Ancestry of Moroccan Jews

by Raquel Levy-Toledano, Wim Penninx, Michael Waas, Goran Runfeldt, Michael Sager, Paul Maier and Adam Brown

Genealogy 2026, 10(2), 66; https://doi.org/10.3390/genealogy10020066 - 31 May 2026

Abstract

This Y-chromosome study of Moroccan Jews, the largest conducted to date, analyzes the patrilineal origins of 288 men of genealogically verified Moroccan Jewish descent through the Avotaynu DNA Project, identifying 111 distinct founder lineages. The long-standing hypothesis of large-scale Berber Judaization has not [...] Read more.

This Y-chromosome study of Moroccan Jews, the largest conducted to date, analyzes the patrilineal origins of 288 men of genealogically verified Moroccan Jewish descent through the Avotaynu DNA Project, identifying 111 distinct founder lineages. The long-standing hypothesis of large-scale Berber Judaization has not previously been tested at full Y-chromosome resolution; our findings provide the first systematic evidence against it. Approximately 71% of founder lineages and 80% of individuals trace to haplogroups common in the Middle East. Only 4.5% of founder lineages are of autochthonous North African origin. Iberian-origin lineages account for 11% of Moroccan Jewish founder lineages reflecting sustained demographic and cultural exchange between Morocco and the Iberian Peninsula over many centuries. Split dates between Moroccan and Ashkenazi or Sephardic subclades cluster between the 5th and 8th centuries CE, suggesting that the ancestral lineages of contemporary Moroccan Jews were already present across the Mediterranean basin during late Antiquity and the early medieval period. Analysis of 190 distinct Moroccan Jewish surname roots identifies 29 polygenic and 30 monogenic surnames, and demonstrates that the linguistic origin of a surname, including surnames of Maghrebi morphology, does not necessarily reflect its bearer’s Y-chromosome ancestry. Unlike Ashkenazi Jews, Moroccan Jews show no evidence of a founder effect or genetic bottleneck, and display a remarkable patrilineal diversity. Among the individual lineages documented here are the first paleogenetic link between a contemporary Moroccan Jewish patriline and a victim of the 1348 Tàrrega pogrom, an Iberian/Ashkenazi split traceable to tenth-century al-Andalus, and an unexpected connection between a predominantly Moroccan Jewish lineage and the Saint Thomas Syrian Christian community of Kerala. Moroccan Jewish patrilineal heritage is overwhelmingly Middle Eastern in origin and has been preserved with remarkable continuity across two millennia of diaspora, persecution, and migration. Full article

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14 pages, 237 KB

Open AccessArticle

Negotiating Women’s Ritual Authority and Identity in Contemporary Mourning Practices Among the Tsonga: A Decolonial and Genealogical Perspective

by Motadi Masa Sylvester

Genealogy 2026, 10(2), 65; https://doi.org/10.3390/genealogy10020065 - 29 May 2026

Abstract

This article examines how women’s ritual authority and identity are negotiated in contemporary mourning practices among the Tsonga. Although African scholarship has increasingly addressed gender, widowhood, and ritual life, limited attention has been paid to mourning as a gendered space in which women’s [...] Read more.

This article examines how women’s ritual authority and identity are negotiated in contemporary mourning practices among the Tsonga. Although African scholarship has increasingly addressed gender, widowhood, and ritual life, limited attention has been paid to mourning as a gendered space in which women’s authority is simultaneously exercised, regulated, and contested. The article addresses this gap by analysing mourning not as a static cultural residue, but as a dynamic ritual field shaped by kinship, seniority, obligation, memory, and social change. Methodologically, the study adopts a qualitative document analysis of recent scholarly literature, ethnographic studies, and theoretically relevant texts on Tsonga mourning, African ritual practice, kinship, and gender. The analysis is guided by a decolonial perspective, which recentres African epistemologies and lived ritual meanings, and a genealogical perspective, which traces how authority, identity, and obligation are transmitted and reworked across generations. The article argues that Tsonga mourning practices position women as custodians of ritual continuity while also subjecting them to moral discipline and social regulation. Its contribution lies in bringing together African gender studies, ritual studies, genealogy, and decolonial scholarship to show how mourning remains a vital site for the ongoing negotiation of gender, belonging, and cultural authority. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Exploring Gender Roles and Identities in African Rituals and Culture)

15 pages, 241 KB

Open AccessArticle

Plurality of the Secular: Uncovering African Forms of Secularity

by Donald Mark C. Ude

Genealogy 2026, 10(2), 64; https://doi.org/10.3390/genealogy10020064 - 29 May 2026

Abstract

The article argues that existing conceptualizations of secularity ought to be expanded to embrace a plurality of practices and forms of life within African societies. In other words, secularity must be understood as a plurality of historically situated forms of life rather than [...] Read more.

The article argues that existing conceptualizations of secularity ought to be expanded to embrace a plurality of practices and forms of life within African societies. In other words, secularity must be understood as a plurality of historically situated forms of life rather than a single Western conceptual template. Two interconnected objectives define the article. The first is to show shows how the concepts of “deprivatization,” “conditions of belief,” and “postsecularity,” drawn from José Casanova, Charles Taylor, and Jürgen Habermas respectively, may contribute to a pluralistic conception of secularity. The second is to furnish concrete instances of secular forms of life in African societies by exploring the Igbo socio-religious world, underlining its secularity. In foregrounding African forms of secularity, the article not only challenges Western hegemonic appropriation of the secular category and its implicit race-religion nexus, but also contributes to ongoing efforts to rethink, ‘decolonize,’ and deracialize secularity as a global category of social analysis. Ultimately, the future of secularity lies in ongoing, decentered contestations and conversations across multiple worlds. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Secularism and Race-Religion Entanglements)

18 pages, 290 KB

Open AccessArticle

This Dangerous Bone Cannot Be Swallowed: Ethnopragmatic Significance of Religiously Based Personal Names Among Agwagune People

by God’sgift Ogban Uwen, Itang Egbung, Stephen Magor Ellah and Josephat Adoga Odey

Genealogy 2026, 10(2), 63; https://doi.org/10.3390/genealogy10020063 - 26 May 2026

Abstract

This article examines the ethnopragmatic significance of religiously based personal names among the Agwagune people of Biase in Cross River State, Nigeria. Insights from a socio-onomastic framework are used to account for the situational, socioreligious and sociocultural contexts of Agwagune naming practices that [...] Read more.

This article examines the ethnopragmatic significance of religiously based personal names among the Agwagune people of Biase in Cross River State, Nigeria. Insights from a socio-onomastic framework are used to account for the situational, socioreligious and sociocultural contexts of Agwagune naming practices that reinforce the people’s belief systems and worldview. Using participant observation and semi-structured interviews, data were generated during a nine-month fieldwork session involving 30 participants who were knowledgeable in the traditional religious socio-onomastic tradition. Our findings show that Agwagune people draw from their symbolic linguistic resources to bestow personal names that become messaging instruments that express traditional religious affiliations, sociocultural practices and indigenous belief systems. The personal names bear ethnopragmatic relevance that manifests in the veneration of deities and traditional worship; significations in rituals and religious festivals; mysteries of death, reincarnation and commemoration; traditional familial hierarchies; and the sociocultural connection between the people and their physical and spiritual universe. Aside from contributing to the global discourses on socio-onomastics from the perspectives of a micro-minority ethnolinguistic group, the study is also relevant because it serves as documentary material for an endangered and transitioning socio-onomastic practice that characterizes the people’s cosmology, belief systems and lived experiences that are gradually being replaced by Christian orientations. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Names as Heritage: Tracing Family and Community Identity Through Naming)

14 pages, 265 KB

Open AccessArticle

Islam, Modernity, and the ‘Problem-Case’ of Religion

by Nasar Meer

Genealogy 2026, 10(2), 62; https://doi.org/10.3390/genealogy10020062 - 26 May 2026

Abstract

This article examines how social science has recurrently positioned Islam as a problem-case for European narratives of modernity, simultaneously comparable as ‘a religion’ yet cast as the religion that ‘doesn’t fit’ secularisation, differentiation, and liberal public-reason expectations. Moving beyond the view that social [...] Read more.

This article examines how social science has recurrently positioned Islam as a problem-case for European narratives of modernity, simultaneously comparable as ‘a religion’ yet cast as the religion that ‘doesn’t fit’ secularisation, differentiation, and liberal public-reason expectations. Moving beyond the view that social science merely misdescribed Islam, this article argues that Islam has often been made to carry an explanatory burden internal to Europe’s self-narration, a limit-case through which stalled secularisation, anxious liberalism, and contested universals are rendered intelligible and governable. The article returns to canonical texts that helped establish such comparative imagination, including Hegel’s philosophy of history, Weber’s typologies of religious ‘bearers,’ and Gellner’s account of Islam as a comprehensive ‘blueprint’ of social order, to show how durable contrast effects were installed and later reactivated in contemporary debates on secularism, gender, security, and belonging. Drawing on Asad’s critique of the category ‘religion’, the article theorises ‘disruption’ as a recurring genre through which Islam is made exceptional, disruptive to secularisation theory, to accounts of modern differentiation, and to liberal self-understanding. It concludes by appealing to a reflexive sociology of religion that historicises its own categories, compares entanglements rather than civilisations, and treats Muslim intellectual traditions as theory-producing interlocutors rather than merely empirical ‘data’. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Secularism and Race-Religion Entanglements)

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