Reinventing Religions : Syncretism and Transformation in Africa and the Americas

Once a central concept in anthropology, syncretism has recently re-emerged as a valuable tool for understanding the complex dynamics of ethnicity, postcolonialism, and transnationalism.

Building on a century-long tradition of scholarship, this important book formulates a broader view of the mixing and interpenetration of religious beliefs and practices, primarily from Africa and Europe, highlighting the ways in which religions and cultures on both sides of the Atlantic have been assimilated and innovatively changed.

Sidney M. Greenfield is Professor of Anthropology at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Andr- Droogers is Professor of the anthropology of religion at the Free University, Amsterdam.