Mapping Yorùbá Networks

“A tour de force indeed, Mapping Yoruba Networks is an impressive intellectual yield worth of its decade-long scholarly investment.”
- Pamela J. Olubunmi Smith , Journal of African American History

“Clarke has succeeded in creating a narrative in which the cultural politics of blackness has merged with the notion of citizenship and the quest to resolve the dilemma of globalization and its cultural implications.” - Matthews A. Ojo , Journal of Contemporary Religion

"[A] major contribution to the growing body of scholarly literature on transnational theories of revivalist movements. . . . Clarke set out with an ambitious agenda to map Yorubá networks, and she has delivered a convincing and revealing presentation. This book is destined to become a major reference work." - William L. Smith , Utopian Studies

"[E]xtraordinary. . . . [O]ne of the most innovative studies of the African Diaspora to date." - Elisha P. Renne , Journal of Colonialism & Colonial History

"[F]ascinating. . . . Mapping Yoruba Networks offers insights about the transnational African diaspora and the construction of self-conscious identities and communities in relation to it. The narrative sections, in which Clarke describes interactions with and among Oyotunji members, are rich and rewarding. . . ." - Lisa A. Lindsay, International Journal of African Historical Studies

"[I]mportant, innovative. . . . [Clarke's] detailed descriptions of New World Yoruba ritual are engagingly written, accurate, and accessible. . . . Recommended. . . ." - S. D. Glazier, Choice

"[T]he author's style of presentation is very lucid and systematic, and the glossary is both enlightened and enlightening. . . . [T]his work is a historic tour de force in ethnography and will doubtless serve as a point of departure for similar studies in the future." - Amidu Olalekan Sanni, Modern African Studies

"Clarke exemplifies the best of 21st century anthropology as she offers an insider's sympathy without romanticism, step-back objectivity without arrogance. . . . [T]he book should . . . inspire those wrestling with the dynamics of cultural production anywhere in the world." - Allen F. Robert, American Ethnologist

"Clarke has produced a masterpiece about an intercontinental network of religious beliefs and practices. . . . [E]xcellent. . . . Mapping Yoruba Networks is a useful book for studying African religions in diaspora. . . . [E]nlightening and educative. It is indeed a pleasant book to read." - Julius Adekunle, Africa Today

"This is a solid book, with much to be emulated for its objectives, methodology, passion, and sound conclusions. . . . [T]his book will endure as a major work of scholarship, to be read as part of the emerging field of comparative cultural studies and the creation of new identities in the modern world."
- Toyin Falola , Research in African Literatures

“In her pioneering analysis of the formation of a new religious nationalist movement, Kamari Maxine Clarke shows in fascinating detail how the Òyótúnjí community refashioned Yorùbá religion to suit its notion of racial identity.” - Jacob Olupona, editor of African Spirituality: Forms, Meanings, and Expressions

“In this highly original analysis, Kamari Maxine Clarke shows how the apparent stability of ‘tradition’ at different moments in time has been the product of processes of innovation made both necessary and possible during particular phases of economic limitation and religious and political oppression in the long historical stream of ‘black transatlantic’ cultural production.” - Brackette F. Williams, author of Stains on My Name, War in My Veins: Guyana and the Politics of Cultural Struggle