African Biblical Interpretation as Participatory Community-Based Development: The Praxis of the Ujamaa Centre

Resumo

The Ujamaa Centre engages in community-based participatory biblical interpretation, offering ideo-theological resources for participatory community-based transformation. Faith is often a vital component of African identity and community. Yet the Bible, biblical interpretation, and African Christianities are frequently used by churches, government, and the private sector to constrain participatory community- based change. These institutional sites control ‘development’ initiatives and practices, offering only invited space to poor and marginalised communities. The Contextual Bible Study (CBS) praxis of the Ujamaa Centre re-reads the Bible with organized formations of the poor and marginalised, offering invigorated space within which to reconceptualize both the Bible and participatory community-based development. Through this invigorated space, local organized groups forge forms of interpretive resilience and interpretive resistance, generating resources with which to contend within invited development space. This process invigorates that space and creates the potential for participatory community-based development within invented space. Our essay reflects on the relationship between community-based participatory biblical interpretation and participatory community-based development, drawing on more than thirty-five years of the Ujamaa Centre’s praxis.