Contact: frederick.madore(at)zmo.de
Personal Website: https://frederickmadore.com/
Dr. Frédérick Madore is the REMOBOKO Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient (ZMO) in Berlin. He was previously a Banting Postdoctoral Fellow at the Center for African Studies at the University of Florida, and a Part-Time Professor at the University of Ottawa. He completed his Ph.D. in History at the Université Laval (Canada) with distinction in 2018. His research has explored Islam and Muslim societies in Côte d’Ivoire, Burkina Faso, Benin, and Togo, focusing on Islamic activism among youth and women, their appropriation of (new) media, and Muslim politics.
His current research project is entitled “Religious Activism on Campuses in Togo and Benin.”
Selected Publications
Religious Activism on Campuses in Togo and Benin: Christian and Muslim Students Navigating Authoritarianism and Laïcité, 1970–2023. Berlin: De Gruyter, forthcoming.
The interplay between religion and student activism at the universities of Abomey-Calavi (Benin) and Lomé (Togo) has often been overlooked, although faith-based organisations and student unions have coexisted since the 1970s. Based on interviews with different generations of activists, this book uncovers the neglected history of Christian and Muslim student associations on these campuses, originally strongholds of leftist and secular ideologies. It analyses the emergence of these groups under a Marxist-Leninist regime in Benin and a one-party dictatorship in Togo, and explores the implications of growing religiosity for these public universities as secular institutions.
The history of these associations reveals the campus as a microcosm reflecting wider national socio-political life, while also highlighting the importance of translocal factors in shaping the internal dynamics of these groups. Amidst the massification of university enrolments and rising graduate unemployment, faith-based associations have come to provide more than religious guidance. Increasingly, they offer a “social curriculum”, providing a space for socialisation and a set of skills, norms and moral values that complement the secular academic curriculum.
Sounaye, A. and F. Madore (eds.), Religiosity on University Campuses in Africa: Trends and Experiences. Berlin: LIT Verlag, 2023.
This volume examines religiosity on university campuses in Sub-Saharan Africa. Focusing on both individuals and organized groups, the contributions open a window onto how religion becomes a factor, affects social interactions, is experienced and mobilized by various actors. It brings together case studies from various disciplinary backgrounds (anthropology, sociology, history, religious studies, literature) and theoretical orientations to illustrate the significance of religiosity in recent developments on university campuses. It pays a particular attention to religion-informed activism and contributes a fresh analysis of processes that are shaping both the experience of being student and the university campus as a moral space. Last but not least, it sheds light onto the ways in which the campus becomes a site of a reformulation of both religiosity and sociality.