Talk:African traditionalist

RFD

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African traditionalist

Not convinced this isn't SOP. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 05:46, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

• Keep It's not "African" + "traditionalist", it's "African traditional [religion]" + "-ist". It's no more SOP than fifth columnist or social scientist. "African traditional religion" is probably something we should have an entry for as well - it's generally treated as a specific religion, rather than simply an umbrella term all traditional African beliefs (see e.g. 1, 2, 3, 4), and it never refers to the Abrahamic religions, even though each has a very long history on the continent. Smurrayinchester (talk) 08:53, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

But does it only apply to religion. Shouldn't the entry be African traditional religion as you suggest. Traditionalist can apply to a lot of different things. --Dmol (talk) 09:05, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

A follower of African traditional religion is an African traditionalist. (1, 2, 3). You could have traditionalists who are African, just as you could have scientists who are social ("I went to a party at CERN last night, and I've never seen so many social scientists!") or even columnists who are fifth ("When I read the newspaper this morning, the first four columnists were interesting, but the fifth columnist was really boring."), but that doesn't make African traditionalist a less valid collocation. Smurrayinchester (talk) 09:38, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

Delete this for the same reasons as Talk:traditional African religionist and Native American religionist. Many uses refer to those who adhere to African traditions in general, not just African religious traditions, and several uses specifically include those who have fused elements of African traditions with European-derived traditions; for example, David Kaulemu's The Struggles After the Struggle says: "to be a contemporary African traditionalist is in some sense to accept the modernist interpretation of African tradition [...and] what have often been paraded as 'African traditions' were actually created by colonial masters". Furthermore, even if the term were used only to denote what the definition claims, "adherents of an African traditional religion", I think it would still be SOP because "African tradition" / "African traditional religion" are themselves SOP — there is no single referent for them to have, since most of the various unrelated, unacquainted or mutually-hostile peoples that inhabit Africa have or had their own independent, unrelated, unacquainted and/or mutually exclusive or hostile belief systems. - -sche (discuss) 10:01, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

Keep, it appears to have a very fixed meaning and is used commonly (often from a Christian perspective it seems), with much written about the group. It seems to usually be used in terms which treat it similarly to a religion, or at least contrasted religions from outside of Africa. Whether it is particularly meaningful to describe the many independent belief systems as a single grouping is not relevant for whether it should have a dictionary definition. Various books: "South Africa had significant Hindu, Muslim, Christian, and African Traditionalist populations", "A Christian or Hindu or an African traditionalist could be called upon to show how each party had regulated the incidents of the marriage", "The civil war motivating force is the determination to Islamize and Arabize Sudan whose majority is African traditionalist or Christian". Sometimes it is used in more SOP ways too, but it definitely has definitions which are not. "traditional African religionist" and "Native American religionist", by contrast, are hardly ever found in books and are fairly considered SOP. Pengo (talk) 04:37, 22 February 2015 (UTC)

Kept. bd2412 T 13:29, 10 March 2015 (UTC)