On 2 July 2026, Adam Rodgers Johns, doctoral student in Anthropology at SOAS London, will present his work on the Yorùbá-led religious spaces in south-east London in our next methodological seminar. The borough of Southwark in south London reportedly contains the highest concentration of African Christians anywhere in the world outside of Africa. The Nigerian diaspora is the largest migrant diaspora in south-east London and the most common ethnicity of Nigerians in London is Yoruba. Areas of south-east London such as Peckham and Woolwich, which have large numbers of Yoruba-led religious spaces, have seen a rise in popularity leading to urban regeneration and gentrification. This project maps the impact of these changes on Yoruba-led religious spaces in south-east London, i.e., churches and mosques with a majority Yoruba-language speaking congregation. Religion is a suitable lens to explore Yoruba diasporic place-making as it plays a key role in people’s daily lives. Existing scholarship suggests that gentrification leads to ethnic displacement, as gentrifiers tend to be whiter than the communities that are being gentrified. Therefore, this research adopts an interdisciplinary approach, combining insights from anthropology, religious studies, migration studies, urban studies and African studies to better understand the impact of gentrification on the Yoruba-led religious spaces.
The seminar offers three case studies showing how specific Yoruba-led religious spaces negotiate urban change in relation to the local council, community activists and residents. In doing so, it sheds light on questions of the visibility/invisibility and the displacement/reterritorialisation of African religious spaces in the London diaspora. The focus will be on two regional headquarters of the Christ Apostolic Church (CAC) and one branch of the Cherubim and Seraphim (C&S) Church, and will be followed by a discussion of the ‘revival’ of these ‘Aladura’ churches in the south-east London Yoruba diaspora.
Practical information:
Date and time: 2 July 2026, 10am to 12pm
Location: IFRA-Nigeria Resource Centre, Institute of African Studies, University of Ibadan*
Application link (deadline 26 June 2026): https://forms.gle/WnxacZzNsop8CFkX7
Bibliography:
Adam Rodgers Johns is currently studying part-time for a PhD in Anthropology (ESRC-supported) at SOAS London, after undergraduate and postgraduate degrees in Social Anthropology and African Studies in the same school. He is also a Senior Sector in Swahili at SOAS in the School of Languages, Cultures and Linguistics.