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• School of Social and Political Studies

Centre of African Studies

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 Education

• Laurea in Scienze Politiche, University of Bologna
• Master of Science, Centre of African Studies, School of Social and Political Studies, The University of Edinburgh
• PhD, Centre of African Studies, The University of Edinburgh

Research Interests

I have been working in South Africa since 1999 undertaking research on religious organisations and Faith-based Organisations (FBOs). My research focuses on the dialectic relationship between faith organisations, their activities and socio-political action; the production of knowledge around faith, development and the relationship between civil society, society and politics; and the broader scale dynamics of political transformation taking place in South Africa after the end of Apartheid. I have also been involved in a research project looking at the role of Christian churches in Kenya and their role in promoting biotechnology and development. I am currently teaching and working on a new project that analyses the role of FBOs in South Africa to support non-citizens during the xenophobic attacks in Spring 2008 and the Churches' critical voice of State intervention.

I am interested in supervising PhD theses that focus on: African civil society, NGOs and FBOs, Religion and Politics, Religion and Development, bottom-up development, South African politics. 

Teaching

I am the course convenor of the MSc option 'Development Research Methods' that runs in semester two, and the course convener of  the MSc option 'Religion and Global Society' that runs in semester two. In addition I contribute to the MSc core course 'Politics and Theories of International Development' with lectures on Right Based Approaches, Civil Society and Faith-based Organisations.

The first course is a masters option that investigates methodological approaches to the theorisation and practice of development. This course considers the ways in which methodologies and engagement with communities and populations may refract back and alter relationships between researcher and researched, and within researched communities themselves. Finally the course provides training in key methodological approaches themselves, partly to equip students for their dissertations and in part to equip them for careers in development and development organisations.

The second course offers an understanding of the place of religion in the modern world which takes into account appropriate historical, political and theoretical perspectives. Empirical material and case studies are drawn from different faith traditions and from different parts of the world.

Global Development Academy

In 2010 I have helped to launch the Global Development Academy and I am currently one of  the co-deputy directors of this network.

The Global Development Academy brings together the University’s international legacy of researching and teaching excellence across its three colleges of Humanities and Social Sciences, Medicine and Veterinary Medicine, Science and Engineering. The Academy provides support and a place where students, staff and the broader community involved in development, meet and engage together. For more information click here

Religion & Society Edinburgh Network

In Summer 2010 with other co-ordinators I contributed to the launch of RASEN, the University of Edinburgh's Religion & Society Edinburgh Network. See our blog here

 

Publications

Bompani B. (2011) "South African Constitution and the making of a ‘new’ civil society" in Diritto Pubblico Comparato ed Europeo, vol. 4 (forthcoming)

Bompani B. (2011) ‘It is not a shelter, it is a church!’ Religious organisations, the public sphere and xenophobia in South Africa' (chapt. 8) in Hopkins P., Kong L. and Olson E. (eds) Religion and place: landscape, politics and piety, Springer, New York

Bompani B. and Frahm-Arp M. (2010), Development and Politics from Below, Exploring Religious Spaces in the African State, Palgrave-MacMillan, London (2010)

Bompani B. and Frahm-Arp M. (2010), "Development and Politics from Below: New  Conceptual Interpretations" in Bompani and Frahm-Arp (eds), Development and Politics from Below, Exploring Religious Spaces in the African State, Palgrave-MacMillan, London

Bompani B. and Frahm-Arp M. (2010), "Reflection on Modernisation without Secularisation" in Bompani and Frahm-Arp (eds), Development and Politics from Below, Exploring Religious Spaces in the African State, Palgrave-MacMillan, London

Bompani B. (2010)  Religion and Development from Below: Independent Christianity in South Africa in Journal of Religion in Africa, vol. 40, n.3 

Bompani B. (2008) African Independent Churches in Post-Apartheid South Africa: New Political Interpretations, in Journal of Southern African Studies, vol. 34, n.3

Bompani, B. (2006) Mandela Mania: Mainline Christianity in Post-Apartheid South Africa, in Third World Quarterly, vol. 27, No. 6.

Bompani B. (2002), Pluralismo religioso in Sudafrica: I diversi volti della minoranza musulmana in epoca post-colianale, in Afriche e Orienti. Rivista ai confini tra Africa Mediterraneo e Medio Oriente, vol 1. (Translation: Religious pluralism in South Africa: the different faces of the Muslim minority in the post-colonial era)
 
Bompani B. (2001), AIDS in Africa: il ruolo delle chiese nella lotta al virus,  in  Afriche e Orienti. Rivista ai confini tra Africa Mediterraneo e Medio Oriente, vol 1. Translation: AIDS in Africa: the role of churches in fighting the virus

Bompani B. (2000), Percorso Bibliografico. La CristianitÀ in Sudafrica, in Afriche e Orienti. Rivista ai confini tra Africa Mediterraneo e Medio Oriente, vol 4. Translation: Christianity in South Africa: a literature review