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The purpose of this paper is to examine ethnic entrepreneurship within the contexts of religion, cultural hybridity, segregation, diasporic network and enterprise.

The study collected two sets of data from 15 black African respondents/entrepreneurs through face-to-face interviews in London, UK.

Findings point to immigrants’ entrepreneurial adaptation through traditional and dogmatic interpretations of religious beliefs in the informal sector.

The paper offers fresh insights into the religion/faith and socio-cultural meld in the sagacity of black African entrepreneurship. Such insights afford great opportunities to construct new sites of meaning or frame new explanations of entrepreneurship among the ethnic group – using religion and culture as important environmental munificence.

This study examines the cultural history of the Api-Opi deity in Opi, Nsukka, Enugu State of Nigeria. The study sets out to examine the re-emergence of youthful worshippers of Api-Opi, despite the penetration of Christianity in the area.

The study employed ethnographic observation and field visits to the shrine of Api-Opi in Opi community of Enugu State, Nigeria. In addition, this study uncovers new information drawn from semi-structured interview questions undertaken in the study area between March and October of 2019.

Against certain claims on the impact of Christianity on Africa's traditional religions, the study found that the Api-Opi deity has withstood these post-colonial changes, growing its followership, particularly amongst the youths. It demonstrated the resilience of Igbo Traditional Worship System even in the midst of culture clash and religious iconoclasm advanced by Christianity in Igboland, Nigeria.

Evidence from this study helps debunk the notions of Eurocentric scholars who say African traditional religions are fetish, barbaric or primitive. It also shows how indigenous communities have protected and preserved their religious heritage despite the wave of modernization and other eternal influences. The study contributes to the increasing conversations about the role of traditional religion in the cultural resilience/revitalization of indigenous communities.

Indigenous health care models have continued to play significant roles in the development and sustenance of livelihoods in African communities. Such models are used not only to provide affordable community health care services but also as an employment resource for traditional practitioners within African communities. Yet, for lack of documentation and lack of discussion in the management and Indigenous Knowledge System literature, the models are hardly incorporated into the official health care services of African countries. This chapter addresses this problem by documenting the benefits and merits of the entrepreneurial principles embedded in the Tsonga traditional health care practice. First, it highlights how the unique indigenous traditional model is used for administering health care in a selected Tsonga-speaking community in South Africa. Second, it analyses the entrepreneurial principles embedded in the model. Finally, it discusses how such principles have been used as tools for entrepreneurship and enhancing the economic upkeep of the traditional health care practitioners (THPs). The chapter's main argument is that even though the Tsonga traditional health care practice model is complex, mystical, and in most cases challenging to explain to a non-native, it presents a great entrepreneurial opportunity for South Africa.

The main objective of this research is to interrogate the cultural and historical significance of deities in Igbo land, using the Ogwugwu Mmiri deity in Okija as a case study. The study presents evidence that the Ogwugwu Mmiri in Okija has helped preserve the Igbo cultural heritage and traditional values, norms and precepts, which counters the narrative that Christianity undermined these aspects of Igbo society in the past.

The research on the Ogwugwu Mmiri deity in Okija centered its discussion on the Okija community in the present-day Anambra State, Southeastern Nigeria. The research relied on qualitative methodology through the participant observation method. Primary and secondary sources of data were used to interpret the study area. The researchers visited the research site and maintained the Covid-19 protocol during the interview sessions.

The study reveals that Africans practiced religion prior to the arrival of missionaries and challenges the prevailing notion that colonial religions erased the indigenous beliefs of the Igbo people. By examining the worship of the Ogwugwu Mmiri deity, the research observes that the community has embraced a dual religious system, where both Christian and traditional worshipers revere the deity. However, the study concludes that the deity's existence in Okija was not impacted by the government's invasion in 2004.

The traditions, beliefs, customs and norms of a society reflect past events and guide daily interactions with the environment. This is exemplified by the historical discourse surrounding the Ogwugwu Mmiri deity in the Okija community, where the deity's activities align with Christian beliefs and norms. The research demonstrates how young people and indigenous inhabitants protect and preserve their cultural heritage and traditions from external influences.

The rites and practices of folk religion in Nigeria cut across virtually all conventional and emerging social institutions in the country. The inability of the State to perform many of its functions has encouraged this trend, with many turning to folk religion and associated practices in attempts to control uncertain situations. Unemployed/underemployed young gamblers have begun to incorporate and normalise the combination of spiritual elements with sports betting activities in a bid to translate games of uncertainty into games of certainty. This study attempts to conceptualise how and why young people adopt, practice and make sense of folk religion in relation to sports betting.

Semi-structured, in-depth interviews were used to interrogate and analyse the lived experiences of key actors living in the capital city of Ilorin, Kwara State, a place renowned for the widespread practice of folk religious rites: 20 unemployed/underemployed young sports bettors and 10 folk doctors. Collected data were transcribed manually and subjected to inductive content analysis, using grounded theory. The combination of folk religion with sports betting is fast becoming normalised as young Nigerians seek to survive harsh economic conditions. Adoption is also linked with belief in traditions, in-group conflicts, gambling adverts, lack of luck and greed. Folk religious practices combine elements from the natural and spiritual worlds. This study formulates concepts for understanding the complexity of such practices concerning gambling among young sports bettors in Nigeria.

This paper aims to explore John Mbiti’s concept of African time in line with the studies on the crisis of the post-independence African state. Then, how this concept offers new analytical spaces for understanding the modern nation-states inconveniences in African contexts.

The paper analyses the Mbitian African concept of time in light of the works on post-independence African state and communalism.

By using the Mbitian concept of time politically after explaining African communalism and African concepts of personhood and destiny, the paper reached a conclusion. This conclusion claims that due to the highly existential nature of the African concept of destiny and the past-oriented feature of the African concept of time, Africans cannot be restrained by any supernatural claim or any futuristic promises that are irrelevant to their context and cut from the communal values of ancestral past. Africans do not think supernaturally or bet for the future. However, those futuristic and supernatural claims that cannot restrain the African subjectivity – ironically – characterize the modern nation state with its “progress orientation” and “social-contract” metaphysics. Unfortunately, this radical difference in perceptions between the past-oriented African temporality and the future-oriented modern state temporality rendered the post-independence. African state dysfunctional and unable to operate as a medium for authority. This, consequently, opened the door for informal conflict and strife.

The paper is novel with regard to offering a new theory on the conceptual problems of the nation state in African contexts.

This chapter explores the role of indigenous knowledge system (IKS) in the development of informal entrepreneurial models in Africa. This was undertaken through a discussion of the production processes and the marketing platforms used in producing and distributing mpesu (a traditional medicine used for sex enhancement and reproductive healthcare) by Traditional Healthcare Practitioners (THPs) in the Vhembe District of South Africa, and Beitbridge areas of Zimbabwe. The argument is that drawing on Vhavenda IKS-based strategies, entrepreneurs involved in the healthcare product have managed to develop context-appropriate and innovative strategies for marketing mpesu. However, while this model may appear unorthodox, it has helped sustain the appetite and demand for the product. It has also, despite its imperfections, provided economic safety-net for local entrepreneurs.

This study aims to intend to examine how African Pentecostals use the structure of their religion to re-enact their entrepreneurial ideals and uniqueness and develop enterprising attitude and altitude. Also to appraise how they manipulate their ethnic cultural assets and faith-based networks to stimulate and maintain their entrepreneurial activities.

A case study of a specific religious organisation was exploited whereby a few number of adherents from a particular ethnic church in the UK were interviewed. The theoretical framework of Mead’s symbolic interaction was explored to accomplish the study’s objectives.

Findings demonstrate the ability of an ethnic minority group to adjust to a secondary range of social conditions in the country of residence through adoption of a theology that tracks the contours of their culture.

This paper emphasises the significance of material expressions of spiritual agency that acts as instrument of establishing the active, progressing self of ethnic minority group in the country of residence, thus, illuminating the interconnections between religion and enterprise. Such understandings present great prospects to fabricate new sites of meaning among a particular minority group through understanding various contradictions embedded in their religious practices.

The study stresses the significance of material expressions of spiritual agency that acts as avenue for disadvantaged group to engage in entrepreneurial activities. The Pentecostal enclave thus helps immigrants to keep body and soul together in an environment that is embedded with ethnic penalties.

The African Pentecostal movement serves, not only as instrument of converting others, but its Prosperity gospel emphasis the significance of material expression of spiritual agency. This acts as a means of establishing the active, progressing self, with capacity to produce law-abiding citizenry among ethnic groups.

The study illuminates the interconnections between religion and enterprise that offer great opportunities to fabricate new sites of meaning among a particular minority group through understanding various contradictions embedded in their religious practices.

The study explores the nexus between Ibu-Ubu boyhood initiation and the conservation of cultural heritage in Afikpo, Southeast Nigeria. The study is motivated by the rarity of such cultural conservation through initiation rites in an age of Christian-inspired culture terrorism against Igbo traditional religion, arts and relics.

The study adopted cultural anthropological research method. The boyhood initiation rite was studied through participant observation of the initiation between September and November 2017. As a cultural anthropological study, oral evidence was derived from the men who had undergone the rite. Through the oral evidence, interpretations were given to the material culture, monuments and heritage that have been conserved through Ibu-Ubu initiation rite.

The study discovered that amid the deluge of Christian-motivated culture terrorism and erosion of Igbo cultural arts, relics and heritage, the people of Afikpo have preserved most of their tangible and intangible heritage through the Ibu-Ubu boyhood initiation rites.

This study will assist in the reinvigoration of campaigns on environmental and heritage conservation in Igboland. It is sufficient to posit that Igboland is ridden with myriads of environmental and cultural terrorism, perpetrated by some Christian fanatics. The study reveals the relevance of the boyhood initiation rites in ensuring the preservation and conservation of Igbo cultural heritage in a century marked with fanatical Christian evangelism, culture-terrorism and destruction of both tangible and intangible heritages, which the Christians have labelled evil, barbaric and fetish.