'Stories of Change: Religious Leaders and LGBTIQ Inclusion in East Africa' available now through Open Access

The Centre for Religion and Public Life is pleased to announce the publication of an important new book, co-authored by our own Professor Adriaan van Klinken

The Centre for Religion and Public Life is pleased to announce the publication of an important new book, co-authored by our own Professor Adriaan van Klinken. 

Stories of Change: Religious Leaders and LGBTIQ Inclusion in East Africa, co-authored by Adriaan, David Kuria Mbote, Damaris Parsitau, and Barbara Bompani, is published by Bloomsbury and is feely available open access. It is advertised here and is downloadable here. Funding for open access was generously provided by the University of Leeds. 

Stories of Change is grounded in in-depth interviews with over twenty inspirational Kenyan and Ugandan Christian and Muslim leaders, all of whom are actively involved in struggles for LGBTIQ rights. While media sources widely report on regressive attitudes to LGBTIQ identity and rights among religious leaders in East Africa, this open access book shows how multiple religious leaders in East African countries are agents of progressive social change.

Through community-based approaches of life-story methodology, the team of field-leading scholars and practitioners from Kenya and the UK draws out critical insights into the personal, theological and social sacrifices and challenges these religious leaders face in their everyday realities dominated by conservative religious interpretations and theologies. In so doing, the team identifies common strategies religious leaders develop to respond to these challenges while also keeping true to their mission.