1. Day 1 · Session 1 — West African Spiritual Traditions on the Continent

Tuesday, July 28 · 9:30 am – 11:15 am

This opening session grounds the symposium in the continental foundations of West African spirituality, surveying the major traditions — Ifá/Yoruba, Akan, Fon/Dahomean, and Mande — within their historical, cosmological, and social contexts. Presenters are asked to illuminate how these systems conceptualise the relationship between the visible and invisible realms, the role of ancestors and deities (Orishas, Abosom, Vodun), and the place of ritual, divination, and oral tradition as living institutions for transmitting knowledge across generations. The session also takes stock of the contemporary revival and legal recognition movements underway in countries such as Ghana, Nigeria, Benin, and Togo, and invites reflection on how these traditions speak to questions of freedom, sovereignty, and identity — establishing the continental ground upon which the diasporic explorations of the following two days will build.

2. Day 1 · Session 2 — African Spiritual Traditions in the Caribbean

Tuesday, July 28 · 11:30 am – 1:15 pm

Turning the lens to the Caribbean, this session maps African-derived spiritual traditions across the region — Shango/Orisha in Trinidad and Tobago, Vodou in Haiti, Santería/Lukumí in Cuba, Obeah and Myal in the Eastern Caribbean, Revivalism and Kumina in Jamaica, and Winti in Suriname and the Guianas — situating each within its specific ethnic and historical matrix. Presenters are invited to examine the processes of transformation and syncretism under slavery, the role of these traditions as sites of resistance, community cohesion, and cultural memory, and the place of spirit possession, drumming, and dance as embodied repositories of African knowledge where written texts and institutions were denied. The session closes with attention to the contemporary legal and social landscape, noting the diversity of approaches to recognition and protection across Caribbean nations.

3. Day 1 · Roundtable — African Spirituality in Africa

Tuesday, July 28 · 2:30 pm – 5:00 pm

This roundtable creates space for collaborative, wide-ranging dialogue on the state of African spirituality on the continent today, building on the morning's structured presentations. Discussion focuses on the current revival and reclamation movements — Ghana's NATAV, Benin's official recognition of Vodun, Nigeria's debates around indigenous religious rights — and the tensions between African spirituality and the dominant world religions, Christianity and Islam. Panellists are invited to explore the role of the state in advancing or hindering genuine religious equality, the impact of globalisation and renewed diaspora interest on continental practice, and a forward-looking vision of what it would mean for African spirituality to be truly free — recognised, respected, and flourishing — in the land of its birth.

4. Day 2 · Session 1 — Debating Diasporic Spiritual Innovations to African Continental Traditions

Wednesday, July 29 · 9:30 am – 11:15 am

Opening Day 2, this session turns critical and respectful attention to how diasporic communities have innovated upon, reinterpreted, and sometimes diverged from continental African traditions. Presenters are asked to examine what distinguishes a living tradition's natural evolution from a fundamental departure, the contested questions of authenticity and authority between continent and diaspora, and the power dynamics that arise when diasporic forms gain global visibility and economic power. The session also addresses the diaspora's role in preserving traditions suppressed on the continent, the emergence of new syntheses shaped by New Age influences, commercialisation, and the internet, and the ethics of equitable, reciprocal cultural exchange between continent and diaspora.

5. Day 2 · Session 2 — Understanding African and Caribbean Traditional Spirituality as Ways of Knowing and Technologies

Wednesday, July 29 · 11:30 am – 1:15 pm

This philosophically rich session argues that African and Caribbean spiritual traditions are not merely belief systems but sophisticated epistemologies and embedded technologies for engaging with reality. Presenters are invited to treat divination systems (Ifá, Akan practices, diloggún, and others) as epistemic technologies with their own internal logic and rigour, and to explore the "technologies of the sacred" — drumming patterns that alter consciousness, herbal preparations of pharmacological and spiritual potency, ritual choreography facilitating possession, and mnemonic devices in song and story. The session challenges the hegemony of Western rationalism, asks what it would mean to take African ways of knowing as equal partners in knowledge production, and draws out the implications for education, policy, heritage, and epistemic justice.

6. Day 2 · Roundtable — African Spirituality in the Diaspora

Wednesday, July 29 · 2:30 pm – 5:00 pm

Mirroring the Day 1 roundtable's continental focus, this session turns the collaborative conversation to the condition, trajectory, and future of African spirituality across the global diaspora. Panellists are invited to map the diversity of diasporic experience — the Caribbean, Brazil, the United States, Europe, and Afro-Latin America — and to address the globalisation of traditions such as Lukumí, Candomblé, and Vodou beyond African-ancestry communities, including the intersections of race, cultural appropriation, and economic power. Discussion also explores spirituality as a site of identity formation, community building, and the healing of historical trauma, the reciprocity needed between diaspora and continent, and a vision for the flourishing of African diasporic spirituality in the coming decade.

7. Day 3 · Session 1 — Ancestral Communion and State Heritage Projects

Thursday, July 30 · 9:30 am – 11:15 am

Opening the final day, this session explores the intersection of ancestral communion — a cornerstone of African and African-diasporic spirituality — and the growing efforts by states and institutions to incorporate African spiritual heritage into national cultural projects. Presenters are invited to examine the diversity of ancestral practices (libations, shrine keeping, Egungun and masquerade, veneration in Vodou and Lukumí, Revivalist practices) and the philosophical frameworks underpinning them, and to reflect on ancestral communion as identity, healing, and reconnection with severed roots. The session offers critical examination of UNESCO and national heritage projects, the tension between living practice and museumised objectification, and case studies of successful and unsuccessful institutional engagement with African spiritual traditions.

8. Day 3 · Session 2 — Freedom to Practice: The State of Affairs

Thursday, July 30 · 11:30 am – 1:15 pm

Addressing arguably the most practically consequential theme of the symposium, this session takes stock of the freedom to practise African and African-diasporic spirituality free from stigma, legal restriction, and institutional discrimination. Presenters are asked to survey the legal landscape — colonial-era Obeah laws still on the books in parts of the Eastern Caribbean, the varying recognition of indigenous religions across Ghana, Nigeria, Benin, South Africa, and others — and to examine the social and cultural stigma reinforced by dominant religions and media, institutional discrimination in education, employment, and healthcare, and the intersection of religious freedom with heritage, environmental, and intellectual property rights. Particular attention is invited to the Barbadian and Eastern Caribbean context and what full embrace and protection of African spiritual practice would mean there.

9. Day 3 · Roundtable — Contemporary Challenges Facing the Practice of Traditional African and African Diasporic Spirituality and Possible Solutions

Thursday, July 30 · 2:30 pm – 5:00 pm

The culminating session of the symposium synthesises the conversations of the preceding two days and looks forward. Panellists are invited to reflect on the most significant insights and productive disagreements that emerged, to identify the most urgent contemporary challenges — legal, cultural, environmental, intergenerational, and economic — and, crucially, to propose concrete, actionable solutions such as legal and policy reforms, educational initiatives, community programmes, digital platforms for knowledge preservation, and international solidarity networks. The roundtable also asks what role the festival community can play in ongoing action, and closes with a shared vision of what genuine freedom to practise African and African-diasporic spirituality would look like as a lived reality across Africa and the diaspora.