This research investigates the role of religious difference and encounter by focusing on the multi-religious and notably tolerant Yoruba people of southwest Nigeria. Drawing on a large-scale ethnographic survey on the everyday lives of Muslims, Christians and traditionalists as well as field and archival work produced and collected by a Nigerian/UK-based research team under my leadership, the proposed research will explore the importance of religious difference for the constitution of important social identities as well as the establishment of practices of tolerance in one of Africa’s largest ethnic groups (more than 30 million Yoruba speakers). Through its Yoruba case study, the planned programme maps out the new field of ‘everyday religious encounter’. It will do so by(1) determining the incidence of bi- and multi-religious constellations including Muslims, Christians and traditionalists in contemporary marriages, families/ lineages, and in other contexts,(2) exploring the way in which religious differences and encounters structure the experiences, perceptions and behaviours of Yoruba individuals in their everyday social identities as men and women as well as members of different generations, and through life and family histories,(3) reflecting on the way in which the attitudes and practices of everyday life contribute to the high level of religious tolerance among adherents of different religions in Yorubaland,(4) developing, and refining in comparative debates, an understanding of the broader issues and theoretical relationships between the constitution of social identities and religious tolerance, and(5) initiating a paradigm shift in the theoretical and practical understanding of religious tolerance, both in Nigeria and in other countries in which religious difference is politicised, including Europe.