- Transnationalism, Sociology of Emotion, Gender and Sexuality, Ethnography, Medical Anthropology, Development Studies, and 11 moreRace and Ethnicity, Intersectionality, Anthropology of emotions, Anthropology of Religion, Pentecostalism, Urban Anthropology, Visual Anthropology and Sociology, Anthropology, Sociology, Migration Studies, and Sociology Of Scientific Knowledgeedit
- Sociologist with a background in ethnography. Interested in medical anthropology, religion and science, emotions and ... moreSociologist with a background in ethnography. Interested in medical anthropology, religion and science, emotions and political action, intersectionality studies, masculinities, and the phenomenology of religion.
https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=tWi0e3UAAAAJ&hl=esedit
Des megachurches installées dans d'anciens cinémas aux groupes de prière en appartement, les pentecôtistes du monde entier ne cessent de s'activer religieusement pour intégrer au final toutes sortes de fidèles au Royaume de Dieu. Ces... more
Des megachurches installées dans d'anciens cinémas aux groupes de prière en appartement, les pentecôtistes du monde entier ne cessent de s'activer religieusement pour intégrer au final toutes sortes de fidèles au Royaume de Dieu. Ces chrétiens born again reformulent leurs manières d'être en mettant fin et en rétablissant des relations interpersonnelles créées et transformées par les modernités diasporiques émergentes. J'ai examiné quelques-unes de ces changeantes manières d'être en comparant les pratiques discursives de pasteurs pentecôtistes africains à Johannesburg (Afrique du Sud) et Bilbao (Espagne). Ces études de cas montrent comment ces Églises fondées par des migrants inventent une architecture sociale, une plateforme où les fidèles africains peuvent s'intégrer socialement et spirituellement dans des contextes de plus en plus mondialisés. J'avance que la subdivision de ces grandes congrégations en associations spécialisées offre aux migrants africains des stratégies alternatives pour acquérir un sentiment d'appartenance dans un réseau diasporique en expansion. En diffusant des valeurs africaines/africanisées et pentecôtistes liées à l'âge, au genre ou aux rôles sociaux, leur mission d'éducation spirituelle transformatrice les aide à surmonter leur situation de minorité marginalisée pour devenir un groupe puissant occupant un terrain moral élevé.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Desde que la categoría género se instaló como una categoría analítica para la investigación social con el ya clásico ensayo de Joan Scott (1996), la investigación social consolidó la distinción entre género y sexo, que durante muchos años... more
Desde que la categoría género se instaló como una categoría analítica
para la investigación social con el ya clásico ensayo de Joan Scott
(1996), la investigación social consolidó la distinción entre género y sexo,
que durante muchos años se mantuvo como una esencia natural y estable. Con el tiempo, las feministas y las teorías posestructuralistas complejizaron la categoría. El sexo se ha problematizado y dejó de considerarse sólo
un fenómeno biológico, para dar paso a la discusión sobre sexualidad y
a visibilizar el cuerpo como el espacio donde se materializan relaciones
productoras de sentido (Bárcenas y Delgado-Molina, 2021).
En la medida en que las maneras de entender el sexo y el género
se han diversificado, emergieron también posiciones que, articuladas en
activismos diversos que utilizan el discurso científico en general, y las narrativas biomédicas en lo particular –para legitimar su oposición a transformaciones legislativas relacionadas con el género y la sexualidad–, han impulsado proyectos morales específicos. Entre ellos se encuentran activismos religiosos, católicos y evangélicos, movimientos conservadores que no se identifican como religiosos, sino como posición política y, más recientemente, feminismos trans-excluyentes.
Estos emprendedores morales articulan un debate que moviliza nuevos repertorios simbólicos en la esfera pública, con los que se construyen
justificaciones, legitimaciones y marcos de sentido en torno a los cuerpos, como espacio principal de inscripción del debate, y de los límites de
este.
Poniendo el foco en los derechos de las mujeres y de las personas
lgtbiqa+, hemos invitado a tres especialistas en México y España para
debatir, a partir de sus experiencias de investigación, cómo han observado los cambios, tanto desde el punto de vista teórico/disciplinar como empírico.
para la investigación social con el ya clásico ensayo de Joan Scott
(1996), la investigación social consolidó la distinción entre género y sexo,
que durante muchos años se mantuvo como una esencia natural y estable. Con el tiempo, las feministas y las teorías posestructuralistas complejizaron la categoría. El sexo se ha problematizado y dejó de considerarse sólo
un fenómeno biológico, para dar paso a la discusión sobre sexualidad y
a visibilizar el cuerpo como el espacio donde se materializan relaciones
productoras de sentido (Bárcenas y Delgado-Molina, 2021).
En la medida en que las maneras de entender el sexo y el género
se han diversificado, emergieron también posiciones que, articuladas en
activismos diversos que utilizan el discurso científico en general, y las narrativas biomédicas en lo particular –para legitimar su oposición a transformaciones legislativas relacionadas con el género y la sexualidad–, han impulsado proyectos morales específicos. Entre ellos se encuentran activismos religiosos, católicos y evangélicos, movimientos conservadores que no se identifican como religiosos, sino como posición política y, más recientemente, feminismos trans-excluyentes.
Estos emprendedores morales articulan un debate que moviliza nuevos repertorios simbólicos en la esfera pública, con los que se construyen
justificaciones, legitimaciones y marcos de sentido en torno a los cuerpos, como espacio principal de inscripción del debate, y de los límites de
este.
Poniendo el foco en los derechos de las mujeres y de las personas
lgtbiqa+, hemos invitado a tres especialistas en México y España para
debatir, a partir de sus experiencias de investigación, cómo han observado los cambios, tanto desde el punto de vista teórico/disciplinar como empírico.
Research Interests:
This article examines religious leaders’ engagements with gender transformative activism during prevention training workshops for sexual and gender-based violence. I draw on ethnographic fieldwork carried out in 2017 and 2018 in a South... more
This article examines religious leaders’ engagements with gender transformative activism during prevention training workshops for sexual and gender-based violence. I draw on ethnographic fieldwork carried out in 2017 and 2018 in a South African NGO that promotes gender equality and human rights across Africa. My aim is twofold: to explore the tensions between the private and public dimensions of religious leaders’ engagement with gender transformative activism; and to demonstrate how they navigate those tensions by co-creating an ‘interstitial’ language and social space that allows them to conform new emotional repertoires, meanings and practices that ought to transform their gendered relations. I argue that doing so enables leaders to become tactical when engaging with gender activism in adverse religious contexts. By acting in the form of tactical activism, they establish interstices where religious and secular stances on gender can intersect whilst at the same time coping with the difficulties of inducing change in the given patriarchal structures.
Research Interests:
Given that social conditions, economic opportunities, and religious contexts in Johannesburg and Bilbao are enormously different, the similarities in Pentecostals’ emotional repertoires in these two urban contexts are striking. In both... more
Given that social conditions, economic
opportunities, and religious contexts in Johannesburg and Bilbao are enormously
different, the similarities in Pentecostals’ emotional repertoires in
these two urban contexts are striking. In both settings, emotional repertoires
included skilled ways of relating emotions such as anger and sadness
to the specific social and moral ills believers faced because of their status as
migrants, and of relating positive emotions such as joy and love to individuals’
acquisition of spiritual knowledge and their cultivating such knowledge
through religious practice. This chapter is conceived as a transnational comparison
of Pentecostal emotional engagements with the challenges of urban life in
the diaspora in two geographically distant migrant hubs.
Clearly, these resonances between pastors’ narratives are not only outcomes
of their positions as migrants and shared transnational imaginaries:
they were also produced by emotional forms of connectivity and belonging.
Feelings and sentiments are the symbolic bridges between “spaces for the
establishment of kinship and social networks while extending the emotive
religious experience initiated by Pentecostal churches in the homeland”
(Akyeampong 2000a, 209). In other words, emotional and cognitive experiences
seem to travel with African Pentecostals in the diaspora while being
shaped by a transnational emotional regime that leads people to “live loss
and hope as defining tension[s]” (Clifford 1997, 312).
opportunities, and religious contexts in Johannesburg and Bilbao are enormously
different, the similarities in Pentecostals’ emotional repertoires in
these two urban contexts are striking. In both settings, emotional repertoires
included skilled ways of relating emotions such as anger and sadness
to the specific social and moral ills believers faced because of their status as
migrants, and of relating positive emotions such as joy and love to individuals’
acquisition of spiritual knowledge and their cultivating such knowledge
through religious practice. This chapter is conceived as a transnational comparison
of Pentecostal emotional engagements with the challenges of urban life in
the diaspora in two geographically distant migrant hubs.
Clearly, these resonances between pastors’ narratives are not only outcomes
of their positions as migrants and shared transnational imaginaries:
they were also produced by emotional forms of connectivity and belonging.
Feelings and sentiments are the symbolic bridges between “spaces for the
establishment of kinship and social networks while extending the emotive
religious experience initiated by Pentecostal churches in the homeland”
(Akyeampong 2000a, 209). In other words, emotional and cognitive experiences
seem to travel with African Pentecostals in the diaspora while being
shaped by a transnational emotional regime that leads people to “live loss
and hope as defining tension[s]” (Clifford 1997, 312).
Research Interests:
From megachurches in movie theatres to prayer groups held in living rooms, Pentecostals worldwide are constantly carrying out religious activities that ultimately aim to integrate diverse worshippers into the kingdom of God. Born-again... more
From megachurches in movie theatres to prayer groups held in living rooms, Pentecostals worldwide are constantly carrying out religious activities that ultimately aim to integrate diverse worshippers into the kingdom of God. Born-again Christians refashion their 'ways of being' by breaking down and re-establishing the interpersonal relationships shaped and changed by emerging diasporic modernities. I examined some of these changing ways of being by comparing the discursive practices of African Pentecostal pastors in Johannesburg (South Africa) and Bilbao (Spain). These case-studies demonstrate how these migrant-initiated churches create a 'social architecture', a platform on which African worshippers find social and spiritual integration in increasingly globalized contexts. I argue that the subdivision of large congregations into specialized fellowship groups provides African migrants with alternative strategies to achieve a sense of belonging in an expanding diasporic network. Their transformative mission of spiritual education, by spreading African(ized) and Pentecostal values according to age, gender, or social roles, helps to uplift them from being a marginalized minority to being a powerful group occupying a high moral ground.
Research Interests:
The (re)production of visual material is an extended practice amongst Pentecostal-Charismatics worldwide and church leaders seem to play a decisive role in engendering such practice. While promoting spiritual missions and institutional... more
The (re)production of visual material is an extended practice amongst Pentecostal-Charismatics worldwide and church leaders seem to play a decisive role in engendering such practice. While promoting spiritual missions and institutional visions, pastors reinforce their personae in accordance to the “spiritual gifts” they perform. This article explores the forging of a visual culture that legitimates such performances, through the usage of posters and flyers which, it is argued, feature a particular speech. The arguments emerge from the observed cases of African pastors located in Spain and South Africa and the “discovery” of these visual representations through ethnographic fieldwork carried out between 2012 and 2015. The ascription of meaning to such materials is achieved by focusing on the graphic portrayal of emotions, religious experiences, ethos and morality, aligned with a somewhat “African Pentecostal speech”. It is suggested that, by engendering a “speech community”, this graphic language reflects the global and local quests for belonging faced by worshippers in the Diaspora.
Research Interests:
Editors: Loren Landau & Oliver Bakewell This chapter sheds light on discourses developed by Pentecostal leaders regarding their ability to (re)produce emotionally-based narratives associated with the vicissitudes faced by African... more
Editors: Loren Landau & Oliver Bakewell
This chapter sheds light on discourses developed by Pentecostal leaders regarding their ability to (re)produce emotionally-based narratives associated with the vicissitudes faced by African migrants within wider South African and Spanish society. By analysing activities such as counselling, sermons, preaching, life testimonies and church leaders’ life journeys I explore their modus operandi for addressing the tensions of migrants’ integration processes. By selecting geographically distinct cases, I reveal the multiple ways African Pentecostal discursive and symbolic tools generate shared belonging within a (de)localised ‘community of sentiment’. These communities often rest at the urban interstices, (semi) peripheral neighbourhoods and spaces in South African and Spanish cities where African migrants experience similar forms of exclusion and marginalisation. It is the shared experience of xenophobia, unemployment and social-economic exclusion that enable church leaders’ to influence and (re)configure migrants’ social positionality and subjectivity. Pastors orchestrate church services to create a sense of a ‘known’ and familiar scenario that is continually reinforced by a melting pot of African and Pentecostal notions; amidst such notions, and regardless of where they settle, kinship and social bonds receive special attention from these leaders as they offer a sense of purpose and unity in an environment marked by ‘threats’ or ‘evils’ of modernity. A modernity that, for pastors, challenges the African Christian values while causing social fragmentation and a moral crisis in wider society – Spanish and South African nationals. In sum, by navigating through pastors’ universal and particularistic approaches, the church community (e) merges along with a set of sentiments in relation to migrants’ global and local quests for belonging.
This chapter sheds light on discourses developed by Pentecostal leaders regarding their ability to (re)produce emotionally-based narratives associated with the vicissitudes faced by African migrants within wider South African and Spanish society. By analysing activities such as counselling, sermons, preaching, life testimonies and church leaders’ life journeys I explore their modus operandi for addressing the tensions of migrants’ integration processes. By selecting geographically distinct cases, I reveal the multiple ways African Pentecostal discursive and symbolic tools generate shared belonging within a (de)localised ‘community of sentiment’. These communities often rest at the urban interstices, (semi) peripheral neighbourhoods and spaces in South African and Spanish cities where African migrants experience similar forms of exclusion and marginalisation. It is the shared experience of xenophobia, unemployment and social-economic exclusion that enable church leaders’ to influence and (re)configure migrants’ social positionality and subjectivity. Pastors orchestrate church services to create a sense of a ‘known’ and familiar scenario that is continually reinforced by a melting pot of African and Pentecostal notions; amidst such notions, and regardless of where they settle, kinship and social bonds receive special attention from these leaders as they offer a sense of purpose and unity in an environment marked by ‘threats’ or ‘evils’ of modernity. A modernity that, for pastors, challenges the African Christian values while causing social fragmentation and a moral crisis in wider society – Spanish and South African nationals. In sum, by navigating through pastors’ universal and particularistic approaches, the church community (e) merges along with a set of sentiments in relation to migrants’ global and local quests for belonging.
Research Interests:
Article published by Taylor & Francis in Critical African Studies on 15th of June 2017, available online at http://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/quFDnjbwWigIqxKvWtAg/full In this article, we examine the notion of instability by... more
Article published by Taylor & Francis in Critical African Studies on 15th of June 2017, available online at http://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/quFDnjbwWigIqxKvWtAg/full
In this article, we examine the notion of instability by engaging with migrants’ re-constructions of belonging, in both global north and south cityscapes, under the auspices of Pentecostalism. We analyse African Pastors’ life histories in order to generate insights into how they mediate the tensions of migratory processes with their evolving personas as pastors. The research is based on three years of fieldwork (2012–2015) with Pentecostal church leaders in Bilbao, Spain, and Johannesburg, South Africa. These geographically distant contexts enable us to see the ways in which pastors negotiate the instabilities of migratory processes. Along the way, they develop a sort of spiritual brokerage amongst fellow congregants which allows African Pentecostals to create spaces in which tactical forms of identity and belonging combine to accommodate the super-diversity of migrants’ lives.
In this article, we examine the notion of instability by engaging with migrants’ re-constructions of belonging, in both global north and south cityscapes, under the auspices of Pentecostalism. We analyse African Pastors’ life histories in order to generate insights into how they mediate the tensions of migratory processes with their evolving personas as pastors. The research is based on three years of fieldwork (2012–2015) with Pentecostal church leaders in Bilbao, Spain, and Johannesburg, South Africa. These geographically distant contexts enable us to see the ways in which pastors negotiate the instabilities of migratory processes. Along the way, they develop a sort of spiritual brokerage amongst fellow congregants which allows African Pentecostals to create spaces in which tactical forms of identity and belonging combine to accommodate the super-diversity of migrants’ lives.
Research Interests:
http://booksandjournals.brillonline.com/content/books/b9789004344181s010 This chapter aims to contribute to the social scientific literature on emotions by focusing on key emic concepts that configure Pentecostals’ understanding of... more
http://booksandjournals.brillonline.com/content/books/b9789004344181s010
This chapter aims to contribute to the social scientific literature on emotions by focusing on key emic concepts that configure Pentecostals’ understanding of reality marked by migration and psychosocial distresses. Particularly, I will examine key congregational practices and narratives portrayed by migrant pastors within Pentecostal churches in South Africa and Spain. My concern here is to offer an integrative view of emotions relating body, mind and language while informed by the ways in which these pastors articulate religious experiences and liturgy with everyday life.
Edited by Michael Wilkinson and Peter Althouse
The intersection of religion, ritual, emotion, globalization, migration, sexuality, gender, race, and class, is especially insightful for researching Pentecostal notions of the body. Pentecostalism is well known for overt bodily expressions that includes kinesthetic worship with emotive music and sustained acts of prayer. Among Pentecostals there is considerable debate about bodies, the role of the Holy Spirit, possession of evil spirits, deliverance, exorcism, revival, and healing of bodies and emotions. Pentecostalism is identified as a religion on the move and so bodies are transformed in the context of globalization. Pentecostalism is also associated with notions of sexuality, gender, race and class where bodies are often liberated and limited. This volume evaluates these themes associated with contemporary research on the body.
This chapter aims to contribute to the social scientific literature on emotions by focusing on key emic concepts that configure Pentecostals’ understanding of reality marked by migration and psychosocial distresses. Particularly, I will examine key congregational practices and narratives portrayed by migrant pastors within Pentecostal churches in South Africa and Spain. My concern here is to offer an integrative view of emotions relating body, mind and language while informed by the ways in which these pastors articulate religious experiences and liturgy with everyday life.
Edited by Michael Wilkinson and Peter Althouse
The intersection of religion, ritual, emotion, globalization, migration, sexuality, gender, race, and class, is especially insightful for researching Pentecostal notions of the body. Pentecostalism is well known for overt bodily expressions that includes kinesthetic worship with emotive music and sustained acts of prayer. Among Pentecostals there is considerable debate about bodies, the role of the Holy Spirit, possession of evil spirits, deliverance, exorcism, revival, and healing of bodies and emotions. Pentecostalism is identified as a religion on the move and so bodies are transformed in the context of globalization. Pentecostalism is also associated with notions of sexuality, gender, race and class where bodies are often liberated and limited. This volume evaluates these themes associated with contemporary research on the body.
Research Interests:
In the 1920s, Swedish missionaries arrived in Spain, bringing the first Pentecostal experiences to the Iberian Peninsula. Pastors Julia and Martin Wahlsten, founded the first Pentecostal church in the city of Gijon. Other Swedish... more
In the 1920s, Swedish missionaries arrived in Spain, bringing the first Pentecostal experiences to the Iberian Peninsula. Pastors Julia and Martin Wahlsten, founded the first Pentecostal church in the city of Gijon. Other Swedish missionary families such as the Johansson’s, Stahlberg’s Armstrong’s, and Forsberg’s helped to found congregations throughout the country (Martín-Arroyo and Branco 2011, 165). However, by 1936, Pentecostals were forced out by the Civil War (1936–1939) and anti-evangelical sentiments grew afterwards, further hampering the evangelical efforts of a small number of missionaries struggling to withstand the atmosphere of repression and uncontested Catholic hegemony...
https://referenceworks.brillonline.com/browse/brill-s-encyclopedia-of-global-pentecostalism
https://referenceworks.brillonline.com/browse/brill-s-encyclopedia-of-global-pentecostalism
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Este informe presenta una investigación llevada a cabo por miembros del grupo Investigaciones en Sociología de la Religión (ISOR-UAB), con el apoyo del programa de ayudas RELIG de la Generalitat de Cataluña. El estudio explora dónde y... more
Este informe presenta una investigación llevada a cabo por miembros del grupo Investigaciones en Sociología de la Religión (ISOR-UAB), con el apoyo del programa de ayudas RELIG de la Generalitat de Cataluña. El estudio explora dónde y cómo se aborda pluralismo religioso, género y diversidad sexual en el tejido asociativo de tres ciudades catalanas: Lleida, Santa Coloma de Gramenet y Vic.
Research Interests:
The findings in MiWORC Report N°11 are based on a literature review and qualitative research conducted in 2013. The research team interviewed 49 respondents, including 35 workers in the hospitality sector, 12 manag- ers or business... more
The findings in MiWORC Report N°11 are based on a literature
review and qualitative research conducted in 2013. The research team interviewed 49
respondents, including 35 workers
in the hospitality sector, 12 manag-
ers or business owners and two key
informants from the South African
government. Interviews were
conducted in Durban and Pretoria.
Durban was selected as the main
site for fieldwork as it is a major
metropolitan area with a significant
domestic and international tourism
industry.
Of the 35 workers interviewed, 19
were foreign-born and 16 were
South African nationals. The sample
of foreign hospitality workers
consisted of 13 individuals from
Zimbabwe, three from the
Democratic Republic of Congo, and
one each from Mexico, Mauritius
and Mozambique.
review and qualitative research conducted in 2013. The research team interviewed 49
respondents, including 35 workers
in the hospitality sector, 12 manag-
ers or business owners and two key
informants from the South African
government. Interviews were
conducted in Durban and Pretoria.
Durban was selected as the main
site for fieldwork as it is a major
metropolitan area with a significant
domestic and international tourism
industry.
Of the 35 workers interviewed, 19
were foreign-born and 16 were
South African nationals. The sample
of foreign hospitality workers
consisted of 13 individuals from
Zimbabwe, three from the
Democratic Republic of Congo, and
one each from Mexico, Mauritius
and Mozambique.
Research Interests:
This essay researches implicit or explicit assumptions around the intersection of gender and sexuality in relation to the fields of science and religion on the basis of a narrative literature review of the last twenty years in Spain and... more
This essay researches implicit or explicit assumptions around the intersection of gender and sexuality in relation to the fields of science and religion on the basis of a narrative literature review of the last twenty years in Spain and Mexico.
Research Interests:
Nigerian-born Pastor Emmet is the founder of a Pentecostal church in Jo-hannesburg where we attended services in 2014. The church was the largest and the most structured church of the four migrant-initiated congregations we visited in the... more
Nigerian-born Pastor Emmet is the founder of a Pentecostal church in Jo-hannesburg where we attended services in 2014. The church was the largest and the most structured church of the four migrant-initiated congregations we visited in the city, but according to its leader it has not always been like that. In a long talk about his religious and migrant journeys, Emmet explained to us his dreams, prophecies, and migratory struggles and the miracles that had helped to shape his personal journey, as well as how he became the founder of a transnational ministry with branches in Nigeria and Kenya. After witnessing him hosting church services and Bible schools, hearing his prayers on a radio show, and watching his web-based video messages, it became evident that this pastor's subjectivity and practices conveyed more than biblical knowledge. In one of our encounters, Emmet told us that as an engineering student he began to attend prayer groups and fellowships organized by friends from his university. Through these experiences he gradually became knowledgeable about the Bible as much as he started to feel the "miracle of faith." In one conversation he explained to us why faith needed to go beyond biblical knowledge: