Routes& Rites to the City Mobility, Diversity and Religious Space in Johannesburg Various locations. 2013-2015. Photographs: Bettina Malcomess, Shogan Naidoo. Routes & Rites to the City Mobility, Diversity and Religious Space in Johannesburg Introduction Religion and Mobility shape the city in many ways: through cross-border flows of people, religious ideas and rituals; through trade, labour and commodities; and through the ways in which space is marked and made sacred. Johannesburg has long invoked religious musings. Over the course of it’s century-short history, while the city has retained its aura of moral dissolution, an image overlaid with its violent racial divisions, religion has been a means for its many migrant communities, of different races and creeds, to lay claim to the city. These processes have left their traces on the cityscape. In the post-apartheid era religious signs saturate the city’s surfaces, and rituals are continually being invoked and innovated to navigate urban promises and terrors. Post-apartheid Johannesburg has been profoundly reshaped by both the dismantling of racial influx control, along with new lines and forms of migration, particularly from other African countries. The Routes & Rites project, of which this visual supplement is a part (and which also involves a full-length book), is a collective and collaborative project exploring the intricate geography of religion in Johannesburg. The contributors explore the radically diverse, but spatially dense patterns of migration and religious spaces as a lens into the ways in which religion is integral to place-making and belonging in the city. Religion offers both material and symbolic entry points into the life-world and economies of the city. It provides both sites of refuge but also contributes to contestations around urban space. It produces sites of value, meaning and power that intersect with the regional and global circulation of capital and labour but are not reducible to these. It fosters symbols and socialities that are deeply enmeshed in the urban fabric. The project spans Christian traditions including evangelical, Pentecostal movements, prophetic and African independent churches, along with those of Islam, Hinduism and Judaism. These studies are situated in the historical context mapping both contemporary and historical migratory processes and place-making. In a time of resurgent xenophobia Routes & Rites shows how migration itself is deeply embedded in the history and geography of the city; it aims to show the power of religion to create a home for the diverse residents of the city across racial or ethnic groups and nationalities, but also to create spaces of exclusion and control (in which women, sexual minorities or other members of religions may be excluded). We aim not make a judgement on the role of religion in the city but to visually express how deeply entwined it is with city spaces and how, in turn, this is deeply shaped by patterns of mobility and migration. We aim here to express the power of these processes in all their banality and beauty. Matthew Wilhelm-Solomon, Peter Kankonde Bukasa and Lorena Núñez Carrasco and Bettina Malcomess Visualizing Religion in the City This publication presents a journey through a series of spaces of religious and spiritual practice across the city of Johannesburg. The visual language attempts to capture a sense of movement through the city and along its edges, and the reader’s eye travels across a variety of spaces and locations in which the signs of spirituality are legible. Often photographs are taken at times when there is no service, or on days between ceremonies and gatherings, and yet these seemingly empty spaces and sites are full of the traces and subtle markers of those who inhabit them, both permanently and temporarily. The sites photographed vary from the inner city buildings and industrial warehouses used for church services, to older churches and synagogues converted into spaces that serve other denominations, to the natural and unnatural edges of the city. The majority of the photographic series were commissioned for the visual supplement of the Routes and Rites academic book, and many of these relate directly or indirectly to the book chapters and are accompanied by excerpts selected from them. Several photographers worked on producing new series, such as Shogan Naidoo and Olivia Shihambe, while others allowed us to use existing works, such as Simangele Kalisa and Dean Hutton. Some work had been shot, but never shown, such as Sabelo Mlangeni’s and Thabiso Sekgala’s series. The making of all the images in this book has a strong relation to the actual research and fieldwork and in fact constitute a part of that research. In several instances, photographs were shot by researchers during fieldwork. As opposed to simply describing the environments and the people in them, these photographs also contain narratives and questions about religion in the city and ask for some careful reading and looking. Each space is entered through several angles and relationships between photographs are what produce a sense for the viewer of moving through the sites, navigating their complexities and opening up the potential for an encounter. In the Central Methodist Church, for example, we were not able to photograph people and instead focused on the space telling the story of those who live in the church. Several series work with the idea of a film sequence with strips of images that show the transformation of a space over the course of a day or a night, such as Dean Hutton’s series, Nightwatch Zion, which documents a Zionist night vigil in a building across the road from the studio where it was shot. Here, one gets a sense of the temporality and often ephemerality of the appearance of the sacred within the everyday. We have a sense of moving through a spiritual environment by foot, by car, from a vantage point to a close-up. The shifting point of view provided by this changing register of movement gives us a sense of how religion is interwoven within the multiple of orders that structure the city: economic, somatic, moral, material, transcendental. The book begins in the inner city, moving outward to its peripheries situated in the uitvalgrond between mine dumps, highways and industry to its suburbs and townships, and finally outside tracing the paths of bodies returning ‘home’, and the journeys of weekend pilgrimages and baptisms. In making this publication in the form of a newspaper, we hope that it will travel some of these paths too. Bettina Malcomess Johannesburg has always been a city defined by flows of cases, merge their ritual practices previously developed in migration, from the discovery of gold which precipitated a different cultural and geographical contexts. Former diverse population of mining labour from Mozambique, synagogue buildings have become Christian churches, while Malawi, Lesotho, the rural areas of South Africa and outside other kinds of conversions of spaces reflect the intensity of the continent to the movements of industrial labour during spiritual needs: hotels, the uitvalgrond, the floors of industrial apartheid. New flows of migration from all over Africa but also buildings. However, these churches are not exclusively for from Europe, Asia, and even Latin America have defined the migrants, and welcome South Africans. For example the city since the end of apartheid. For many migrants religion Universal Kingdom Church of God, with its origins in is an important way of finding one’s place in the city, both Brazil, has one of the biggest local congregations, employing historically and now. many local ministers. For many residents, foreign and local, Johannesburg is a city defined by a sense of vulnerability, Across Greater Johannesburg (and all major South African uncertainty and itinerancy. What these places of worship have cities), new places of worship have emerged in abandoned in common is that they help residents to reproduce familiar churches, warehouses, vacant land, private homes, garages, forms of religious, communal and moral order that counter backyards. In addition there are numerous and visible free- a feeling of being out of place, providing for the duration of lance prophets advertising their powers throughout the inner each service a kind of temporary home. city, often catering for the religious needs of the newcomers, and in doing so, transforming the city’s religious landscapes. Matthew WIlhelm-Solomon, Bettina Malcomess, Peter These new places of worship have not only diversified the Kankonde Bukasa and Lorena Núñez Carrasco configurations on offer in terms of religious beliefs in the city, but are also creating spaces where people come into contact with one another, compete for space, or simply to collaborate in new ways by sharing sites of religious worship, or in some Document obtained from the Geo-Planning Office of the City of Johannesburg for the block of the former Hillbrow Synagogue, modelled on Santa Sophia Cathedral in Istanbul, rented by the Revelation Church of God. If one drives down Wolmarans Street on the border between Hillbrow and the Central The church’s symbolism and rituals appear to be an assemblage of diverse traditions – Business District, on Sundays and several days in the week you will find crowds spilling onto Christianity, Pentecostal Evangelism, Zionism, traditional healing, Zulu military regalia and the streets and filling the courtyard, controlled by guards wearing bright orange overalls Judaism. Men and women in white robes line the circumference. The crowd dances and sways bearing the image of a red globe, the logo of the Revelation Church of God. The in circles thrusting their hands into the air. The atmosphere in the crowded church during orange-shirted guards regulate entry to the church (allowing new members preferential services is heated and trance-like, the songs and prayers building to a crescendo. At the access), and ensure the crowds do not stand in the way of the traffic. The waiting congregation culmination of the service, the Prophet facilitates exorcisms and blessings. Rumours have always stand facing the church across the road, as if the road was an invisible river between been circulating in the city that the church is planning to build a new permanent base. them and the church interior. Sometimes they hold small wooden spears, and bottles of holy water are stacked at the entrance ready for distribution. The interior of the synagogue is still Matthew Wilhelm-Solomon and Bettina Malcomess well preserved. It has a large sky-blue dome, echoing with voices of the congregants and reflecting light through stained glass windows. The Star of David adorns many of the walls. A menorah, the seven-branched candelabrum, stands on the old bimah, its candles burning against the backdrop of a video screen. On the pulpit is a leopard-skin throne. Smit Street, Hillbrow, exterior of the old synagogue/Revelation Church of God, 2014 Photograph: Bettina Malcomess The Central Methodist Mission in inner-city Johannesburg is disappeared. People did not need to open the frame in order to walk into the known in particular for sheltering Zimbabwean migrants. The church. The six-storey church building changes from one moment to the next church, familiarly known as Central, is located at the corner of and from one room to another, reflecting the diversity of the activities that Pritchard Street and the Small Street Mall, a few blocks down take place inside its walls. In 2009, when the number of people staying at from Park Station. Central accommodates over-lapping and, Central was around two to three thousand, the ground floor foyer, for at times, clashing needs of different groups of people. Inside instance, used to be full of sleeping people at night: coming into the the walls of the building, people – be it, migrants or building close to midnight meant jumping over people. Others stayed in congregants – create their own city and their own Central. rooms and spaces invisible to those who only visited the sanctuary for a meeting or a service, such as the Vestry, the Minor Hall, the Fourth Floor or The building has seen the transformation of the inner city ‘Soweto’. In 2013, with the decreased numbers of people, the congestion from South Africa’s number one business centre into an area seemed to have eased. But not everyone fitted in the different rooms and characterized by abandoned buildings and feared for crime. thus many still made their beds in the foyers. On Sunday mornings the ground In 2008 Central felt the consequences of the May xenophobic floor foyer is empty of the beds and the small sales stalls. If you come early violence inside its walls as foreign nationals sought refuge enough, you can still greet the people mopping the floors. Later you meet there. As one minister serving at Central in 2009 said: members of the congregation passing through the foyer to the service in the sanctuary. “[W]e have opened the doors of the church. The other churches have closed their doors. They even made At the end of 2014, with the resignation of Rev Dr Paul Verryn as the burglar doors so that nobody comes near their door. So we superintendent minister of Central, the new church leadership was trying to are different in that way. We opened our doors. There is no reduce the number of migrants living in the church. burglar door. It’s only the glass door, which breaks every day.” Elina Hankela On a grey Sunday morning in September 2013 the glass had again broken. Only the metal frames were left standing. In February 2014 one side of the double doorframes, too, had Central Methodist Church, Pritchard Street, inner city, 2014 Photographs: Olivia Shihambe Each day, as dawn breaks over a grassy hillock extending along the western Spraypaint along the cement frame of a never-completed two-story building ridge of the Yeoville koppie, dozens of worshippers come to pray against the spells out a name once given, anonymously, to this sacred place: God’s Land. dramatic modernist tapestry of Ponte Tower and the central Johannesburg On the top story of this barren structure - a smooth grey platform, open to the skyline. Many are immigrants from Zimbabwe, now settled in the adjacent sky - aspirant preachers pace back and forth, preparing themselves to deliver inner-city neighbourhoods of Yeoville, Hillbrow or Berea. Others come from a sermon among one or another of the clusters of congregants below. The the Democratic Republic of Congo or from elsewhere in South Africa. Most astonishing vista of the city afforded by this higher vantage point, with its worship alone or in pairs, but ephemeral congregations of more than fifty, scattering of white-robed worshippers in the foreground, draws others with a drawn by the allure and healing promise of charismatic pastors and prophets, more worldly purpose: professional and amateur film crews shoot are not uncommon. Some of the worshippers are dressed in modest street feature-length pictures, fashion spreads and music videos, enchanted by the clothes, while others wear white robes indicating their allegiance to Zionist dramatic backdrop that this urban tableau provides. By night, the lower levels or Apostolic sects. Piles of beer bottles, filled with holy water from a nearby of the same skeletal cement structure provide shelter to homeless wayfarers drain, bear messages that petition divine power for aid - messages that will be and addicts who build bonfires or wrap themselves in blankets and plastic transmitted when they are smashed against a rocky embankment, a practice sheets to fortify themselves against the cold. In the hours after dusk, they known as ‘bombing’. The glass shards are gathered and sold by recyclers, keep a wary eye out for the Johannesburg Metro Police, who periodically roar who scour the bins behind the bars of Yeoville to supply the worshippers with up in a convoy of vehicles to stage raids into the bush below, searching for whole bottles the following day. drug dealers, tsotsis and immigrants without ‘papers’. Eric Worby and Melekias Zulu ‘God’s Land’, Yeoville Ridge, 2014 Photographs: Eric Worby Nightwatch Zion, A stop-frame animation of photographic stills (HD video) recaptured as stills, 2007 By: Dean Hutton Block between Noord, Joubert, and Plein streets, From left: Darragh House (housing Anglican Diocese of Gauteng Province, St Mary’s Anglican Church, Universal Kingdom of Church of God, Cenacle of Christ the Saviour. UKCG bought a former hotel, converted the ground and basement floors into chapels, as well as side chapels on street level, and the upper floors into offices and residential space for church employees. Photographs: Olivia Shihambe, 2014 Former Anglican Church on Commissioner Street. There is now a creche and an afterschool centre for highschool learners in the original church. The church rents its hall to several congregations. Inside is visible the remains of a space used for Muslim prayer. Photographs: Bettina Malcomess, 2014 Site of former Jeppe Synagogue converted to Assembly of God Portugeuse Community Church. In 2009, part of the original structure was demolished for a parking lot and car wash (visible is the lectern of former synagogue on the site of the carwash). Photographs: Bettina Malcomess, 2014 and Dorothee Kreutzfeldt, 2010 During the 2012 nightly Ramadan prayers (Taraweeh) at the Fordsburg Sports Club/Pool Hall. Photographs: Aslam Bulbulia, 2012 The public spaces of Hillbrow are saturated with the material signs of religion and spirituality. The bustling street-scape of The continuous TV feed is a constant reminder of the role informal traders and subdivided shop-fronts pits hair salons and cell-phone repair shops alongside starkly furnished and God has played in the success of the shop. God helps those utilitarian conversions of old shops into non-denominational and evangelical churches. Every street pole or blank piece of wall who help themselves. The take-away does not just contain is plastered with posters and flyers for prophets who can apparently heal all kinds of diseases, as well as increase virility and the presence of God but is a space carved out of a context of return lost lovers. profanity. Every street corner has an internet café with a name such as Joy of God Internet Café, or The Lord is My Shepherd Cellphone and Communication Centre. On any afternoon the small over-used public parks and squares are occupied by false prophets, Jehovah’s Witnesses and gamblers in equal measure. One such space is a late-night take-away that is owned by a pair of Nigerian brothers. What marks this space as religious is the large-screen TV that is mounted above the counter and that streams a 24h televangelist channel, Emmanuel TV. Each Friday morning a small group of young homeless men gather outside the locked gates of a local church on Honey Street The bible-study session, coordinated and run by a local on the northern edge of Hillbrow, some distance from the bustling market and shopping streets where the young men usually pastor who administers and leads a full Sunday worship at his hustle and beg. Some weeks, especially in winter or near month-end, the group is smaller – consisting of ten or twelve thin own church nearby, is supposed to start at 10am – at the end bodies wrapped in layers of dirty, ill-fitting clothes. of each weekly session the group are reminded to be here promptly at 10am the next week. Most weeks the security On other weeks, the group swells to about twenty or thirty, including some older men and several women. Sick and unhealthy guard opens the gates closer to 11am – a begrudging St bodies lean against the faded pink wall, beneath the yellow and red hand-painted sign that reads 5C’s Christian Church, some Peter, although his gates are rusted and badly-welded steel, of them sniffing glue from an old milk carton, others engaged in conversation about local news, still others waiting quietly. They topped with barbed wire. are awaiting entry into the church for the Bible-study session that precedes the serving of soup and tea, prepared by several women from a church community in the wealthy northern suburbs. Alex Wafer Top row: Hillbrow, Pretoria Street Bottom row: Entrance to Hilbrow Brethren in Christ Church Photographs: Olivia Shihambe, 2014 The Greater Rosettenville Area lies about 5 km south of the who left the area and abandoned their old synagogues to worship in new ones. He refers to the concept of gravity as being Johannesburg CBD and includes some of the city’s oldest anchored to a place (the synagogue), and to its history. Through this concept he explains his attachment to the place and southern suburbs. Some migrants affectionately call it Rosy. It commitment in keeping the synagogue as a sacred place. The attachment of Dr Krengel to the synagogue is deep and has moved over its centenary history from being a historically rooted in his own biography: “There are few hard hearts like myself; the synagogue is still holding services... [It] is predominantly Portugeuese whites-only segregated area, to not a monument. We can’t keep all the Jewish celebrations we can only afford to have the Saturday service.” becoming racially mixed, and this social transformation has also transformed the religious landscape of the area. The observance of the prohibition of using technology during the Sabbath sets a geographic limit to the community. Greater Rosettenville had first welcomed Afrikaner, British, Maintaining the number is a difficult task. As we observed, the ten men required to hold services was made possible by the Jews, Portuguese, Greeks and Lebanese populations. Since presence of three poor and disabled Jewish men living in a hospice located in the area. They distinguish themselves by their the end of formal apartheid, the area has also become home unorthodox Kippahs (one was wearing a red woolen hat and another one a Andean woolen hat) and their less circumspect to thousands of people previously forbidden: blacks, Indians, behaviour with little observance of the service norms (one of them was drawing while the service was conducted, another one and coloured South Africans and migrants from other African continually walked in and out). and Asian countries. While its original white residents built mainly mainline churches (Catholic, Anglican, Dutch The premises of the synagogue cannot be rented for commercial purposes; therefore they rent the hall to another church. The Reformed, Methodist, Baptist) and synagogues, the area is possibility to rent part of the building was due to the fact that its Jewish community had dwindled significantly around the years currently experiencing an intensive ‘churching’ process by its 2000 and the Torah School had closed. The Congolese church renting part of the synagogue is led by Bishop Ladi, who came new internal and international Pentecostal, Apostolic, and to South Africa in 1991 and is among the first Congolese pastors in Johannesburg. He was one of the founders of the Yahweh Zionist migrant residents. Shammah Assembly in Hillbrow as a prayer group in Joubert Park in 1991. When that church split after few years, he started his own prayer group in Elandspark, southeast Johannesburg before it finally became a church under the name of Yahweh The services at the Rosettenville synagogue are led by a Shammah Ministries. His church moved to its location in the Rosettenville synagogue in 2002. spiritual leader Rael Cynkin who no longer lives in the area but commutes to the south every Friday. From there Dr Krengel, his wife and the spiritual leader walk 3 km to the synagogue every Saturday. Dr Krengel distances himself from those Jews Peter Kankonde Bukasa and Lorena Núñez Carrasco “It was because the place was not in use anymore. The part we occupy used to be a hall and the nursery. But members of the Jewish community in the area had substantially diminished and only old people remained. Even today, less than ten people worship here. They want us to be the ones who buy the whole place. We have never had problem with the Synagogue, they like us too much...especially when they saw that the name of our church is in Hebrew. I think it is because the name Yahweh Shammah at the building has a special meaning for them, that is the name of their God. You can see the proof of their love for us in the way they behave toward us. I told you that the Nigerian church was asked to vacate the place due to rent issues. But for us, even when we had financial difficulties they were very understanding to us. Even the money we were paying was too small, what we were paying covered just electricity bills, this is before we even started buying the place.” Bishop Ladi, Yaweh Shammah Ministries “They have a meeting place for their priests who fly from the Congo, we had a little kindergarten and classes [before], they [the Congolese] little by little have been building, I think it’s probably for their priests... they probably don’t have the numbers they need so it has become a centre, they hold big meetings once or twice a year. There is respect among us, very little interaction; we know we both pray to God.” Dr Krengel, Rosettenville Synagogue Rosettenville Synagogue and adjacent hall. Interior of Yaweh Shammah Ministries. 2014. Photographs: Shogan Naidoo Almost lost in the shade of the highway and a palm tree, across from a line of industrial warehouses, stands an old chapel with On the strip of land between the building and the highway an open area adjacent to it used as parking by minibus taxi drivers. The building is surrounded by a fence and looks more or we noticed a stone plaque embedded in the concrete Mooi less abandoned. This is the only remaining structure of the former Roman Catholic Church and college built on the fomer mine street off-ramp commemorating the former Catholic church property, part of which was destroyed in 1958. We discover the house of a caretaker at the back of the property who informs us complex. that this is in fact a church owned by a BaSotho preacher who also rents it to another church group, the African Gospel Church. “St Thomas College, 26 Heidelberg Road, Village On Sunday the choral song of the church filters into the industrial space surrounding the church. Main, Johannesburg. A symbol of the ever living seed and The pastor, Albert Dlamini, of the African Gospel Church, came to Johannesburg in the mid-1980s when there was no branch fountain of sound knowledge that was planted by the of the church in the inner city: “I was coming to work in Johannesburg, but God was with me that time. I started to preach in Dominican Nuns in the year 1939 for the education of Black the street, Park Station, everywhere, and people came to me.” He got a job at a glass fitting centre and would preach in his girls. We, students, remember our alma mater with loving free time, living in a suburb near the inner city. The late 1980s was a time in which the racial division of the group areas act was thoughts, this stone is a remembrance of the school whose collapsing in inner city areas. “I had no space, I went all over… If God says I must go to Braamfontein, I go to Braamfontein to vitality will live beyond 1958 when it was razed to the ground. preach, if he says I must go to Denver, I go to Denver. When you preach Gospel, God gives you a space only, not people.” In May God Bless us all. Unveiled by the Mayor and Mayoress the 1990s he was employed by the Church to establish a branch in the city, but for the following decade they had no permanent of Greater Johannesburg, Counsellor and Mrs. Mogase on 7 base, until finally in 2009 they settled into the building which they presently rent, though they still wish to one day purchase March 1998.” their own building. Bettina Malcolmess and Matthew Wilhelm-Solomon “It is important to have a physical space. If you haven’t got a physical space for the Church, people have no chance to repent, because if you have no place, they will ask you where are you from? Where is your Church? The street is the street, a house is a house.” Remaining chapel of St. Thomas College. On site of fromer Village Main Mine next to Mooi street onramp on opposite side of highway, 2014 Photographs: Bettina Malcomess Title deed of Erf 97 obtained from Deeds Office, Pritchard Street Islam in South Africa has been loosely organised around two main threads: Malay Muslims from south-east Asia who committee and enrolment is mostly along ethnic lines. Many predominantly settled in the Cape in the 17th and 18th centuries, and in the interior and east coast by migrants from South Asia Somali families spoke of being rejected by South African from the 19th century onward. In Mayfair and Fordsburg, most Muslims, shared a common ethnic identity, came from a similar madressas, other migrants were excluded based on failing linguistic group (Gujerati or Urdu), sect (sunni), and followed a particular scholarly tradition (overwhelmingly Hanafi). However language entry tests or financial exclusion. This led to some the arrival of international migrants from the early 1990s has changed the religious landscape. This is more evident in migrant mosques establishing their own madressa. A Somali Fordsburg, where Muslims from Somalia, Malawi, Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Turkey and many parts of mosque in Mayfair, offers lessons in Somali and Arabic lessons India are found. This new group of Muslims have diverse linguistic backgrounds, sects (Salafi, Sufi, Shite), and schools of to Somali children. Aside from providing a physical space for thought (Shafi, Deoband). Invariably this has resulted in new mosques being built, diverse forms of worship, different religious people to worship, the new mosques also fulfil other roles. schools, and new traditions. The plurality of Islam is unmistakable; indeed its visible forms are apparent in public spaces in Somali mosques offer crèche facilities for families in the area Fordsburg and in the different types of mosques that are now available. and hold regular fundraising drives for Somalis in South Africa and in Somalia. This differs significantly from local mosques Migrants arriving in Fordsburg and Mayfair in the early 1990s found a number of long-established and well-funded mosques which largely distance themselves from social activities, in the area. Two of the most prominent ones were the Jum’ah Mosque in Hanover Street and the Newtown Mosque adjacent concentrating instead on a strictly defined to the Oriental Plaza. Twenty years later, at least the same number of new mosques are found. On the one hand, the rise in the spiritual agenda. number of mosques can be linked to the increase in the population of the area, especially in the number of men. But it goes beyond numbers. It’s not uncommon to find newer mosques nestled alongside older ones, representing the different schools of Islam and different types of worship by migrants. On a practical level the emergence of new mosques means that migrants can attend Friday services, or the Jum’uah prayer, in a language they are familiar with. Although the core of the prayer is conducted globally in Arabic, the short sermon preceding it and the prayer following it is often done in a local language. In Fordsburg and Mayfair, established mosques have stubbornly stuck to Arabic with bits of Urdu thrown in, isolating most migrants and probably many locals too. In some of the new mosques in Fordsburg, imams offer these services in Somali, or Urdu. Even where language is not a barrier, as in the case of Paksitani or Indian migrants, they face other obstacles to full participation. One tension is that of different interpretations of Islam and consequently types of worship are deemed by the prevailing local religious scholars as bidah, meaning ‘innovation’, and thus considered forbidden. Most mosques have madressa, or religious education for children. These are private ventures governed by a parent-teacher and mosque board Zaheera Jinnah and Pragna Rugunanan Mayfair Jumu’ah Mosque, Hanover Street, Mayfair, 2014 Photographs by: Shogan Naidoo For practising Hindu migrants and South African Indian traders in Fordsburg, a prayer shrine set up in their workspaces is used At the Mayfair Cultural Centre, a room is set aside as a space to invoke the blessings of Laxmi, the goddess of wealth. One of the central tenants of Hinduism is the emphasis placed on of formal worship as in a mandir. The murtis and images on religious practices and forms of worship in everyday life. Festivals and rituals serve as markers through which Hindu identity is the wall enhance the sacred atmosphere and attention to relayed, in turn, promoting social cohesion. Rituals include daily worship in the home, the recital of scriptures, enactment of worship. Prayer meetings take place once a week but regular festivals and religious performances. The mandir (temple) is a structure representing the living body of the deity. The Supreme attendance varies. The prayer room is also used by various Being manifests Himself in the mandir through a murti (image that is considered divine once consecrated). BAPS Shri Hindu sects on different days of the week. Swaminarayan Mandir is a depiction of a traditional place of worship constructed along ancient Vedic architectural texts. All footwear must be removed before entering a mandir as it is a sacred place of worship. Pragna Rugunanan and Zaheera Jinnah As devotees enter the mandir, they ring the bell hung in the area preceding the inner sanctum of the mandir announcing their arrival to prayer and as a form of invocation to the deity. The practices in the home and businesses start with worship in the form of morning (shangar) worship and ends with evening (sandhya) worship. This involves the lighting of the lamp in front of the murti together with an offering of flowers, fruit and milk, and the burning of incense. BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir Gothards Street, Mayfair West, 2014 Photographs: Shogan Naidoo Mayfair Cultural Centre, 9th Avenue Mayfair, 2014 Photographs by: Shogan Naidoo Untitled, 2014 Photographs: Sabelo Mlangeni Clothed, 2010 Simangele Kalisa On one side of 7th Avenue is a large brick edifice, and near its main entrance is a permanent people they just appoint people to become a pastor, no studying or anything. Yeah, the sign that reads Evangelical Lutheran Church in Southern Africa. A low, sturdy wall surrounds question of how do we bridge the gap… how do we be on the same level with them? I the property with enough space for a few cars to park on Sunday morning. The building associate with the Methodist pastor, the Anglican pastor, I’ve never… with these pastors of was sponsored by international denominational funds at least 30 years ago and the one- to these traditional African churches. Maybe we need to begin to [indiscriminate] and say how do two-hour worship service is filled with spirited singing, one preacher preaching in Tswana, an we… And the problem is these pastors of these traditional churches, you’ll find that they grew offering, and announcements. Fifty people in their Sunday best line the pews in neat rows with up here. We pastors of the mainline churches, we are not from here – we come from different an aisle down the middle. The road along the north side of the church is paved and the road places- our church brings us here, you see. So they are more informed, they are well known, in front of the church consists of packed dirt; both are large enough to fit two-way traffic and we are strangers here. We came here because we are sent by our church. That’s the thing “ accommodate the many pedestrians that frequent the streets. The church sits on a small plot (Pastor Om Gomad, interview, Dec. 10, 2011). that butts-up against other plots to the west and south. In Alexandra, few buildings can boast such abundant space and sturdy construction. This church, like many of the mainline churches in Alexandra, is part of a transnational denomination, although their leadership is local and Becca Hartman-Pickerill regional. The pastor of this Lutheran church was transferred to Alexandra by denominational leadership the year before. When asked if he interacts with other church leaders in Alexandra the pastor responded: “we’ve got those pastors of what you called the African Independent or African Initiated Churches, and we’ve got pastors from what you would call the mainline churches. So we’ve got a challenge to say, we pastors of the mainline churches, we went to school, we studied, we are educated, we can do a whole lot of things. These other pastors, you know, the Eleanor Street, Troyeville, 2014 Photographs: Bettina Malcomess Signage (various locations), 2013-2015 The Marban Christian shop has been for some time the only and the shop does not really make a profit. According to Pastor Ben, he does not draw a salary, but keeps prices down via a remaining trader inside the Old Arcade that runs between kind of ‘gentlemen’s agreement’; he bemoans that churches are no longer subsidized by the current government “as they were Commissioner and Albertina Sisulu (formerly Market) streets. under apartheid”. The shop was asked to move several years ago, but he had refused, explaining that he would only move if A somewhat otherworldly presence inside what is God asked him to move. The gutted arcade is currently under renovation and the shop has been allocated space on one of the Johannesburg’s oldest arcade, itself a kind of a shell of its upper levels, where the Economic Freedom Fighters are renting offices. previous glamorous incanarnations in 1892 and 1960. The shop has been run for 20 years by Pastor Ben Erasmus, and caters for a diverse range of Christian denominations: Ben is often called upon as a healer and for blessings, and it is from this ‘work’ alongside his business that he survives through Anglican, Catholic, Methodist, African Initiated Churches, ‘offerings’ as opposed to tithes. In fact, within the space of Marban, there is a continual slippage between the orders of the Pentecostal and Apostolic. A modest stock of gowns with spiritual and the economic. Ben’s assistant, she, attests to a story of how on some mornings when the shop was too quiet, different detailing, white, blue, burgundy; candles of varying they had prayed and half an hour later it would get busy; she is paid daily. Ben tells the story of an experience over an Easter shapes, colours and symbolism; bibles in isiZulu, seSotho, weekend, “I had said the whole morning, something will happen today.” At 3pm, a woman who could hardly walk had entered isiXhosa, holy oils and Christian figurines. The shop’s number the shop, telling them she had cancer and had 3 months to live. She asked for holy oil and a spoon. She drank two tablespoons one seller is communion wine and ‘bread’ (small disc shaped and poured the rest of the bottle over herself, making a pool on the red carpet, placed her hands on the counter, folded as if wafer biscuits); they also stock anointing oil from Israel. Ben in prayer. Pastor Ben had held her hands and said: “Be healed in Jesus’ name”. He described how a quietness descended over explains that they bless everything sold, to “break any everything, and that she had stood up, and was in fact ‘cured’. This scene and her healing had caused quite a commotion in the bondage on it and set it free’”. Everything is locally made, arcade, but Ben refused this fame, saying “I am what I am by the Grace of God.” Bettina Malcomess Marban Christian Shop. The Old Arcade, 100 Market/Albertina Sisulu Street, entrance on Commissioner Street. Pastor Ben Erasmus, 2014 Photographs: Bettina Malcomess Johannesburg’s economy is intimately connected to religion. A Mosque on Nugget street stretches its prayer times to accommodate the lunch hours of businesses and banks in the area. On almost every street in the inner city one finds bookshops and stalls selling leather bound bibles alongside books and guides for financial success, themselves punctuated by metaphors of salvation. Several street side stalls sell an array of religious badges alongside old embossed work badges and those of burial societies. Often the names of businesses and schools take on the colour of spirituality: Providence Academy, God’s Time Entertainment, Amazing Grace Hair Salon. Bettina Malcomess Lists of Book Titles and Products: The African New Testament and Psalms Prophetic Praying Using Salt Enough of Not Enough Operation Dry Up Waters The Magic Ladder to Riches The Master Key to Riches Think and Grow Rich How to interpret Dreams and Visions I Believe in Miracles He Came to Set the Captives Free Deliverance from Spirit Husband and Spirit Wife The 360 Degree Leader Deliverance Prayers My Well of Money Shall Not Dry Acidic Prayers Magnetic Prayer for Singles Stations of the Cross Hymns: Ancient and Modern Jesus stickers Missals Luminous crosses Holy Oil Leather Bound Bibles in various languages: siSwati seTswana isiZulu xiTsonga tsiVenda seSotho isiXhosa Bookshop on Fraser Street between Commissioner and Albertina Sisulu / Market streets. We meet Prophet Tshabala in the gardens of Turffontein. We this man; it can take my vision back from his birth, sit at a table outside the gambling hall, eating our McDonalds background and show me when the problem came. I am and chatting about football. Tshabala, an Orlando Pirates fan, praying for this man and it changes my vision … I will see the complains about their poor season and losing the Premier problem.” League to their bitter rivals, Kaizer Chiefs. Alongside us, lines of men place bets. Everywhere in this city prophecy and The role of the prophet, he explains, is also to tell the future, gambling seem to have an intimate relationship. or at least possible futures, and also to advise on the better paths. The prophet hence serves the role of both the conduit Tshabala came to South Africa via Botswana in 2002. While in for God, the healer, and the oracle. Tshabala does not make the city, he started his solitary wanderings along its ridges, money from his prophecy and continues to work helping his minedumps and highways, looking for a place of prayer. As brother transport goods back and forth from Zimbabwe. He a teenager in Zimbabwe he had followed the Zionists to the says his church, “The Church of Christ In Zion, is a church of mountains of Plumtree, where he took part in their the poor, and composed mainly of migrants, many in search steaming rituals and prayer - it was here where he had of work, for whom prosperity and health are important.” discovered his powers of prophecy. Eventually Tshabala Prophet Mzilani’s practice in Hillbrow is an integration of the found a job in Booysens in a factory manufacturing pressure principles of herbal healing with the prayers and rituals of valves where he worked for four years. He moved to Zionist Christianity, though he is not a member of any church. Rosettenville where he continued his searching along its He claims to have both angels and ancestors speaking to koppies and hillocks. He found Zionists conducting steam him. bathing alongside the mountain and joined them. These high and hilly areas which call up associations with the mountains “I tell people the truth. Sometimes I tell them, and mountainsides of Old Testament revelation, have ‘You don’t have bad luck. It’s only that the time we are living particular power for churches and prophets in the city. in now is a challenging time, because a lot of people are educated, a lot of people have academic certificates, they’ve “I was always watching the mountain. When I was off Above: Prophet Tshabala. 2013 Photograph: Delwyn Verasamy, courtesy of Mail and Guardian Right: Prophet Mzilani. Hillbrow. 2013 Photograph: Matthew Wilhelm-Solomon got diplomas, you see. Some of the people need experience I went on top of the mountain to pray by myself. I saw smoke when they employ you. It’s difficult. Just continue looking for and went to investigate whether there was steam bathing. I a job and one day, you will have the luck to get the job you went to them,” says Tshabalala. “I did not tell them that I am want”. But not all those who consult him have such pragmatic a prophet, I just prayed with them and said that I wanted to difficulties. “The biggest problem is that people have be prophesied. They only saw when we were demons, because demons are working very hard to block praying that I am a prophet,” he says. A prophet speaks somebody’s way.” directly to God,” he explains. “He hears the voice of God. It will be in tongues. You will be asking what the problem is. It changes the language … It also changes my language when I am talking, exchanging words. It’s like when I am talking to Matthew Wilhelm-Solomon and Melekias Zulu The borders of the religious order in the city are constantly shifting and this is reflected in the They package oils and salts themselves, and buy from other suppliers and even competitors. forms of commodities that circulate. North across the M2 is the Farraday traditional healers The salts are basically “salts mixed with colour. We look to get the right mixture so the colour market which sells a variety of muti or medicine using both herbs and animal parts, and stands out, but obviously you can’t put too much colour”. The ‘factory’ is upstairs. Although a surrounded by an informal taxi rank. Further down the road is the shop Muti Man, run by a lot of their regular customers are sangoma’s, they don’t consult with them. He states that one local family. It started as a family grocery stores, but in the early 2000s the family started of their own employees is a Zulu man: “they have decent knowledge about the products. He introducing religious and medicinal products into the store, and it grew to be their major knew a lot more than we do, but you learn” business. Bhavesa Ravjee, one of the owners explains: The store reveals the overlay between traditional religions, Christianity, Hinduism and the ‘We were just a supermarket. In 2004, 2005 my father introduced a few of these products, and it just picked up. Now even if you go to small stores, they will have a few salts global circulation of religious commodities with many of the products being imported from India. and stametas (like a body cleaner). In 2011, the shop became Muti Man. Now, its become a big portion of the business, now its almost 1:1. There are people that come from all over. A lot of people from Mozambique, not too many Nigerians and Congolose, more Southern Africa. Bettina Malcomess and Matthew Wilhelm-Solomon Also people from Eastern Cape. And we also do wholesaling. Farraday taxi rank has a muti market, so obviously you get people coming to the area, because they know they will find these products, like Diagonal Street. Farraday’s been there over 15/20 years. In terms of sale of these products, you don’t need any permits. If you’re talking about animal skin, you need permits, but I don’t sell that stuff. ‘ Muti Man General Trading Store, Von Weilligh Street, 2014 Photographs: Bettina Malcomess On the edge of the M2 highway, where the city meets the unnatural The only available title deed for the Village Main mine, Erf 51, landscape formed by massive tailings dams, at the remaining base revealed that in 1923, ownership had been transferred from the of one of the city’s oldest deep levels mines, Village Main, several Village Main Reef Gold Mining Company to the Vicar Apostolic of the groups of worshippers wearing white robes can be seen on Johannesburg Vicriate of The Roman Catholic Church. We found the Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays. These are almost all groups of John remaining structure of this church across the highway: a red Masowe and John Marange churches. pitch-roofed chapel. While the surface is the property of the church, mineral rites below were retained by the mine, and the title deed Two members of a John Masowe church who meet on the grass- assured the mine’s lack of responsibility for the instability of the covered bank alongside the old mine shaft explain that they came surface. In fact the new owners of the land, DRD Gold, have begun to use this embankment because they had felt unsafe on what they re-mining the uranium-rich surface deposits in the area and in 2010 an described as ‘the mountain’ across the road (in fact a mine dump)– illegal miner died on falling into the old shaft, which reaches levels of many members had fallen victim to crime. They worship for a 24-hour almost 3km deep. On the surface, illegal miners (many of whom are period every Thursday from 3pm in the afternoon until 3pm on Friday, themselves migrants) compete for this unstable, mineral-rich and as they regard this time as their sabbath. They are also visible on toxic surface with Christian Apostolics, traditional healers and Sundays, along with many other Masowe groups who populate the diviners, as well as criminals and private security personnel, and we area. The holy spirit is central to their beliefs, and that they do not should add ourselves, as researchers, to this list of competitors. Here use the Bible, but that any member of the meeting can be filled we are presented with a strange confluence of the mysterious and the with the holy spirit at any time and can preach. “It is easy to tell true economic, in the site’s physical relationship to the subterranean from false by the sound of the voice. The spirit provides visions and deposits of gold and in its contested ownership. prophesies.” Bettina Malcomess and Matthew Wilhelm-Solomon Site of former Village Main Mine, Wemmer Pan Road, shot from M2 highway onramp (Joe Slovo Drive / bridge 6) Winter, 2014 Photographs: Bettina Malcomess Extended site of former Village Main Mine and Tailings Dams, Wemmer Pan Road, Summer, 2014 Photographs: Bettina Malcomess Walking through the stretch of former mining land along the Wemmer Pan road, one encounters evidence of several kinds of In an interview with a member of one of the Masowe churches worship and rituals, from Sangomas and Nyangas using orange peel and eggs to evidence of fires and areas demarcated with worshipping on the tailings dams around the site of the stones. Village Main Mine, we were told that a site is marked at each corner with a few small stones. Mary (not her real name) called The uniform of the John Masowe churches consists of white gowns for both men and women. They worship without shoes, the stones ‘preventers’, hardly noticeable to the passer-by. belts, watches and cell phones on them as this is viewed as interfering with the descending of the Holy Spirit. The many Across the road more obvious markings, such as stones different Masowe groups are mostly populated by Zimbabwean migrants although often times, other nationalities do come to painted white and even a large cross made of stones are seek help from the prophets. A place of worship cannot simply be chosen out of the available land, the exact location needs visible. Mary had come to Johannesburg from Bulawayo in to be revealed by the Holy Spirit through prophets. After the Holy Spirit has revealed an appropriate place, the performance 2008, when the economy in Zimbabwe had collapsed. She of sacralization rituals involves the marking and spiritual separation of the sacred from profane land. There is a general belief described how her conversion to the Masowe church was among respondents that the bush is an abode of evil spirits that the groups need to get rid of. Usually the first step involves defined by the healing of an illness. She described how the a night vigil and strong prayer to spiritually claim and take over the place from contrary spirits. As one member said: “If there prophet had put a stone inside the water in a plastic bottle is something wrong in this place, we will definitely know through the spirit (it will be revealed to the prophets). We pray and and that when she drank the water her ‘pain’ had passed out sprinkle water around to cleanse the place.” of her. Afterwards, it is the process of cleaning the place by removing dirt. One cannot start by removing the dirt before they spiritually Peter Kankonde Bukasa, Lorena Núñez Carrasco, Melekias possess the space by ritually chasing the former evil dwellers. The preparation for this kind of spiritual encounter requires days Zulu, Matthew Wilhelm-Solomon of fasting, retreat and abstinence from sexual activities and other daily concerns of life prior to the performance of the ritual. This step is followed by digging a hole and placing salt within it. Besides salt, sometimes sheep’s tail can also be added in the hole and covered with soil. Traditionally the Nguni of southern Africa use sheep tails as amulets to strengthen their homes in order to withstand witchcraft attacks. After this ritual, a circle of hot ashes is drawn within the limit of cleared space; three prophets gather around it with a bucket of water in the middle. One mixes coarse salt in the water and then they start to pray over the water, simultaneously sprinkling it around. Village Main Mine, erf 96/7, The Mine was established in 1896, and became one of the first Deep Levels Mines along the Witwatersrand Gold Reef Untitled, 2014 Photographs: Sabelo Mlangeni Since the year 2010, Zionist and Apostolic groups have become visible along the principal roads leading to Johannesburg The local prophets confirmed to have seen that the place has south. These groups, identifiable by their white-blue or white-green uniforms, have also started ‘sacralizing’ some of the ‘no go been de-sacralized through ‘evil’ rituals. The Inyanga had areas’ of bushes around the disused mine shafts and dumps or the landmark Wemmer Pan Lake and its surrounding recreation- allegedly performed rituals and taken soil from the ground al precinct. Practitioners of traditional African religion can also often be spotted, identifiable by their traditional attire and red, with the purpose of weakening and demolishing the place. black and white cloth, performing cleansing rituals for their clients. That day, the group spent the morning demolishing and rebuilding the steaming bathing hut and performing the The site looks perfectly chosen to recreate the original retreat setting of John the Baptist: one has to walk deep inside the bush spiritual cleansing rituals anew. They were particularly to discover the group. The vacant land is highly contested and is at the centre of religious competition between the various instructed to put herbs in the hole, different colours of cords religious practitioners operating there. In fact, the presence of these prophets offering healing and prophecy free of charge has and vimbela, a form of isiwatsho or dyed salts used for disrupted the local political economy of spiritual healing in the area resulting in disputes and attacks. protection. One of the groups had to rebuild their steam bathing hut after a visiting prophetess instructed them to undo the devil Lorena Núñez Carrasco and Peter Kankonde Bukasa influence at the site as a result of a ritual performed in this place by an inyanga in their absence. She informed the group member that an Inyanga has done evil on their site. Rebuilding of Steam Hut at Wemmer Pan, 2013 Photographs: Peter Kankonde Bukasa Map of churches along the former Village Main Mine, Wemmer Pan and surrounding areas By Melekias Zulu An alleged carbon monoxide leak in an abandoned gold mine shaft had suffocated to death twenty-five (twenty-three from Zimbabwe) illegal miners (or zama-zamas as they are generally known). The team of professional rescuers called to the site managed to retrieve just one body and decided to discontinue the search for other bodies explaining that it was too dangerous as the levels of carbon monoxide in the shaft were too high. The rescuers’ assessment of the risk corroborated two survivors’ accounts that before the zamazama started feeling choked and weak, they first saw a smoke-like substance that created a kind of mist which obfuscated their vision. Convinced that the matter had gone beyond ‘the ordinary’, anxious family members rather than looking for an alternative professional rescue team, went around the nearby townships desperately seeking for assistance from a Zimbabwean traditional healer Rachel Ncube to ‘spiritually manage’ the rescue operation to retrieve the bodies. Ma Rachel, assisted by a Zionist prophet who had also lost a relative in the incident, performed special traditional religious rituals aimed at protecting volunteer family members in the deadly underground. After three days at the site, Ncube told family members when it was finally safe to enter the rough tunnel dug by the zamazama. She was also able to locate the bodies of the deceased with a fair degree of accuracy. A few days later, when the levels of noxious gases had increased again, she warned relatives not to return to the shafts. Some miners had not heeded her warning, but quickly returned to the surface afflicted with severe coughing and running eyes. Peter Kankonde Bukasa Roodepoort Deep, informal mine entrance, Rachel Ncube, 2013 Photographs: Peter Kankonde Bukasa To die away from ‘home’ or to die an un-grieved death without proper burial, is for many African migrants, to risk metaphysical itinerancy – to risk remaining ad infinitum in the place of death. According to most African beliefs when burial occurs anywhere other than a home village or town, it is considered a burial out of place, tantamount to physical, social and spiritual disconnection. In Johannesburg, this fear gives rise to extensive economies of death, economies based on the need to deal with bodies and their spirits. This involves burial societies; repatriating funeral parlours; transporters; families – a host of agents revolving around the risks involved in a death out of place. The role of funeral parlours has been identified as central in the business of providing funeral services and transport back to their homes for internal migrants as well as to foreign migrants, by offering funeral repatriation services. Many local burials, however, are not of the migrants volition but result from a lack of documentation. Such bodies are handled as paupers and are processed by the South African Police Services before being passed over to City Parks who allocate graves. Paupers comprise individuals whose bodies remain unclaimed in government mortuaries, and the law obliges the municipalities to bury as paupers any such bodies that remain unclaimed for over 30 days. The paradox of many foreign migrants is that they only obtain legal documentation at the moment of death. Funeral parlours become mediators in the relationship with the state through their specific role in obtaining the documentation for undocumented migrants. By assisting in acquiring legal status, parlours are instrumental in obtaining the right to ‘reside’ for the deceased migrant – or the right to be buried in South Africa. Paradoxically it is in death and at the point of burial that the undocumented foreign migrant finally ‘belongs’ within the South African state. Lorena Núñez Carrasco, Matthew Wilhelm-Solomon, Khangelani Moyo and Tsepang Leuta Body Paths #1, 2, 3: Maps produced for Chimurenga Chronic April 2013 Design: Graeme Arendse The African Hebrew Israelites of Jerusalem is a black hebrew group that originated in the ghettos of South Side Chicago, and Cities are viewed as spiritually polluting and dangerous, and left the United States in 1967 after their Messiah, Ben Ammi, had a vision, where the angel Gabriel spoke to him and told him another Israelite who met Cohen in Joubert Park was that he was to return his people, the children of Israel, back to Africa. The group, consisting of approximately 300 individuals Mikayahel, a migrant worker from Zimbabwe. He explained from Chicago, first left to Libreria, eventually settling in Dimona, Israel where they have established the Kingdom of God. The how at the time he started attending the meetings of Cohen, task of spreading the gospel to the rest of Africa, or Eden as the Israelites term it was given to a man named Cohen Shaul, a several other spiritual and religious communities were using South African musician who had spent almost 20 years abroad. Joubert Park to preach and recruit members. The Israelites used the park as a place of worship between 1996 till 2002. Religious movements and ideas travelling transnationally to and from South Africa are not new, both the Zionist churches and Mikayahel also explained how the Universal Church of the other Israelite movements like the Church of God, Saints of Christ were established in South Africa in part because of American Kingdom of God used the park as a venue for their gospel. influence. He said they were putting on a big show, bringing loudspeakers into the park, and then the municipality In South Africa today there are several hundred Israelites, including the Johannesburg area where there are approximately 50. eventually banned these kinds of congregations. Most of the members are in between the ages of 18 and 35, with many young children, and a few seniors. There are a few more men than women, and most of the members come from either middle-class or working-class backgrounds. The Israelites are In order to pursue full salvation and physical immortality, the continually embedded in a transnational network between Israel and South Africa. Israelites have to leave the cities and settle in the rural areas. Cohen Shaul returned to Johannesburg in 1996: Along with restrictive by-laws this prompted the decision in the late 2000s’ to go in the opposite direction of most “When I come up in Joubert Park I will find them already waiting for me under the tree, you know, and I gave them the name of the tree, this is the brotherhood tree, this one. We belong here; this is where we sit every day.” migration and flows of urbanization. They established Selepe Restoration Village in Selepe, North West Province, and is today a small, thriving community. Most neighbours are cattle However, religious competition for space in Joubert Park evolved in such a manner that it eventually came into conflict with the farmers, or commute to work in the nearby villages, or are general population of Johannesburg and the secular municipality, and their ideas regarding “public open spaces”. Laws were retired and live of welfare benefits. The area where the being enforced banning the use of “municipal property in a way that unfairly restricts or prevents other users of the public restoration village is situated is not much larger than a open space from enjoying that municipal property”. football field. It contains a main house, built in the local style with bricks and a metal roof and a so-called eco-dome house. Bjørn Inge Sjødin Various sites in Johannesburg and Selepe Restoration Village, 2012-2013 Photographs: Bjørn Inge Sjødin In the 1930s, in the mountains of KwaZulu-Natal, the prophet Isaiah Shembe founded the Nazareth Church at a time when rural life was being profoundly disrupted to supply white capital’s demand for labour. It was to become one of the largest churches in this country. In Johannesburg worshippers (known as the amaNazaretha or simply Shembe) gather outside the Doornfontein train station, near Ellis Park, which is one of the controversial investments of the 2010 Football World Cup. The mournful and trance-like chanting and song of the amaNazaretha, or wedding dances, mingle on Saturdays with the noises of passing travellers. Matthew Wilhelm-Solomon Shembe service outside Doornfontein Station, 2014 Photographs: Marisa Maza (Top left and bottom row) Matthew Wilhelm-Solomon (Top right) Untitled (Street Portraits). 2014 Photographs: Thabiso Sekgala Acknowledgements: Visual Publication Editor This project was initiated and funded by the “Super-Diversity, South Africa” project of the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity. Thank you to Steve Vertovec, Robin Cohen and Loren Landau for their support in the conception of this project. This project is hosted by the Religion & Migration Initiative of the African Centre for Migration & Society, University of the Witwatersrand. However it includes contributors from a wide variety of institutions, who are listed in the contributor section. Bettina Malcomess We would like to thank the all photographers and artists who made work for this publication or gave us permission to use their images, along with all the writers and researchers involved. Thanks also goes to the Mail and Guardian, part of the text was adapted from “Prophets of the City” by Matthew Wilhelm-Solomon published in the MPI funded project Writing Invisibility: Conversations on the Hidden City, and published in collaboration with the Mail & Guardian. Thank you Wits Division of Visual Arts for the support in the printing and design of the visual supplement. A special acknowledgement goes to Thabiso Sekgala who generously gave us his portraits before his untimely death. Thank you, in particular to Adriana Cunha for her continued and valued input into this project, for her guidance in the city and for facilitating the Shembe shoot in Doornfontein. A special thank you to Melekias Zulu for his insights, our walks and conversations in the city and on its edges have been a very important part of this project’s formation. Finally, thank you to all those who were willing to share their time and talk with us about their very personal experiences of religion and spiritual life in Johannesburg. Book Editorial Team Matthew Wilhelm-Solomon Lorena Núñez Carrasco Peter Kankonde Bukasa Bettina Malcomess Authors Bettina Malcomess Wits School of Arts, Division of Visual Arts (DIVA), lecturer Matthew Wilhelm-Solomon African Centre for Migration & Society (ACMS), researcher, Wits, Routes and Rites Project leader Peter Kankonde Bukasa Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious of Ethnic Diversity, researcher Lorena Núñez Carrasco, Department of Sociology, Wits, Lecturer Elina Hankela Research Institute for Theology and Religion, University of South Africa and Faculty of Theology, University of Helsinki Eric Worby Director of the Graduate Centre of the Humanities, Wits Melekias Zulu African Centre for Migration & Society, PhD candidate, Wits Alex Wafer Department of Geography, Lecturer, Wits Zaheera Jinnah African Centre for Migration & Society, Researcher Pragna Rugunanan University of Johannesburg, Lecturer Becca Hartman-Pickerill Independent writer and editor; Executive Office Manager at the Interfaith Youth Core Bjørn Inge Sjødin Department of Social Anthropology, University of Oslo Khangelani Moyo Department of Architecture and Planning, PhD candidate, Wits Tsepang Leuta Department of Architecture and Planning, PhD candidate, Wits Photographers Sabelo Mlangeni Shogan Naidoo Olivia Shihambe Dean Hutton Bettina Malcomess Simangele Kalisa Marisa Maza Delwyn Verasamy Design and Layout Bettina Malcomess with Robert Machiri Natalie Edwards Published by the African Centre for Migration and Society (ACMS), University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg and the Max Planck Institute for the study of religious and ethnic diversity (MPI-MMG) Super Diversity South Africa Project Printed by Four Colour Print Johannesburg 2015 Authors and photographers, unless otherwise noted, retain copyright of their respective contributions. ISBN: 978-0-620-66067-9 Visual Editor: Bettina Malcomess Editors: Matthew Wilhelm-Solomon, Lorena Núñez Carrasco Peter Kankonde Bukasa