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- Title
"Winning the Place for Jesus": A Relational Perspective on Pentecostal Mission Encounters in Madagascar.
- Authors
Spies, Eva
- Abstract
In reference to theoretical approaches by Tim Ingold, Doreen Massey and Christopher Powell, the contribution develops a relational perspective on place and missionary practices in Madagascar. The article focuses on current South-South mission contacts and the attempts of a Malagasy pastor to establish a branch of his church in a small town in the central highlands: The pastor works for Winners'Chapel, a Pentecostal-charismatic church from Nigeria, and is tasked with "winning the place for Jesus". After numerous failures, a ritual is supposed to help him finally break connections with territorial spirits, renew the covenant of the inhabitants w ith God and bind himself to the local web of relationships. The article understands "place" not as a given entity, but as an emerging and changing product of relational processes. A place is therefore not a pre-set arena for stories, identities and encounters that are bound to it or take place in it. Rather, place constitutes itself as a dynamic meshwork of relationships through different practices of relating. In this way, place comes into being as a taking place of relations. Finally, the article shows that a relational perspective not only invites us to take a new look at the "objects" of ethnographic research, but also at academic knowledge production itself.
- Subjects
PENTECOSTAL churches; PENTECOSTALISM; INGOLD, Tim; PENTECOSTAL doctrines; CHRISTIAN missionaries
- Publication
Comparativ: Leipziger Beiträge zur Universalgeschichte und Vergleichenden Gesellschaftsforschung, 2018, Vol 28, Issue 2, p86
- ISSN
0940-3566
- Publication type
Article