Violent Conversion: Brazilian Pentecostalism and Urban Women in Mozambique (Religion in Transforming Africa, 1) 1847011527, 9781847011527

Citation preview

RELIGION IN TRANSFORMING AFRICA

There has been an extraordinary growth in Pentecostalism in Africa, with Brazilian Pentecostals establishing new transnational Christian connections, initiating widespread changes not only in religious practice but in society. This book describes its rise in Maputo, capital of Mozambique, and the sometimes dramatic impact of Pentecostalism on women. Here large numbers of urban women are taking advantage of the opportunities Pentecostalism offers to overcome restrictions at home, pioneer new life spaces and change their lives through the power of the Holy Spirit. Yet, conversion can also mean a violent rupturing with tradition, with family and with social networks. As the pastors encourage women to cut their ties with the past, including ancestral spirits, they come to see their kin and husbands as imbued with evil powers, and many leave their families. Conquering spheres that used to be forbidden to them, they often live alone as unmarried women, sometimes earning more than men of a similar age. They are also expected to donate huge sums to the churches, often money that they can ill afford, bringing new hardships.

Cover photograph: ‘Go out evil spirit, go out’, God is Love church, Maputo, 2006 (reproduced by kind permission of the photographer © Rufus de Vries)

ISBN 978-1-84701-152-7

9 781847 011527 >

LINDA VAN DE KAMP

Linda van de Kamp is Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

Violent Conversion 

‘an important contribution to the field of Pentecostal Studies and the Study of Religions in Africa. … it sheds new light on the often monochromatic discussion of Pentecostalism and gender, by tracing in detail how Pentecostal answers to issues of partnership, sexuality and fidelity can be both liberating and inhibiting.’ Jörg Haustein, Senior Lecturer in Religions in Africa, SOAS

Violent Conversion Brazilian Pentecostalism and Urban Women in Mozambique LINDA VAN DE KAMP RELIGION IN TRANSFORMING AFRICA

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Violent Conversion Brazilian Pentecostalism and Urban Women in Mozambique

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Series information: RELIGION IN TR ANSFORMING AFRIC A

ISSN 2398-8673 Series Editors Barbara Bompani, Joseph Hellweg and Emma Wild-Wood Editorial Reading Panel Dianna Bell (Vanderbilt University) Ezra Chitando (University of Zimbabwe) Martha Frederiks (Utrecht University) Paul Gifford (SOAS) David M. Gordon (Bowdain College) Jörg Haustein (SOAS) Paul Lubeck ( Johns Hopkins University & University of California, Santa Cruz) Philomena Mwaura (Kenyatta University, Nairobi) Ebenezer Obadare (University of Kansas) Benjamin Soares (Leiden University & University of Amsterdam) Abdulkader I. Tayob (University of Cape Town) Stephen Wooten (University of Oregon) Series description The series is open to submissions that examine local or regional realities on the complexities of religion and spirituality in Africa. Religion in Transforming Africa will showcase cuttingedge research into continent-wide issues on Christianity, Islam and other religions of Africa; Traditional beliefs and witchcraft; Religion, culture & society; History of religion, politics and power; Global networks and new missions; Religion in conflict and peace-building processes; Religion and development; Religious rituals and texts and their role in shaping religious ideologies and theologies. Innovative and challenging current perspectives, the books provide an indispensable resource on this key area of African Studies for academics, students, international policy-makers and development practitioners. Please contact the Series Editors with an outline or download the proposal form at www.jamescurrey.com. Dr Barbara Bompani, Director of the Centre of African Studies, Senior Lecturer in African Development, University of Edinburgh  [email protected] Dr Joseph Hellweg, Associate Professor of Religion, Department of Religion, Florida State University [email protected] Dr Emma Wild-Wood, Lecturer in World Christianities, Faculty of Divinity, University of Cambridge [email protected]

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Violent Conversion Brazilian Pentecostalism and Urban Women in Mozambique LINDA VAN DE KAMP

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James Currey is an imprint of Boydell & Brewer Ltd PO Box 9, Woodbridge Suffolk IP12 3DF (GB) www.jamescurrey.com and of Boydell & Brewer Inc. 668 Mt Hope Avenue Rochester, NY 14620-2731 (US) www.boydellandbrewer.com © Linda Van de Kamp 2016 First published 2016 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, or by electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publishers, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review. The right of Linda Van de Kamp to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available on request from the British Library ISBN 978–1–84701–152–7 ( James Currey cloth) The publisher has no responsibility for the continued existence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this book, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate This publication is printed on acid-free paper

Typeset by Double Dagger Book Production in 11/13pt Arno Pro

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Contents

List of Illustrations vii Acknowledgements ix Introduction Brazilian Pentecostalism in Maputo Pentecostalism, family and gender Pentecostalism, rupture and (in)security Pentecostalism, development and prosperity Pentecostal pioneering and violent conversion Research

1 4 16 20 22 24 31

1 Gender, Family and Social Transformations in Maputo

35 37 39 41 43 47 50 53

2 Transnational Spaces of Conquest

55 56 57 62 68 75 77



The reproduction of life Wage labour, migration and the colonial state Colonial Maputo: a man’s world Mother Africa and Father Marx The war Post-war Maputo: a feminising city? Conclusion: pioneering new lifestyles

Religion and mobility in southeastern Africa Christian churches and the Mozambican nation-state The transnational mobility of Pentecostalism South–South Pentecostalism and the Lusophone Atlantic Pioneering transnationally Conclusion: becoming Pentecostal ‘strangers’

3 Moving Frontiers: the Generational Trajectories of

Pentecostal Women Four generations of Pentecostal women 60 to 75 year olds: ‘it takes years of struggle’

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79 81 82

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CONTENTS



40 to 60 year olds: from Socialism to Pentecostalism 30 to 40 years olds: ‘we have to fight mental poverty’ 15 to 30 year olds: self-assured and confident Conclusion: the rupture of continued pioneering

4 Converting the Spirit Spouse



Socio-spiritual transformations The South–South transnational spirit of Pombagira Spirit spouse relations as communication Disconnecting the relational body Armed bodies Conclusion: violent transformation

85 89 92 97 103 104 110 114 117 124 127

5 Terapia Do Amor: Confrontational Public Love

131 Love, sexuality and marriage in Maputo 134 Romantic love, telenovelas and Brazilian pastors 137 Brazilian Pentecostal counselling 143 Terapia do amor 147 Transnational Pentecostal therapeutic reflections and actions 149 Realising love, disciplining the body 152 The violence of downplaying senses 159 Conclusion: a therapy of hate? 163

6 ‘Holy Bonfires’ and Campaigns

Burying life Money and changing dependencies Tithes, offerings and campaigns Business course Pentecostal aid: help yourself Conclusion: between failure and success

165 168 171 173 176 178 184



Conclusion: Violent Conversion Pentecostalism, family and gender Pentecostalism, rupture and (in)security Pentecostalism, development and prosperity

187 189 191 193

Bibliography 197 Index 227

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Illustrations



1 Universal Church at the start of the highway from Maputo to the north of the country 10 2 The construction of a new Universal Church building, Hulene, Maputo 13 3 Programme of services, Universal Church 13 4 Recording of television programme, TV Maná Moçambique 16 5 Avenue Eduardo Mondlane, Maputo 49 6 Neighbourhood Sommerschield, Maputo 96 7 Maná Church, Maputo 122 8 Universal Church, Maputo 123 9 Folha Mulher, page for women, Universal Church weekly paper 146 10 God is Love Church, Maputo 175 Photographs by Rufus de Vries

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Acknowledgements

Many people and institutions played a vital role in the research for and writing of this book. This book has its origins in the research programme ‘Conversion Careers and Culture Politics in Global Pentecostalism: A Comparative Study in Four Continents’. My research project in Mozambique was a part of this programme, which was led by André Droogers and Henri Gooren. I carried out the project from 2004 to 2010 in the department of Social and Cultural Anthropology at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and at the African Studies Centre, Leiden. The research programme was funded by the Future of the Religious Past Programme of the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO). My research in Mozambique received additional financial support from the Vrije Universiteit and the African Studies Centre. During the research, I benefited immensely from the encouragement and input of André Droogers and Rijk van Dijk. They supported me from the very beginning, and I am very grateful for their advice during the research and their helpful feedback on drafts of my texts. Rijk van Dijk introduced me to the study of religion in Africa. He stimulated my thinking and analysis by asking probing questions and opening new perspectives. I thank the senior staff, post-docs, PhD students and the support staff at the Vrije Universiteit and the African Studies Centre for their inspiration, time and support during the period of my research project. I greatly benefited from the meetings of the research group Conversion Careers; my thanks go to everyone there, and in particular to André Droogers, Henri Gooren, the late Anton Houtepen, Kim Knibbe, Marjo de Theije, Peter Versteeg and Marleen de Witte. A special word of thanks go to Birgit Meyer for her enthusiasm and encouragement, and to Miranda Klaver and Regien Smit for their friendship, support and the stimulating discussions we had. I also greatly enjoyed and benefited from the meetings of the Agency in Africa theme group at the African Studies Centre and later from the Connections and Transformations group. Special thanks go to Mirjam de Bruijn, Rijk van Dijk and everyone else who participated in them. My thanks also go to Blandina Kilama, Margot Leegwater, Walter Nkwi, Samuel Ntewusu, Lotte Pelckmans, Doreen Setume, Sebastiaan Soeters and Lotje de Vries.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Most of all, I am indebted to my Mozambican interlocutors. They all kindly found the time to share their experiences and life stories with me, and these shaped this study. For reasons of safety and in most cases at their own request, their names cannot be listed here, but I hope that they will recognise aspects of their own conversion in this book. I was helped by numerous persons and institutions in Mozambique, and I wish to thank them all here. The Centro de Estudos Africanos at the University Eduardo Mondlane kindly allowed me to be an affiliate, and I particularly acknowledge the support of Professor Teresa Cruz e Silva and the assistance of Hilario Dyuty and the library staff. I want to thank my colleagues in the Department of Archaeology and Anthropology for the discussions we had and the chance they gave me to present the preliminary results of my research in a seminar, and especially Júlio Langa for helping me with the focus group and doing some fieldwork with me. I also gratefully acknowledge the help provided by the Direcção Nacional de Assuntos Religiosos (National Religious Affairs Department) and the Conselho Cristão de Moçambique (Christian Council of Mozambique) with information about churches in Mozambique; the Forum Mulher and Women and Law in Southern Africa for organising a seminar about my research; Prometra and Narciso Mahumane for introducing me to local healers and allowing me to join their fieldwork trips; Job Massingue, Joice from Boane, Isaura and Cremildo from Patrice Lumumba and curandeiros from Maluana and Chibuto-Macalawane for the knowledge they shared with me about ‘tradition’, and particularly the ‘spirit spouse’; the Centre Ca Paz in Machava, Henny Slegh and Marcelina Chai Chai for involving me in the programme of psychosocial assistance in cases of sexual and domestic violence; the women’s group at one of the Assembly of God churches in São Damaso for all the Bible studies I attended and the conversations we had; Esmeralda Pelembe-Marsh for her useful contacts; Antonio Justino Gune for the Changana lessons; Lenilda Guimarães and Linda Mercer for demonstrating a different kind of Brazilian Christian involvement in Mozambique than I had become used to during my research; and Roel Borren, Kitty den Boogert, Esther Bouma, Hette Domburg, Petra Doorn, Josje van der Linden, the late José Lovane, Katie Magill, Gilberto Mahumane and Amélia Tamele, Sanna van Roosmalen, Francisco and Raquel Sevene and Anoquinha for all their hospitality and wonderful conversations at different moments during my fieldwork periods in February 2005, from August 2005 to 2007 and in the Mozambican winters of 2008 and 2011. I also gratefully acknowledge the contribution of many colleagues who kindly provided their time, expertise and contacts at various stages of my research and during the writing of this book: Manuel G. Mendes de Araújo, Joana Bahia, Rogério Batine, Bjørn Enge Bertelsen, Astrid Bochow, Jan van Butselaar, the late José Capela, Giulia Cavallo, Isaias Chachine, Catrine Christiansen, Francisco

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

xi

Coelho de Carvalho, Ana Bénard da Costa, Andrea Damacena Martins, Maria Frahm-Arp, Paul Freston, Paul Germond, Jan-Bart Gewald, Paulo Granjo, Naomi Haynes, Kristina Helgesson, Victor Igreja, Carolien Jacobs, Peggy Levitt, Elísio Macamo, the late Clara Mafra, Gilberto Mahumane, Sandra Manuel, Elisabeth Mareels, Ana Monteiro, Martijn Oosterbaan, Celeste Quintino, Ria Reis, João Rickli, Ramon Sarró, Gerhard Seibert, Bento Sitoe, Rachel Spronk, Jason Sumich, Claudia Swatowiski, Roelof and Renske van Til, Klaas van Walraven and Marílio Wane. This book was completed during the years I was based at the Department of Culture Studies, Tilburg University. I thank my colleagues in the research group Ritual in Society and in particular Herman Beck and Wouter van Beek for providing me with a comfortable academic working environment. I also thank Ann Reeves and Gail M. Zuckerwise for carefully correcting the English in this book and to Rufus de Vries for the beautiful photos. As part of the dissemination of the NWO programme on ‘The Future of the Religious Past’, photographer Rufus de Vries took pictures of the Mozambican research location in May 2006. They were exhibited at the international conference entitled ‘Conversion and Time in Global Pentecostalism: A Lifelong “Live” Experience’ that was held at the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam on 12 and 13 June 2008. Some of the exhibited photos can be found in this book and on the cover, though they do not correspond with those specifically discussed in the chapters. My thanks also go to Jaqueline Mitchell of James Currey for supporting the publication of this book and to the editorial and production staff for their work in making this book. I thank the anonymous reviewers and the editors of the series ‘Religion in Transforming Africa’ for all their helpful suggestions. Finally, I am grateful to my family and friends for their support, love and interest in my research. I thank my husband Peter Mulder from the bottom of my heart for accompanying me on my fieldwork in Mozambique and for helping me complete this book.

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Introduction

You want to change your Life? You have to be ‘Violent’! – Bishop Edir Macedo1

‘We are in war’ (Estamos em guerra), yells a pastor the first time that I enter a Brazilian Pentecostal church in 2005, in the centre of Maputo, the capital of Mozambique. Sounds of distorted guitars, crashing cymbals and crime thriller music play loudly. There are more than a thousand people present, mainly women, and they all start to stamp their feet on the floor crying, ‘go away, go away [demon], and never return’ (sai, sai, e volte nunca mais). Several women fall down on the floor. The pastor says they are possessed by evil spirits and asks everybody to direct their hands towards the women and scream ‘burn, burn, burn’ (queima, queima, queima) to drive the demons away forever. While Pentecostals generally stress that the world is a place of spiritual warfare between God and Satan, for women frequenting Brazilian Pentecostal churches in Maputo, this spiritual war appears to have become appropriated in particular ways. Women form the majority of the visitors to Brazilian Pentecostal churches in the city (see below). Throughout the 26 months I lived in Maputo, between 2005 and 2011, many women told me that a certain spirit obstructed their intimate relationships, and I noted that Brazilian Pentecostal pastors were exorcising a specific spirit or demon called the ‘husband of the night’ (marido da noite), ‘spiritual husband’ (marido espiritual) or spirit of Pombagira – an Afro-Brazilian spirit that personifies sexual ambiguities. The symptoms that women who are connected to such a spirit experience include having sexual intercourse without the physical presence of anyone, a lack of success in marriage and the sudden disappearance of their partners and/or disputes with them. If they are married, the relationship is tense, the husband is uninterested in his wife but instead ‘views her as his sister’, or the women do not conceive. In these situations the 1 Quer

mudar de Vida? Você tem que ser ‘Violento!’, Sermon at the Brazilian Universal Church of the Kingdom of God, 28 June 2014, http://aescolhidamt.blogspot. nl/2014/06/quer-mudar-de-vida-voce-tem-que-ser.html.

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Maputo women frequently turn to Brazilian Pentecostal churches where pastors fervently combat these and other ‘evil’ spirits. Pentecostalism is relatively new to Mozambique, where before independence from Portugal in 1975 the religious landscape was largely defined by traditional African religions, Islam, Catholicism, classic Protestantism and African Independent Churches (AICs). In the post-colonial era, however, Evangelicals and Pentecostals are of growing importance,2 and according to the last census (INE 2010) now represent 11 per cent of the total population (see below). This rapid growth is embodied in the new churches that come from Brazil and have sprung up in every neighbourhood in Maputo (Cruz e Silva 2003; Freston 2005). They are part of the new global brand of neo-Pentecostal Christianity that thrives in Africa, Latin America and Asia. These churches attract upwardly mobile urban middle-class women for whom Brazilian Pentecostalism, with its fervent connection with the Holy Spirit and its ‘Violent Conversion’, is fundamental to their lives. This book demonstrates why and how these women find the combative approach of Brazilian pastors towards ‘evil’ and Afro-Brazilian spirits, such as Pombagira, appealing. In doing so, it focuses on the interplay between the Afro-Brazilian spiritual war and gender issues in a city that has been experiencing intense socio-cultural, political and economic transformations through Portuguese colonialism (until 1974), during a period of socialism after independence (c. 1974–89), a civil war (c. 1976–92) and the introduction of neoliberal socio-economic and democratic structures (in the 1990s). The aims of the present book are twofold. First, it seeks to contribute to discussions relating to the role of Pentecostalism in processes of social transformation. Pentecostalism has mainly been approached as a response to globalisation. Through religious practices, people may give meaning to and be able to deal with the anxieties of neo-liberal capitalism and commoditisation (e.g. Comaroff and Comaroff 2000; Maxwell 1998; Meyer 1998a; Pfeiffer et al. 2007; Vásquez 2009). Many scholars also argue that Pentecostalism offers help and security in times of uncertainty and poverty (see Hunt 2002a, 2002b; Meyer 2007: 122; Robbins 2004: 124; van Dijk 2010). Conversion to Pentecostalism can also bring about personal empowerment and socio-economic development (Attanasi and Yong 2012; Berger 2009, 2010; Martin 2002). These views, which essentially stress the coping mechanisms of Pentecostalism, are challenged by observations regarding the Brazilian Pentecostal missionary presence in Southern Africa (van Wyk 2014; van de Kamp 2010). I argue that the Mozambican case demonstrates how the emergence of specific religious 2 Evangelicals emphasise a personal conversion experience, and Pentecostal Evangelicals

stress the importance of the additional reception of the Holy Spirit, such as speaking in tongues (Shibley 1998: 77).

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movements, such as Brazilian Pentecostalism in Maputo, should not be understood primarily as a reaction to social, political or economic forces and globalisation; instead, religious groups act on and actively shape these and alternative forces. This insight comes from observations of how Brazilian Pentecostal discourses and practices urge converts to fight for a better life by stressing that believers should not wait until ‘the global’ reaches them but should make and create it themselves by using ‘violence’: converts need to appropriate the Pentecostal techniques of breaking with kin, confronting local cultural forms of love and marriage and destroying local patterns of exchange. Pentecostal ideologies and practices involve a spiritual war in which Pentecostals are soldiers in the fight between God and the Devil, using spiritual forces of praying, fasting and tithing (see below). In this sense, women’s conversion to Brazilian Pentecostalism is thus not primarily a response to globalisation but is a force of globalisation in its own right. Second, this study aims to demonstrate the importance of specific global links of Pentecostalism, most notably the South–South links. Various scholars have written about the apparent ‘fit’ between Pentecostalism and globalisation and its diverse ways of manifestation (Droogers 2001; Meyer 2010; Robbins 2004). In general, the study of global Pentecostalism has tended to focus on the spread of a modern Pentecostal culture that is predominantly Western (Droogers 2014: 196; Robbins 2004: 118). According to this view, Pentecostalism is a paradigmatic case of a global cultural-religious flow that started in the West and has travelled from country to country introducing a uniform set of practices and ideologies (Poewe 1994). Scholars have argued that Pentecostalism is attractive because it offers access to modern (Western) processes of cultural, economic and democratic globalisation (Berger 2009; Gifford 2004; Martin 2002). Although this line of research has yielded important and generalised insights, it has tended to neglect transnational ties in global Pentecostalism and their diversity. So far, few studies have considered the increasingly important South– South linkages within the global Pentecostal movement − with the exception of works by Corten and Marshall-Fratani (2001) and Freston (2001) (see also Oro et al. 2009; Rocha and Vásquez 2013). A good example of South–South transnational Pentecostal connections is the significant presence of Brazilian Pentecostal churches and missionaries in Southern Africa (Freston 2005). Pentecostalism’s Southern forms appear to be contributing to and shaping processes of globalisation and modernisation in specific ways (van de Kamp and van Dijk 2010; see also Mafra 2011; Velho 2007). It could be suggested that global Pentecostalism becomes relevant for its followers in terms of the particularities of its transnational connections. The South–South transnational ties of Pentecostalism in Mozambique, including the Afro-Brazilian battle, offer possibilities for upwardly mobile women to transcend what is local, to move away from it and to pioneer new life spaces in order to effect transformations, shape

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opportunities and constraints. Brazilian pastors enforce cultural distance from ‘Africa’ by urging converts to destroy elements of ‘African culture’. The powerful atmosphere of conquest that South–South Pentecostalism consequently creates is important in understanding its violent techniques and effects (see further Chapter Two). Given the dominant role of Southern Pentecostalism in global Christianity today ( Jenkins 2002), this insight may influence our understanding of the future of religion in the twenty-first century. Brazilian Pentecostalism in Maputo From the early 1990s, shortly after the end of a civil war, Christianity began to boom in Mozambique (see e.g. Cruz e Silva 2008; Pfeiffer et al. 2007; see also Morier-Genoud 2000). The end of the war also marked the end of a socialist era and the start of the democratisation and liberalisation of the economic and political domains, including a relaxing of regulations concerning religious expression. Since the colonial period, the Roman Catholic Church had been the country’s biggest Christian church, followed by various Protestant churches and African Independent Churches (AICs). However, by 2010 in southern Mozambique, including Maputo, this situation had been reversed. The results of the most recent census (INE 2010) show that Catholicism is no longer the most important Christian denomination, but instead it has been overtaken by African Independent Christian movements, such as the Zionist churches (Igrejas Zione) (Cavallo 2013; Cruz e Silva 2008; Seibert 2005). Moreover, for the first time, Evangelicals and Pentecostals were counted together as one separate category, showing their growing importance. In the capital Maputo, they comprised 21 per cent of the population (INE 2009a).3 The most prominent neo-Pentecostal churches in Maputo have come from Brazil (Cruz e Silva 2003; Freston 2005). Since Pentecostal churches do not keep records of members and some people frequent the churches temporarily, it is difficult to say exactly how many people attend Brazilian Pentecostal churches, but the number is substantial. The most significant Brazilian Pentecostal church, the Igreja Universal do Reino de Deus (Universal Church of the Kingdom of God, known as Universal Church) has at least one church building in every neighbourhood, mostly at strategic locations such as a central market or on a main road. Huge cathedrals (catedrais) have also been built. The new main cathedral of the Universal Church, the Cenáculo da Fé (Cenacle of Faith), at the 3 According

to the census, Catholicism represented 28 per cent of the total population, Islam 18 per cent, Zionism 16 per cent and those without religion 18.5 per cent. It should be noted here that the classifications used in the census are debatable (Morier-Génoud 2014; see also Cruz e Silva 2008: 168–72).

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Avenida 24 de Julho in the centre of the city, which was inaugurated in March 2011, is the largest modern church building in Mozambique. It contains a main auditorium with several thousand seats, a few smaller auditoriums, offices, a bookshop and a cash machine. All the Brazilian Pentecostal churches organise three to six services every day in each of their buildings and all the churches are packed with both temporary and permanent visitors, especially at the early morning and evening services just before and after work hours. The different churches in Maputo attract between 100 and 2,000 people, depending on their size. They often organise chains of services and prayers, a chain being a commitment to come to a church service on the same day every week, often for at least seven successive weeks, and to donate money at the end of that period.4 If participants break the chain, they have to start all over again for the chain to be effective. The churches also regularly organise mass rallies in public spaces, such as the Universal Church’s Dia da Decisão (Decision Day), in September 2011, in the newly inaugurated Estado Nacional de Zimpeto, on the outskirts of Maputo. This stadium was built for the 2011 African Games with a donation from the Chinese government (Gerety 2013). All the Pentecostal churches use (radio) air time and (try to) feature on television, and the big churches, such as the Universal Church, own their own radio and TV stations. This visible and public presence of the churches is an important element in their strategy. Like the new neo-Pentecostal churches elsewhere in the Global South those in Mozambique stress the importance of a direct personal experience with God through the embodiment of the Holy Spirit by followers of Jesus Christ (Anderson 2013; Asamoah-Gyaduh 2013; Mariano 1999).5 Despite encompassing a broad spectrum of Pentecostal worshippers, neo-Pentecostalism can be identified by the following features (Anderson 2004: 144–65). First, the neo-Pentecostal view of the world is one of a spiritual battlefield between demonic and heavenly forces (Hackett 2003). Against this backdrop, neo-Pentecostals in Africa are concerned with the influence of ancestral spirits, which 4 This is modelled on the Catholic novena (Freston 2005: 43). 5 Wagner

(1988) described three historical periods of activity of the Holy Spirit in the twentieth century. The first wave refers to the birth of Pentecostalism in the early twentieth century, such as in Los Angeles (Azusa Street) in 1906, which has come to be considered the birthplace of the Pentecostal church (for a discussion, see e.g. Stewart 2014). The second wave was the spread of the Charismatic movement throughout some Protestant denominations and the Roman Catholic Church in the 1950s and 1960s. The third wave started in the late 1970s and was also called neo-Pentecostalism or Pentecostal–Charismatic Christianity. See Freston (1995) on Brazilian Pentecostalism. But these classifications are increasingly being debated because of the historical and theological differences within Pentecostalism, and the overlap between the various waves (Anderson 2013).

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they consider to be satanic spirits that need to be combated by the Holy Spirit (Meyer 1998a; van Dijk 1998). Secondly, neo-Pentecostalism concentrates on the so-called Prosperity Theology or Health and Wealth Gospel, underlining how a combative faith brings happiness, health and prosperity in all aspects of life (Coleman 2000; Gifford 2004; Martin 2002). This includes the financial practice of ‘sowing and reaping’: the more money one offers, the more money one may expect to earn. Thirdly, neo-Pentecostal churches are characterised by an entrepreneurial style of operation, including their own institutional organisation, style of intervening in the media and politics, and the use of modern marketing strategies (Freston 2001; Pype 2012; Ukah 2008). This corresponds with a fourth characteristic of the neo-Pentecostal movement, which is its international orientation (Anderson 2004; Coleman 2000; Meyer 2010). Most neoPentecostal churches operate in global networks of exchange where the public media as well as the circulation of charismatic leaders, ideas, books and other materials are crucial in targeting localities around the world as part of the mission to transform nations, communities and people’s personal lives through the power of the Holy Spirit. As part of the growing power of Southern Christianity (Freston 2001; Jenkins 2002; Sanneh and Carpenter 2005), Brazilian Pentecostals have established new transnational Christian connections in Africa. Until the early 2000s, most of the Brazilian evangelical missionaries in Africa went to Mozambique (Freston 2005: 55) and today Brazilian churches are integrated and prominent in the country’s (peri-)urban landscape. Non-Brazilian transnational Pentecostal churches in Mozambique mostly originate from South Africa or Zimbabwe, sometimes also from Malawi or Tanzania (see e.g. van Koevering 1992; Maxwell 2006). Other churches come from outside the Southern African region, such as the neoPentecostal Redeemed Christian Church of God, which has its roots in Nigeria, and the Ghanaian Lighthouse Chapel.6 These non-Brazilian neo-Pentecostal churches attract expats but few Mozambicans since English is the prevailing language used.7 More importantly, these churches lack the cultural imagery that has developed in the transnational setting of the Brazilian churches. As a result, the transnational neo-Pentecostal churches in Mozambique remain predominantly 6 A few neo-Pentecostal leaders from Asia and the Middle East regularly came to Mozam-

bique, such as Pastor Dilkumar from one of the largest Evangelical church in the Middle East, the King’s Revival International Church in Dubai, who held mega services of miracles. As my interlocutors from time to time switched churches and I followed them, I also visited new, non-Pentecostal transnational churches like the Brazilian–Japanese Igreja Messiânica Mundial (the Messianic World Church/Johrei Centre) with its Buddhist influences, which rapidly became very popular. 7 The expats I met in these churches were Nigerians, Zimbabweans and South Africans who were living in Maputo.

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of Brazilian origin8 and even where they did not originate in Brazil, they often have close ties with it. The prominent neo-Pentecostal Igreja Evangélica Cristã Maná (Christian Evangelical Church Maná), for example, originated in Portugal but was often considered Brazilian as it is also active there. The same applies to transnational churches set up by Mozambicans; for example, the fast-growing neo-Pentecostal Evangelho em Acção (Gospel in Action) also maintains close ties with Brazil. During the periods of my research in Mozambique, between 2005 and 2011, the transnational neo-Pentecostal churches in Mozambique were almost all run by foreign pastors who are predominantly from Brazil, and to a lesser extent from Angola, and in the case of Maná from Portugal too. The Portuguese language and the countries’ shared history as a result of colonialism have facilitated the connection between Brazilians, Angolans, Mozambicans and to a lesser extent Portuguese. Consequently, the international network these churches in Mozambique enjoy is primarily Lusophone,9 with a key role being played by Brazil. Moreover, the Brazilian pastors perform a specific Pentecostal style, which Mozambican converts characterise as a passion exposed in gestures such as embracing and in a form of openness that they found contrasting with the generally more reserved bodily movements of Mozambicans. The ‘therapy of love’ is an example of this particular Pentecostal style (see Chapter Five).10 The African descent of many Brazilian Pentecostal pastors and their knowledge of Afro-Brazilian religions also play an important role. Many converts expressed how, in contrast to European missionaries, ‘the Brazilians understand these things of magia negra (black magic)’ (see further Chapter Two). According to Anderson (2004: 69–70), the fact that Brazil has one of the highest numbers of Pentecostals must be seen in the light of the significance of Afro-Brazilian religious movements like Umbanda and Candomblé, because Pentecostals accept the reality of the spirit world but exorcise the ‘demons’ of Umbanda and other movements. The most prominent Brazilian neo-Pentecostal churches11 in Maputo are the Universal Church, the Igreja Pentecostal Deus é Amor (the Pentecostal Church God is Love, known as God is Love) and the Igreja Mundial do Poder de Deus (the World Church of the Power of God, known as the World Church) (see below for details). Some women have been frequenting a church for as long as fifteen years, while others frequently changed churches. Some Pentecostal 8 An exception is the fast-growing neo-Pentecostal movement that will not feature in this

study, Iris Ministries (Brown 2011; Poloma 2003: 215–35).

9 Lusophone refers to linkages with Portuguese culture and language. 10 The

therapy is a public meeting that resembles a church service but is dedicated to the subjects of marriage, love and sexuality. 11 I use the shorthand terms Pentecostalism and Pentecostal churches for neo-Pentecostalism and neo-Pentecostal churches.

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women I met moved to churches other than the three principal ones during my period of study; these included the Brazilian Igreja Baptista Renovada (Renewed Baptist Church)12 and the prominent neo-Pentecostal Church Maná.13 Brazilian missionaries also work in the classic Pentecostal Assembly of God Church, the Igreja Evangélica Assembleia de Deus (Evangelical Church Assembly of God, known as Assembly of God). Generally acknowledged to be the biggest Pentecostal – and maybe even Protestant and Evangelical – church in Mozambique, this Church was founded at the beginning of the twentieth century (Garrard in Burgess and van der Maas 2002: 180). While it has lost many members to the Brazilian neo-Pentecostal churches some have returned and some neo-Pentecostal elements have been incorporated into the Assemblies, such as the focus on tithes and the exorcism of demons during church services.14 12

This Church has its roots in the classical Baptist Church of Brazil and was set up in Mozambique by a female Brazilian pastor (for a history of Baptist churches in Mozambique, see Thompson 1989). It demonstrates aspects of the Prosperity Gospel and maintains relations with the Pentecostal Assemblies of God Churches. In addition to its weekly Sunday services, there are prayers on Tuesday evenings, Bible study on Wednesday evenings, prayers and fasting on Friday mornings and a service on Friday evenings. On Saturdays there is a programme for the youth. I attended a meeting for women on the National Day of Mozambican Women when the topic was women’s value and potential. Several meetings were organised for the youth to discuss subjects such as dating, love and sexuality. There is also a specific ministry for deaf persons. Maputo’s main Christian bookshop used to be found on the Church premises, selling literature from Brazil. 13 Maná was founded in Lisbon in 1984 by the engineer Jorge Tadeu, who was born in Mozambique and converted to Pentecostalism while living in South Africa. It was officially registered in Mozambique in 1997. Based on interviews and the webpage of the Church, I estimate that today Maná has about 70 places of worship across Mozambique. Television and radio play a central role in Church life. The Maná Satellite television channel (ManáSat) is transmitted from Lisbon to Mozambique, and members reported how a service from Lisbon used to be broadcast in its entirely during a service in Mozambique (see also Smit 2012: 248). Developments in the Church in other parts of the world, such as Brazil, can be followed on ManáSat. In 2006, a local television channel opened. Maná church has become particularly prominent due to its radio broadcasts and its radio station Viva (Lively or Hurray!) is the preferred channel in many chapas (public transport, minibuses) as it features popular (secular) songs and offers listeners the chance to send messages to friends. As well as services on Sundays and Friday nights, Maná organises courses during the week for new converts, prayer meetings and house groups. There was a regular cruzada de milagres (crusade of miracles) on Saturdays, and next to the main church building near the Estrela Vermelha Market (which is known for to sell stolen goods), a small shop sells books written by Jorge Tadeu. In contrast to the Brazilin Pentecostal churches, Maná has female pastors. 14 There are several types of Assemblies of God Churches in Mozambique (see e.g. Maxwell 2006: 69, 99, 101; Premadharwa 2015). The Assembly of God in Maputo has always had close links with the Assemblies of God in South Africa where missionaries from the

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In the past few years, and since periods of fieldwork, other well-known Brazilian Pentecostal churches have been established, such as the Igreja Internacional da Graça de Deus (International Church of God’s Grace), and Brazilian missionaries have been arriving and creating their own independent churches. A particular feature of the Pentecostal spiritual war in Mozambique is its Afro-Brazilian connection. The Afro-Brazilian spirits that Brazilian pastors refer to, such as the spirit of Pombagira that personifies sexual ambiguities, play an important role in how Mozambican Pentecostal women view their connections with spirits, and also in their relationships with their partners and kin. Brazilian Pentecostal pastors in Brazil (Birman 2006: 65) and in Southern Africa (Freston 2005: 46–7) consider the heart of all evil to lie in Africa. They explain that since the transatlantic slave trade transported many African slaves to Brazil, evil spirits from Africa, in their view, also crossed the Atlantic and came to figure in Afro-Brazilian possession cults in Brazil, such as Candomblé and Umbanda.15 The Brazilian Pentecostal missionaries stress that they are now re-crossing the Atlantic to combat the roots of this ‘evil’.16 Thus on the basis of historical cultural proximity in South–South or Brazilian–African exchanges, the pastors at the Brazilian Pentecostal churches in Maputo create a cultural distance from ‘Africa’ and aim to destroy elements of ‘African culture’ (van de Kamp 2013a). The other important element of Brazilian Pentecostalism in Mozambique is the way in which it has wrought significant changes in gender and social relations, shaping the women’s lives, and allowing them to fulfil different roles that include taking up a more central position in urban society than would previously have been unimaginable. In this book, I examine this interaction between the Afro-Brazilian connection of Pentecostalism, the spiritual war and gendered social changes in Maputo.

Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada (PAOC), Switzerland, Norway, the UK and the US worked (interview with Reinhard H. Mattheis, 21 May 2007). In 1938, official affiliation came with the Assemblies in Portugal, which brought the Mozambican Assemblies into contact with Brazilians (Upton 1980: 102). In addition to the more classic Pentecostal features of the Assembly of God, it incorporates more aspects of local culture than the neo-Pentecostal churches, and critical views on traditional customs are articulated in a less confrontational manner. The Assembly of God has a theological seminary in Maputo, the Escola Bíblica da Igreja Evangélica Assembleia de Deus de Moçambique, with several other branches around the country too. 15 The leader of the Universal Church explains this view in his book Orixás, Caboclos & Guias: Deuses ou Demônios? (Macedo 2000). 16 This view was regularly expressed during church services of the God is Love church in Maputo. A Mozambican pastor at the Universal Church explained that there are many more demons in Brazil than in Mozambique, ‘but they came to Brazil because of the slaves, thus their origin is in Africa’ (conversation, 12 March 2007).

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1  Universal Church at the start of the highway from Maputo to the north of the country. Photo: Rufus de Vries

The Universal Church of the Kingdom of God

Of the three main Brazilian Pentecostal churches in Maputo, the earliest established was the Universal Church. It opened its doors in the city in 1992, shortly after the signing of the peace treaty that marked the end of the civil war in Mozambique. The Universal Church was founded in 1977 in Rio de Janeiro by Edir Macedo, a white lower-middle class former state-lottery employee. The Church grew rapidly, and by 2000 was Brazil’s third largest Evangelical church with about two million followers (Corten et al. 2003: 33). Macedo was raised a Catholic and in his youth participated in Afro-Brazilian cults. He became Pentecostal when he was an adolescent. Chesnut (1997: 45) considers this Church to be post-modern because ‘the hegemonic beliefs and practices of classic and modern Pentecostalism are syncretised with elements of [the AfroBrazilian cult] umbanda and reinterpreted through the lens of television culture’. Bishop Edir Macedo and the Universal Church own an enormous international business empire that includes, among others, one of Brazil’s largest media conglomerates – Rede Record – with global connections, publishing houses, a private aeroplane, travel agencies, a bank and construction companies (see e.g. Freston 2001: 15–58; Oro and Semán 2001). However, the largest source

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of income comes from church donations. The New York Times reported that Macedo’s wealth is estimated at close to a billion dollars (Romero 2014). In 2014, the Church opened its new 10,000-seat temple in Rio de Janeiro, a replica of the former Jewish temple of Solomon in Jerusalem, which cost about US$300 million (ibid.). This Church has gained the attention of scholars because it is by far the largest neo-Pentecostal movement in Brazil, with an impressive presence worldwide (Freston 2001; Corten et al. 2003).17 By 2015, the Church said to be operating in eighty-one countries, with over a thousand congregations in Southern Africa,18 of which about 250 are in Mozambique. I estimate that about 100 of these branches are in the capital Maputo.19 It is the largest neo-Pentecostal church in Mozambique, and the most aggressive in terms of recruiting strategies as well as in its critiques of the local culture. For this reason, this Church features in this study as the most prominent case of Brazilian Pentecostal presence in urban Mozambique. In his article on the manifestation of the Universal Church in Southern Africa (Angola, South Africa and Mozambique), Freston (2005: 1) claims that this Church is an important player in the growth and spread of Third World evangelism as it is the ‘first major example in the region of a new phenomenon: a successful church which is neither of First World nor African origin’. Although the number of churches worldwide seems impressive, the Universal Church has experienced considerable difficulties in many countries and has not always been successful in establishing new branches (e.g. Oro 2004). Mozambique is one of its success stories. The Church is very much present here, and its numerical growth and impact on public awareness have been significant. Mozambican sociologist Carlos Serra wrote (2003: 45) that the Church has been able to gather a big following in just a few years, which no other church has been able to do in Mozambique. The Church has buildings at strategic locations in all the major cities, including Maputo, Beira, Nampula and Chimoio.20 As with everything in the Universal Church, its transnational expansion to Mozambique was centrally planned (Freston 2005).21 Its strategy for expan 17 The

latest census in Brazil, however, shows a decline in adherents of the Universal Church in favour of the World Church of the Power of God and the Assemblies of God churches (IBGE 2012: 143–57; Andrade 2012). 18 http://www.uckg.org/?page_id=1973, accessed 28 September 2015. 19 The number of churches in Maputo city is based on personal observation and interviews with church leaders in the period 2005–8, and was updated in 2011. 20 In the more Muslim north, such as Nampula, the Church encounters more difficulties in establishing congregations and is less visible than in southern and central provinces (see also Premawardhana 2015). 21 However, a report by Gerety (2013) suggests that it was the initiative of José Guerra, a Mozambican professor of engineering and the Church’s president, to bring the Universal

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sion and conversion relies heavily, as in other countries, on an extensive use of mass media, a strategic location plan that includes renting cinemas or other public buildings, and its services with their regular daily themes. Brazilian pastors started to hold church services in empty cinemas in Maputo at the end of 1992, and the performances rapidly gained popularity. My interlocutors told me how they initially attended services just out of curiosity, having heard that the Brazilians were entertaining, exorcised spirits, cured diseases, presented solutions for problems and could make one rich. Services used to be a good option for an evening out as no films were screened at cinemas in the early 1990s.22 Others, however, accused the Church of being a sect and a money machine, and of preventing films from being shown in the cinemas. Some people wrote letters to the national newspapers in which they complained that the Church and its Brazilian pastors were taking over all the important buildings in Maputo.23 It was also accused of drawing believers away from the other churches.24 The Catholic Church in particular experienced a serious loss of members, Catholics and Pentecostals told me (see also Freston 2005: 57). During my fieldwork, the Universal Church appeared in the media again following a conflict with the municipal council in an elite neighbourhood (Polana) where the Church wanted to build its main cathedral, the Cenacle of Faith, which finally has been raised at the Avenue 24th of July in the centre of the city. However, since the Church has been constructing its own buildings, is seen to be investing in Mozambique, is educating Mozambican pastors and has a programme of social work (ABC: Church to Mozambique, with the help of a Portuguese minister, Ennio Correia, after the Church had been prohibited from entering the country in 1989. 22 After a gradual decline, the national cinema collapsed in the early 1990s after the liberalisation of the media and the introduction of structural adjustment programmes (Power 2004). In other African countries and elsewhere, Pentecostal churches have taken over cinemas too, making their engagement with the public sphere very visible (de Witte 2008a; Meyer 2002; Pype 2012). 23 Some of the critique was also related to suspicions that the Universal Church would have made a deal with the Frelimo government before the first multi-party elections, which allowed the Church to set up its radio and TV stations and to rent a part of the Frelimo Central Committee building in Maputo (see also Freston 2005: 56, 57). 24 Critical articles about the Universal Church appeared in journals in the 1990s. The former director of the government’s Department of Religious Affairs, the late Mr Chambal, informed me that he had to intervene in discussions on television and radio about whether the Church should be ordered to leave the country. He had to explain that Mozambique is a secular state and defended freedom of religion (interview, 18 February 2005). A former secretary of the Council of Christian Churches in Mozambique (CCM), Dinis Matsolo, also told me that the CCM supported the presence of the Universal Church in the country, as freedom of religion had to be maintained (interview, 17 February 2005).

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2  The construction of a new Universal Church building, Hulene, Maputo. Photo: Rufus de Vries.

3  Programme of services, Universal Church: ‘Stop Suffering; Daily reunions; Monday – reunion of entrepreneurs; Tuesday – reunion of health; Wednesday – reunion of God’s children; Thursday – reunion of the family; Friday – chain of liberation; Saturday – reunion of the greatness of God; Sunday – reunion of the encounter with God; Participate every day; from Monday to Friday – 6h[ours] 8h 10h 12h 15h 18h; Saturday 6h [etc.]; Sunday 6h [etc.]’ Photo: Rufus de Vries

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Associação Beneficiente Cristã), it has increasingly become part of Mozambican society. The Church’s appeal has also been greatly increased through Miramar, its Mozambican TV channel, which broadcasts the entire content of the Universal Church’s TV programming from Brazil. Mozambicans’ love of Brazilian linguistic patterns and culture has increased as a result of the daily transmission of episodes of Brazilian soaps (telenovelas). As we shall see (Chapter Five), tele­ vision plays an important role in mediating both religion and Brazilian culture in Mozambique. The Church also has air time on the radio and is increasingly using the Internet and social media, such as Facebook. Nevertheless, its position remains ambiguous. While considerable numbers of Mozambicans attend the Church, it continues to be contested because of its overt teaching on destroying ‘traditional Mozambican culture’ and its demands of large amount of tithes and financial offerings from followers. The Pentecostal Church God is Love

Another prominent, albeit smaller, Brazilian neo-Pentecostal church in Mozambique is the God is Love Church. It was officially registered in Mozambique in 1994, and since its arrival has also been using cinemas for its services. This Church seems to move in the footsteps of the Universal Church, for example, by constructing its buildings next to the Universal Church premises, although the reverse also happens. Before God is Love and other churches arrived, the Universal Church had already succeeded in establishing a dominant position. The late Mr Chambal of the Department of Religious Affairs advised the leaders of God is Love to go to the Universal Church for advice on registering their church.25 God is Love members have complained that their Church could not afford the prices the Universal Church paid for broadcasting concessions. However God is Love can be heard on the radio. David Miranda began God is Love in 1962 in Brazil at the start of modern Pentecostalism. It synthesised elements of both modern and classic Pentecostalism, and was ahead of its time with Miranda’s popular radio broadcasts, the use of visual imagery and exorcisms during services, which became a popular addition (Chesnut 1997: 38). The (‘evil’) spirits of Afro-Brazilian religions, like Umbanda, were evoked to be exorcised by a frantic congregation, and such practices would become significant in neo-Pentecostalism. God is Love has several branches in Europe, the Americas, Africa, Asia and Oceania.26 With some twenty branches in Maputo and five in the country’s 25 Interview, 18 February 2005.

26 http://www.ipda.com.br/ipda/ipda/endereco_ipda_pelo_mundo.php,

September 2015.

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second city Beira, God is Love has struggled in Mozambique, with the popularity of the Universal Church on the one hand and the Assemblies of God on the other. Its strict laws of personal conduct and dress, and the requirement for men and women to sit separately in church, are in line with those of the Assemblies. But the prominence of the Prosperity Theology (Martin 2002) and transnational Afro-Brazilian connections are similar to those of the Universal Church. In general, God is Love appeals to more conservative upwardly mobile women. While the Universal Church promotes self-consciousness and good looks – dressing in the latest fashions and using make-up – the God is Love Church preaches modesty in these respects. I met several women who left the Universal Church for God is Love because they felt they could not keep up with the demanding stylish and relatively liberal Christian lifestyle it demanded, and were more at home within God is Love. God is Love has several daily services with the same themes – finances, health, family and exorcism – as the Universal Church, depending on the day of the week. The pastors are Brazilian – often with a white skin – and the obreiro/as who assist the pastors are Mozambican, as are increasing numbers of the assistant pastors. The World Church of the Power of God

During my research, in 2006, a new Brazilian Pentecostal church, the World Church, was established in Maputo. It is led by a Brazilian, former bishop of the Universal Church in Mozambique, Valdemiro Santiago. In 1998, after he had been allegedly expelled from the Universal Church, or had simply left it, he founded the World Church in Brazil. The Church rapidly gained popularity in Brazil and became active in other countries. The Church has also been growing quickly in Mozambique. It very much resembles the Universal Church in terms of the organisation and content of the church services, but it focuses especially on healing. The Church has consistently reported miracles of believers who were healed, building and strengthening the image that the ‘Power of God’ is in the World Church more than in any other church (Bitun 2012: 294–5). The importance of healing goes back to one of the central Pentecostal practices of secondwave Pentecostalism (see note 5). Several of my interlocutors who had been with the Universal Church said they were leaving it to join the World Church because it reminded them of the early years of the Universal Church when the Wealth Gospel stood less centrally. The two churches are in fierce competition with each other. Pastors and visitors of the World Church often complained that whenever they hired radio or television time from existing channels and would begin to rent a new building for their services, the Universal Church would appear and put in a higher bid. Several Mozambican pastors of the Universal Church have started working in the World Church as well.

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4  Recording of television programme, TV Maná Moçambique. The world map shows the transatlantic space the Maná Church operates in. Photo: Rufus de Vries.

Pentecostalism, family and gender In Brazil and abroad, the neo-Pentecostal churches have been an urban phenomenon, adapting themselves to new socio-economic and cultural realities (e.g. Freston 1994). The adaptability of the churches to the new urban culture, with inherent changes to family structures and gender roles, has been relevant in Mozambique’s urban areas too, where Brazilian Pentecostalism particularly flourishes among women. Based on fieldwork it is possible to affirm that nearly 75 per cent of the visitors and converts at Brazilian Pentecostal churches in Maputo are women of varying ages.27 They generally are upwardly mobile, relatively well-educated, and/or earning an income.28 In general, women out 27 For similar percentages in other regions of Mozambique, see Igreja and Dias-Lambranca

(2009); Pfeiffer et al. (2007) and Schuetze (2010). the women had at least followed primary-school education and thus spoke Portuguese (the official language). Some of them were studying at university and at institutes of higher education. In principle they all earned their own salary, even though the amounts could differ from the minimum wage (about US$70 a month in 2011) to the wages paid for junior positions in the financial and NGO sector (about US$170 to US$500 a month in 2011) (see also Hanlon 2012). Based on their education and income, converts could be said to be part of a (rising) middle class, even if many of

28 Normally

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number men in Christian churches (Woodhead 2001: 73), but in Mozambique Brazilian Pentecostalism appears to be a very ‘female-oriented’ religion as compared to the Catholic and Protestant mission churches where I often counted that women made up about 60 per cent of the visitors and men 40 per cent. Worldwide, Pentecostalism attracts high numbers of women, with similar percentages to those found in Mozambique (Martin 2001: 56). During church services and in marriage and business courses in Maputo, Brazilian pastors address the new social challenges that the upwardly mobile women in their congregations encounter. In Mozambique, the introduction of a neo-liberal market economy as a result of the structural adjustment programmes at the end of the 1980s, the implementation of more democratic social structures and the influx and rise of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) focusing on women’s rights and emancipation have stimulated women’s access to education and professional careers (Andrade et al. 2001: 134–8; Casimiro 2004: 146; Sheldon 2002: 229–66). The enhanced economic position of these women has put them in new socio-cultural domains. In contrast to former generations of women in the cities (Penvenne 1997), more and more urban women are no longer dependent on marriage for their economic survival. And nor is their role in biological reproduction still decisive in establishing their position and identity. They are exploring new lifestyles and cultural positions by living on their own, choosing their partner without the interference of kin or deciding to stay single, constructing their own houses and dressing in new ways (see also Manuel 2011). Increasingly greater numbers of women in urban areas have become better educated and gained relative financial independence from their kin and partners. They have started to criticise certain socio-cultural structures and are themselves being criticised for these new attitudes (Groes-Green 2011), although they are not always sure how to shape their new cultural role. Durham (2002) notes that it is precisely in those African societies where democracy and economic reform have been relatively successful in the wake of globalisation – such as for upwardly mobile women in urban Mozambique – that uncertainty is manifesting itself in people’s daily lives and issues of social change (see also Archambault 2015; Simone 2001: 17). A growing group of women is exploring a new lifestyle and cultural position, and their historical role in the development of society is under pressure. Uncertainty, loss of control and critiques of the social (dis)order and cultural identity are being expressed in gendered terms and concern reproductive life events, such as marriage and sexuality. People are asking why so many them had irregular jobs or earned their money with informal economic activities. But see Gaspar (2006) for different findings at an earlier stage of Brazilian Pentecostal presence in the country (see also Cruz e Silva 2003: 111–12).

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beautiful, well-educated women are not married. ‘It is women who are afflicted by spirits’ and ‘today it is very difficult to arrange a marriage and have children’ were comments I frequently heard. At the same time, women’s sexuality has become an issue of public concern, as new forms of femininity, including sexual assertiveness, are emerging that contradict dominant models of femininity in Maputo (Groes-Green 2011). The fact that many households are female-headed and the women are unmarried is why some Mozambicans are claiming that the balance between humans, families and spirits has been disturbed and that people should be taught about their ancestors’ culture. Historically, ancestor spirits and kin have always played an important role in marriage arrangements, and were an essential component in securing the reproduction of life and society (see e.g. Feliciano 1998; Loforte 2003). Pentecostals, and others, argue, however, that many women are remaining single precisely as a result of this ongoing ‘backward’ system of dependence on ancestral spirits and kin. Indicative of the gendered perception of the changes that are taking place in Mozambique are anxieties about the so-called spirit husbands (maridos espirituais) that frustrate women’s sexual and marital relationships. The spirit husband can be a war spirit that seeks revenge for harm done to the person he once belonged to, curandeiros (traditional healers) explained to me (see further Chapter Four). One way the spirit can be appeased is by marrying a young virgin woman. He becomes the girl’s spouse but the girl cannot later marry another man unless special rituals are carried out. My interlocutors in Maputo, including Pentecostals and non-Pentecostals, talked about an additional type of spirit spouse. They said that in the current neo-liberal economic order, reportedly, (grand)parents are selling their children to spirits to become rich. The (grand) parents consult a sorcerer (feiticeiro) who, in return, is given a girl (because the spirit is male) to ‘feed’ the strong spiritual powers the sorcerer uses to produce luck and wealth (see further Chapter Four). When telling such stories, on the one hand people explained to me that Mozambican society features unstable kin structures that affect women and, on the other hand, they stressed that people are often unfamiliar with the kinds of powers they have to deal with. This is precisely the issue many of them were afraid of: they did not know which powers were controlling and influencing their lives. As such, the spirit spouse is indicative of the entanglement of reproductive issues (sexuality, marriage, procreation) with social transformations (Spronk 2012; see also Cole 2010). When women speak of their lack of sexual pleasure, sexual violence, complicated relations with their husbands, infertility and spirits that obstruct intimacy, they appear to be speaking indirectly or directly about an unfruitful and insecure society too. It is because of these problems and challenges that upwardly mobile women are experiencing as regards their roles in the regeneration of society that many are starting to frequent Brazilian Pentecostal churches.

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Women and neo-Pentecostalism in different African countries have been the focus of several recent studies. Frahm-Arp (2010, on South Africa) and Soothill (2007, on Ghana) evaluate the ambivalence in an apparent split between Pentecostal women’s private and public roles and between the promotion of equality between men and women, and the simultaneous adherence to ‘traditional’ patriarchal values (see also Mate 2002, on Zimbabwe). Parsitau (2011, on Kenya) argues that thanks to the empowerment brought by the Holy Spirit women have been able to challenge and undermine patriarchal public culture (see also Asamoah-Gyadu 2004: 57; Kalu 2008: 161). For central Mozambique, Schuetze (2010) shows how religious movements, including Pentecostal churches, are strengthening the position of poorer women in society at a time when tremendous pressures are threatening their social stability (see also Pfeiffer et al. 2007). These insights and conclusions on gender and Pentecostalism in Africa are clearly at tension with each other (van Klinken 2013: 242–6; but see Gilbert 2015); on the one hand they emphasise that Pentecostalism brings spiritual and social empowerment, and on the other that Pentecostalism may well confirm existing patriarchal structures. A more coherent body of work on the relationship between gender and Pentecostalism in Africa has yet to emerge. The mainstream literature on gender and Pentecostalism, based on studies in Latin America, shows that although men hold leadership positions in Pentecostal churches, women may, nevertheless, take roles in the church that provide them with the opportunity to develop various skills that are desirable in light of their emancipation in society at large (e.g. Brusco 1995; Burdick 1993; Chesnut 1997; Drogus 1997; Mariz and Machado 1997; for an overview, see Robbins 2004: 132–4). Moreover, the Pentecostal condemnation of drugs, alcohol and polygamy – all of which are considered to be male domains – as well as the promotion of the household, positively affect the behaviour of men who join their wives at church, leading to their ‘domestication’ (Brusco 1995). However, it remains a key question to what extent Pentecostals’ gender constructions relate to processes of social change (Martin 2001). While the observations on gender and Pentecostalism in Latin America apply to Brazilian Pentecostalism in Mozambique to some extent, it is here characterised above all by increased tensions in households and between partners (see also Costa 2007: 114). Many Pentecostal women, I found, did not experience happy family lives, comfort and confidence after conversion. On the contrary, it often resulted in increasing tensions in their family relationships, leading them to disconnect from partners and kin. I aim to show that the dominant view on conversion to Pentecostalism by women, as an attempt to regain control over gender roles and family issues (Brusco 1995; 2010), does not occur only by repairing relations but may encourage further breaks and discontinuity, which thus reinforces distrust and tension. Women who attempt to break with existing social structures

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and create new gender roles and family forms with the power of the Holy Spirit therefore unleash a ‘violent spiritual war’. Pentecostalism, rupture and (in)security29 A review of the dominant scientific models of religious conversion shows that, in religion at large, conversion is primarily used as a mechanism for coping. The individual, often in a situation of crisis and insecurity, can find a solution and a (temporal) destination in a religious group that offers community, security and care. This view has been central in almost all the approaches to conversion in the social sciences, as well as in subsequent revisions and elaborations ranging from those of psychologist William James (1975 [1902]) to sociologists Lofland and Stark (1965), Greil (1977) and Snow and Machalek (1983) to psychologist Lewis Rambo (1993) and the rational choice conversion model of Stark and Finke (2000). Also in the literature on conversion to Pentecostalism, coping mechanisms have become central (for short overviews, see Hunt 2002a, 2002b; Robbins 2004: 123–7; see also Meyer 2007: 122; van Dijk 2010). This view would seem logical because Pentecostal converts were often at the lower end of the social scale, for example migrants in the urban areas who were trying to access economic prosperity in difficult conditions. In these circumstances, Pentecostalism offers hope, escape and a sense of community (Robbins 2004: 123–4). In the African context, research on the rise of African Independent Churches (AICs) in the cities (Daneel 1974; Kiernan 1977; Sundkler 1961 [1948]; van Binsbergen 1981) has been influential in viewing conversion as a form of coping (van Dijk 2010). From a Marxist perspective, the attraction of AICs as a kind of new family for first-generation urban dwellers has been emphasised (van Binsbergen 1981). Scholars have demonstrated that AICs helped their followers adapt to an urban and capitalist environment by reducing their feelings of stress, disruption and loss of village community life, and by offering ways of coping with illness and misfortune. The AICs encouraged incorporating traditional life in a new context – a villagisation of the city (Devisch 1996) – and provided an important connection between rural and urban life. The growth of Pentecostalism in the post-colonial era in a context of increasing modernisation and globalisation intensified scholarly debate on the role of Christianity, and Pentecostalism in particular, in circumstances of social change (Marshall 2009; Maxwell 1998; Meyer 1998b, 1999; van Dijk 1992, 1998; see also Comaroff and Comaroff 1991, 1997; Engelke 2004; Robbins 2007; van der 29 I

use the terms insecurity and uncertainty interchangeably, and see them as ‘structures of feeling’ (Cooper and Pratten 2015: 1).

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Veer 1996). Unlike the AICs, the new Pentecostal churches stress cultural discontinuity. The new urban middle classes that emerged in African cities in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s found neo-Pentecostalism attractive because it critiqued traditional forms of living, like the power of the elders and ancestors, and gender structures, and provided a language and practice of modernity that supported their search for a contemporary urban identity (Meyer 1998b, 1999; van Dijk 1992, 1998). Pentecostal ideologies and practices stimulated a cultural break even though Meyer (1998b: 340) concluded that the Pentecostal discourse of cultural discontinuity primarily addressed the gap between people’s aspirations and actual circumstances rather than effectuating a cultural break. More recently, Marshall (2009) emphasised the centrality of the break with the past in Nigerian Pentecostalism as a unique form of ‘political spirituality’ in which history becomes articulated in the present by redeeming the past and beginning again. It is exactly this tension between socio-cultural continuity and discontinuity, which continues to be debated by scholars (e.g. Bialecki and Daswani 2015), that is playing a major role in the lives of Brazilian Pentecostal converts in Mozambique. On the one hand, cultural continuity is important in that converts stressed that they can still be influenced by the past and not always succeed in breaking with it. However, precisely because the past continues to be present in their lives, through the activities of ancestral spirits, the need for many for a rupture with it is becoming more urgent. They often experience the past’s continued influence as problematic (see also van Dijk 2005). In response, Pentecostal pastors are exerting pressure to break with the past, and converts are starting to invest in discontinuity (see also Pierucci 2006; Robbins 2007). For example, converts frequently refuse to perform the central part of the local/indigenous marriage ceremony when gifts are presented to the ancestors in return for their blessing. Obviously, this leads to tense relations with relatives as contesting the power of ancestral spirits can provoke misfortune for the whole extended family. Although forms of cultural continuity can still be found in Brazilian Pentecostalism and in converts’ lives, converts are actively engaging in a process of cultural discontinuity in spite of the fact that this is locally regarded as an insecure strategy. At the same time, the Pentecostal emphasis on destroying local culture seems to be a continuation of a history of vulnerability and violence in Mozambique (Macamo 2005b) in which rupture becomes a social condition that both disorders and reorders social reproduction (Lubkemann 2008; see further Chapter Three). Pentecostal women’s investment in cultural discontinuity raises important questions. Why do relatively well-off people opt for insecurity and uncertainty? Why do different converts in similar situations become involved to a different extent in situations of rupture? What factors determine different forms of religious participation? Chapter Three examines how a combination of life and

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generational trajectories influences the degrees of rupture and insecurity converts engage in. Chapters One and Two explicitly address why discontinuity is particularly relevant for women in relation to the domain of family and marriage, taking into account the particular socio-cultural context of Mozambican urban society. I demonstrate that the interplay between the Mozambican context – including its regional history, Portuguese colonialism, the socialist period, the civil war, recent rapid socio-economic changes, spiritual histories and family issues – and a specific form of South–South Pentecostalism has generated a conversion process that enhances rupture and insecurity in distinct ways. Pentecostalism, development and prosperity Max Weber’s classic Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1958 [1930]), and his suggestion that Protestantism has an elective affinity with both capitalism and democracy, plays an important role in the academic study of Pentecostalism (for a discussion, see Freeman 2012; Meyer 2007). Various scholars of Pentecostalism have emphasised the role this religion plays in advancing people’s socio-economic conditions (e.g. Attanasi and Yong 2012; Berger 2009; Martin 1990, 2002). Miller and Yamamori (2007: 168) posit a clear connection between Pentecostals who live a disciplined, honest life and enjoy upward social mobility. Along the same lines, the Centre for Development and Enterprise in South Africa published a study of the social and economic role of Pentecostal churches in South Africa, which concluded that the Pentecostal Prosperity Gospel encourages people not to wait for government to implement change but to take the initiative and engage in entrepreneurial activities themselves (CDE 2012). The report uses the theoretical perspective developed by scholars David Martin (1990, 2002), Peter Berger and, to a lesser extent, Paul Gifford. Looking mainly at Latin America, Martin (2002) argues that Pentecostalism encourages people’s agency, teaches the skills necessary in a modern society and stimulates upward social and economic mobility. Gifford (2004) compares different Pentecostal churches in Ghana by discussing why they have failed or succeeded in introducing leadership skills that are necessary in a democratic society and help develop a work ethic.30 In one of his writings on faith and development, Berger (2009: 71) clearly follows a Weberean perspective when stating that: Pentecostalism exhibits precisely the features of the ‘Protestant ethic’ which are functional for modern economic development. To be sure, Pentecostals are not Puritans. 30 While I was finishing this book, Gifford’s new book came out. In Christianity, Modernity

and Development in Africa (2015), he has revised his opinion and argues that Pentecostal Christianity in Africa encourages fear and distrust, and diminishes human responsibility and agency.

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They are far too exuberant, and they have characteristics that would have appalled the Puritans (beginning with the speaking in tongues). But they do correspond to the afore-mentioned elements of an ‘inner-worldly asceticism’ – hard work, frugality, ‘delayed gratification’ and so on. Because of this, I will venture the following, simple but far-reaching, proposition: Pentecostalism should be viewed as a positive resource for modern economic development.

In Mozambique, I observed how Pentecostalism stimulates people’s agency, self-worth and upward socio-economic mobility. For example, one of the Brazilian Pentecostal pastors’ key messages to the Mozambican people is that they can overcome poverty by seizing any economic opportunities available. The Pentecostal business courses offered to converts, where they are taught how to position themselves better in the neo-liberal market economy, are another example. Yet I cannot support the positive evaluation of the ‘help’ Pentecostalism offers. In the book I look critically at Pentecostal’s presumed ‘positive resource for modern economic development’ (Berger 2009: 71). Notwithstanding the aforementioned stand of the Pentecostal pastors, I witnessed how many converts ultimately lose substantial amounts of money and sometimes even their businesses as a result of the financial demands placed on them by the church. I elaborate on this in Chapter Six, showing that the continuous pressure on tithing and offering tends to induce downward socio-economic mobility among converts rather than the upward mobility that Martin (2002) and Miller and Yamamori (2007) mention. I discuss how Pentecostal ‘agency’ and ‘self-worth’ (Martin 2002) in Mozambique are based on an attitude of risk-taking, in which Brazilian Pentecostalism turns out to be much more part of a neo-liberal order and economic reform than a response to them (see also Comaroff 2009; Meyer 2007; van Dijk 2010). In this book, I address this issue by exploring how the historically established links between religion and development in Mozambique have evolved in particular and often problematic ways within the urban domain, which is also the primary domain of Brazilian Pentecostal involvement. The link between traditional forms of religion and development deals with sustaining the circle of relations between ancestors, kin, money and fertility to guarantee the reproduction of life (i.e. development). Chapter Six explains how a principal point of contestation in this respect is the role of money in relations as the basis for the development of society. The emerging middle classes in particular are experiencing reciprocal kin relations as a burden because of the obligation to share money. And the new economic roles of women in the urban domain are creating complications in intimate and kin relations. I aim to show that their involvement in Brazilian Pentecostalism is an attempt to change a socio-economic order that they are experiencing as a burden by destroying the fundamental structures of this very order. Financial sacrifices to

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the churches, ranging between US$50 and US$20,000,31 materialised women’s desire to annihilate specific relations. The offerings were accompanied by phrases such as ‘the burning power of the Holy Spirit’ that would erase the influence of kin, spirits, unfaithful husbands, jealous colleagues and neighbours. Since the goal is to be born again and arise transformed as a Pentecostal, one’s old life has to ‘die’. It is this element of death and destruction in Brazilian Pentecostalism that kin and partners of Pentecostals, who often are the object of destruction, experience as harmful and violent. This clearly has implications for how relations between religion and development are perceived. Pentecostal pioneering and violent conversion Entering a Brazilian Pentecostal church in Mozambique is entering a spiritual war zone, as I described at the start of this chapter: pastors speak about derramar (overthrowing, knocking over) and descarregar (discharge, a notion related to the spiritual world: Corten et al. 2003: 30) traditional structures, such as the power of elders and ancestral spirits. Believers need to conquistar (conquer) the Devil because he uses the government, kin and partners to destroy the future of the Mozambican nation and the lives of its citizens. This batalha espiritual (spiritual struggle/battle) calls for sacrifícios (sacrifices) such as holocaustos (burnt offerings) that in this case can involve the offering of a year’s salary to the church as a way to force change in one’s life. During church services, the pastors and visitors yell, cry and stamp their feet on the floor to fight evil powers. It is all accentuated by alarming music and sounds, with persons who start to scream because evil spirits possess them. During exorcisms, they burn and torture demons with the ‘fire of the Holy Spirit’. Believers are called upon to embody the struggle in their daily lives (see also Asamoah-Gyadu 2013: 35–57). Pastors cautioned that demons could be hiding everywhere. One could become infected with demons by simply touching something that had been in contact with evil. Jealous family members and colleagues could send evil into a person’s life. Even if the Holy Spirit was asked to protect people’s bodies all the time, they always needed to enhance their defences because demons were constantly improving their techniques and even employing the churches’ technologies to defeat human beings. Therefore, Pentecostal leaders continually emphasised that believers need to be ‘violent’ if they wanted to change their lives for the better. The quote from Bishop Macedo of the Universal Church, with which I opened this chapter, comes from a sermon in which he explained that ‘the Church and the bishop will not change your life; it is you with the tools God has 31 The Mozambican currency is the Metical but the US dollar is the leading currency in the

business circles in which Pentecostals move and operate.

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given you’. His main message was that ‘you have to learn to depend on yourself and on God’. ‘We have to use our force (força), our courage (coragem)’, and ‘take ownership’ (tomar posse). He then explained how he himself revolted against his own situation (fiquei revoltada). ‘When you rebel, you want to change. Our conquests have never been based on love.’32 By emphasising God’s love all the time, people’s lives will not change, he said. ‘We have to be violent.’ The leader of the Maná Church, Apostle Jorge Tadeu, often uses ‘war-language’ to explain what a Christian life is about. His series of sermons entitled ‘Open War against the Devil’ (Guerra Aberta ao Diabo) is accompanied by images of soldiers and guns. Often, the war imagery is based on the Biblical book of Ephesians, chapter six, where believers are called to put on all the armour given by God so as to be able to stand up against the Devil’s evil tricks, such as ‘righteousness as your breastplate’ and ‘the word of God as the sword which the Spirit gives you’. Whereas most theologians would point at the metaphorical nature of this Bible text (Cox 1995: 285), I learned how this spiritual war becomes very real in the lives of Pentecostals in Maputo. Believers made their revolt concrete by participating in spiritual campaigns of several weeks during which they performed nightly prayers, fasted, brought large amounts of money together and did not talk to kin and/or partners. They hammered on the ground in church and in their houses to attack evil forces and came to see partners and kin as personifications of the Devil whom they could not trust or live with any more. The resulting tensions could involve physical and symbolic violence. Chapter Six offers the example of a riot that broke out in a Maputo neighbourhood because Pentecostals used coffins − locally perceived as ‘dangerous’ objects − as a symbol during a ritual. The neighbours felt intimidated and started to throw stones at the converts and the pastor. Overall, Pentecostals lived in a very tense environment in which everything and everyone was suspicious. Though usually, their relationships had already worsened before their conversion, they became even more stressed after it. In my exploration of the interaction between the Afro-Brazilian spiritual war and gendered social changes in Maputo, I focus on how and why the conversion of upwardly mobile women to Brazilian Pentecostalism in Mozambique has become violent by examining Pentecostalism as a practice of pioneering that involves violent techniques and effects. In this way, I aim to show how Brazilian Pentecostal discourses and practices strongly propagate the need to open up new domains in life. Converts are breaking with specific cultural patterns and are settling new socio-cultural forms, such as novel ways of relating and establishing 32 Interestingly, he used the example of the start of the Church in South Africa and how he

and other pastors revolted against the poor circumstances of the Church there, and then the situation changed for the better.

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a family or business life. By so doing, they venture into unknown spaces and are claiming new territories. Upwardly mobile Pentecostal women regularly claimed that they were developing different lives from their (grand)mothers because they had studied and their main focus was not on being a mother and wife. While this is characteristic of the lives of many upwardly mobile women in Mozambique, those who have become involved in Brazilian Pentecostalism have moved faster than others. Operating as a soldier of God, they felt called to demolish social and cultural structures and to take risks that locally might be considered outrageous, for example offering all one’s savings to the church. The Pentecostal pioneer spirit has a strong element of conquest, which is part of a spiritual war. This means that converts have to put on ‘the armour that God has given them’ to fight any evil spiritual forces, including ancestral spirits. In this sense, Brazilian Pentecostalism in Mozambique can be compared with other pioneer settings. According to the American historian Frederick Jackson Turner (1921), a pioneer mentality lay in the origins of American exceptionalism, i.e. the special niche the US occupies among the world’s nations because of the urge to push frontiers in the region between urbanised, ‘civilised society’ and the ‘untamed wilderness’. This frontier furnished ‘a new field of opportunity, a gate of escape from the bondage of the past; and freshness, and confidence, and scorn of older society, impatience of its restraints and its ideas’ (Turner 1894: 225). This could have been a statement made by a Brazilian Pentecostal pastor about removing Mozambique’s cultural past by pushing frontiers to allow new fields of opportunities, such as jobs and romantic relationships, to develop. In relation to social science perspectives, the concept of pioneering used here builds on the body of work on the cultural aspects of mobility (Appadurai 1996, 2004; Clifford 1992). With regard to African societies, mobility has been shown to be an intrinsic part of the history, daily life and experiences of people (de Bruijn et al. 2001; cf. Kopytoff 1987).33 Taking movement – migration, travel, exploration, pastoralism, trade and pilgrimage – as the normal and usual way of living in African societies is a crucial element in viewing how societies are organised, maintained and transformed, and how people explore opportunities and act to satisfy their dreams and hopes. In this framework, mobility is not just about geographic movement alone but also about people’s perceptions of movement, how they move, about their understanding of spaces and places, experiences of mobility, and the establishment of connections and relations. As upwardly mobile persons, Pentecostal women in Mozambique are seeking and accessing resources and new socio-cultural positions to increase and confirm their social mobility. An example 33 Kopytoff (1987) used Turner’s frontier thesis in his theory of the ‘internal African fron-

tier’ to denote the expansion of agricultural societies in Africa, calling into question the then prevalent ‘tribal model’ of African societies.

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of this can be found in Boehm’s (2006) study of young women in Lesotho who explore new cultural meanings of adulthood because of the decreasing importance of marriage in order to enter adulthood. Mozambican women too are seeking to control shifting gender and family situations and are aspiring to new forms and meanings of (wo)manhood (Groes-Green 2011, 2014; Manuel 2011). Viewing the Pentecostal movement as a practice of pioneering however emphasises the urge to conquer social domains by (spiritual) force. Pentecostalism is pushing women to move existing spiritual, socio-cultural and economic frontiers, particularly in the domain of family and gender, and to establish new ones. For example, the Pentecostal women I studied now have to embody new behaviours in the public spaces of the city to find good husbands (Chapter Five). They also have to practise particular Pentecostal business skills that will make them prosperous (Chapter Six). As Pentecostals and using pioneering techniques, these women need to move quickly to shape personal and social transformations. Van Dijk (2010) calls this assertive Pentecostal attitude ‘social catapulting’, using it to describe a process that is contrary to the idea of social capital, whereby believers capitalise on the support that religious groups offer.34 This view of Brazilian Pentecostalism as a pioneering movement does not give priority to social formation or to agency alone. People’s movements and the changing social environment are analysed in the way they are interconnected (de Bruijn et al. 2007; Vigh 2009). Upwardly mobile Pentecostal women are discovering how their environment – colleagues, kin and ancestors – is moving and how they should and want to move in relation to the developments they are participating in. I emphasise that, although people are shaped by social structures, they also act to gain control over them, in this case from a religious position.35 Brazilian Pentecostalism is making these upwardly mobile Mozambican women increasingly question who is in charge of their lives. Is it kin, partners, ancestral spirits, colleagues or the government? They have many reasons for needing to be 34 Looking at the position of Ghanaian Pentecostal migrants in Botswana, van Dijk (2010:

102) has observed how Pentecostal groups foster ‘an entrepreneurial spirit of taking on challenges as a way forward for the modern believer by creating a context where private initiative is highly valued’. Nieswand (2010) in a comparable analysis says that West African Pentecostals in Berlin have made spiritual power manifest through their actions. Both stress the proactive elements of Pentecostalism that I consider to be a fundamental aspect of Brazilian Pentecostal pioneering by women in Mozambique too. 35 This view engages with academic debates on the relationship and tensions between societal structures and agency that build on the work of Bourdieu (1977) and Giddens (1984). The notion of pioneering I propose emphasises the opportunities and possibilities individuals and social groups perceive and create in specific circumstances and how they influence societal formations. This view challenges the scholarly use of Bourdieu’s concept of habitus that emphasises that social groups are predominantly operating in a stable social field that produces cultural continuity.

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wary: they are trying to plan their futures but are having to reckon with others. They are moving forward, but others are equally moving forward, and so they have to move faster. It is the transnational feature of the mobility of Brazilian Pentecostalism in Mozambique that is enhancing and emboldening their efforts at rapid change: the need to scrutinise, claim, push boundaries, conquer and spiritually combat. The South–South transnational links of Pentecostalism encourage the pioneering strategies of Pentecostals and offer possibilities for transcending what is local and for moving frontiers to effect transformation (van de Kamp and van Dijk 2010; Chapter Two). Brazilian pastors enforcing cultural distance from ‘Africa’ use Afro-Brazilian spirits to destroy elements of ‘African culture’ among Mozambicans. Against this background, Pentecostal pioneering has gained strength because pastors have transgressed and pushed back certain historical, cultural and spiritual frontiers and provided a space for Mozambican women to do the same. Transnational mobility highlights how, if a person wants transformation, s/he has to travel, move and explore. One has to transcend the familiar, one’s family and culture, and suffer hardship to create new possibilities. The powerful atmosphere of conquest that South–South Pentecostalism consequently creates is important in understanding its violent techniques and effects (van de Kamp 2013a; see further Chapter Two). Exploring and moving frontiers may imply violence. To conquer and create new positions in life, force is needed. The pioneer mentality of settlers in America in the past involved hardship, conflict and violence. And the claiming of sociocultural spaces is a form of conquest that produces contestations and conflicts that may be harmful.36 Pentecostal women have to use violent techniques and endure potentially violent effects in their attempts to tame the ‘evil’ in the city and occupy urban and national spaces. Yet pioneering in the framework of Pentecostalism has its own particular forms of violence. Pentecostal practices and discourses are not violent in the sense that converts and pastors use force to beat or murder someone. In the same vein, this is not religious violence such as that associated with the contemporary context of Islamist fundamentalism and terrorism or with religious or civil wars in Africa (as in Kastfelt 2005). Various scholars have shown that cultures, social structures and ideologies all shape particular dimensions and meanings of violence (Aijer and Abbink 2000; Bouju and de Bruijn 2014; Scheper-Hughes 36 For example, by confronting and trespassing colonial boundaries through their religious

activities, millenarian movements and prophets of the African Independent Churches (AICs) were considered to be politically dangerous and were imprisoned (Blanes 2014; Fields 1985; Heuser 2008). African women pioneers in the fields of literature, music, health and education were persecuted and had to use force to gain an influential position (Casimiro 2004; Owen 2007; Tripp et al. 2009).

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and Bourgois 2004). Pentecostal ideologies and practices involve a spiritual war in which Pentecostals are soldiers in the fight between God and the Devil. To understand and analyse the violence of Brazilian Pentecostal discourses and practices, I follow the Dutch philosopher Hans Achterhuis (2008). In his exploration of the meaning of violence he emphasises that violence exists in ‘inflicting more or less intentionally or threatening to inflict harm to people or things’ (Boeykens in Achterhuis 2008: 78). There are three important elements in this definition of violence that have a specific meaning in relation to Pentecostalism. The first deals with intention.37 Pentecostal discourse and practices are characterised by a constant intention, in various degrees, to damage local culture, such as kinship structures. Converts often harm their relatives and consequently themselves too as they then stand alone. The second element is that violence is not necessarily physical but verbal, psychological or symbolical. There are citizens who feel threatened by what Pentecostal pastors say and the symbols they use, as in the example of the use of coffins and the riot that broke out. The third element concerns violence in relation to people, including ancestral kin and demons, and objects linked to them. Pentecostal believers often burn paraphernalia connected to the local spiritual world. By setting them on fire, they challenge the power of the Devil and those related to him. A former local healer who had converted told me that after she had been assured of the Brazilian Pentecostal pastors’ powers, she had burnt down the hut she used to work in and her healing materials in their presence.38 This was, as she herself acknowledged, a daring act against what is locally considered an essential element of life, as the healing materials were linked to ancestral spirits who provide for luck and health. Moreover, Pentecostal pastors regularly accuse converts’ relatives of acts of witchcraft, which is a terrible accusation for them. The violence of Brazilian Pentecostalism is specific both in terms of techniques used to convert and in the effects of conversion. This study will demonstrate, by means of three separate case studies, how converts need to appropriate the Pentecostal techniques of breaking, confronting and destroying. Chapter Four analyses how Pentecostal women have to break with local conceptions of spirits by arming themselves with Pentecostal weapons to combat the spiritual 37 In

stressing this element of intention as being essential to the meaning of violence, Achterhuis (2008) moves away from Foucault’s notion of violence that seems to depict all our acting, speaking and thinking as a form of violence, and presents a concept of violence lacking any distinguishing features (Foucault 2003 [1976]). 38 Interview, 29 May 2007. This or similar practices happened in the mission churches in various African countries during the colonial period too (Fields 1985). Chapter Three elaborates on the particularities of these Pentecostal practices in relation to those that took place in Mozambique in the past.

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spouse they belong to as a result of an ancestor’s deed in the past. Chapter Five shows the confronting power of Pentecostal techniques because believers have to oppose local forms of affection by openly embracing and kissing their partners during the Pentecostal ‘therapy of love’. And the Conclusion examines payments of huge amounts of money made by Pentecostals as a way of destroying local patterns of exchange. The violent effects of Brazilian Pentecostal techniques can be observed in the accusations of anti-sociality that converts receive, as well as in the emergence of hatred, distrust and downward mobility. Since Pentecostals openly contest the power of ancestral spirits and connected socio-cultural relations and practices, they provoke misfortune for their family and the reproduction of social structures (Chapters Four and Six). Relationships with boyfriends, husbands and colleagues deteriorate as these persons become personifications of the Devil (Chapter Five). In addition, the offering of huge amounts of money by Pentecostals results in tense relations with others who depend on this money, and this frequently puts converts in the problematic situation of not being able to pay bills or buy basic necessities (Chapter Six). The Pentecostal women I met regularly reflected on the tension between the possibility of creating new ways of living by appropriating Brazilian Pentecostal techniques and the simultaneous destruction of existing life forms that could harm their and others’ relationships and well-being. Some women succeeded in establishing a balance between the two by appropriating a Pentecostal way of living that allowed them to live more or less peacefully with their relatives. Others did not see their kin any more or even divorced from their partners. There were also women who decided to change churches or to leave Pentecostalism altogether. In Mozambique, the violence in Brazilian Pentecostal conversion appears to interact with a violent history, in the Portuguese colonial era, the recent civil war and domestic violence (see also Sánchez 2008). Chapter Four shows how the violence of past wars resulted in many spiritual marriages that subsequently became part of a new Brazilian Pentecostal war and eventually created new forms of violence. Thus, before converting, Pentecostal women often had violent religious experiences through the role of spirits in their families, and therefore they are motivated to destroy traditional (spiritual) relationships. In addition, the violence of Brazilian Pentecostalism is part of an urban society where uncertainty manifests itself in different ways. Not only is life in Maputo risky and insecure, but, as said earlier, uncertainty has become part of people’s daily experiences of social change (see also Durham 2002; Simone 2001; Cooper and Pratten 2015). As I will show, Brazilian Pentecostalism has become part of people’s daily ‘rhythms of uncertainty’ (Archambault 2015) to the extent that the Brazilian Pentecostal investment in a better future produces modes of survival that not only involve new opportunities but also insecurity and violence.

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Research My main fieldwork location was the capital Maputo, where most of the Brazilian Pentecostal churches are based. I also decided to concentrate on Maputo because the particularities of a city’s urban history and its urban trajectories are central to an understanding of the impact of Pentecostalism (see Chapter One).39 As I focused on the South–South transnational setting from the Mozambican perspective, I did not do fieldwork in Brazil: this study is about the movement or travelling of ideas and practices of Brazilian Pentecostalism, not physical travel between Mozambique and Brazil. I conducted ethnographic fieldwork in order to understand the world of Pentecostal women, beyond their behaviour in church; participant observation was the most important method I used, followed by in-depth interviews and a focus group. These different methods offered me different but related insights and allowed me to develop a relationship with my interlocutors (see also Barret and Groes-Green 2011). As well as the interviews, the women and I spent time together – I shopped with them, we went to plays and films, watched Brazilian soaps (telenovelas) together – and the women took me to their houses, to weddings and to funerals. Subsequently, I learned about their visits to healers, the problems they encountered as a result, or how complex their (sexual) relationships with kin, spirits and partners were. My contacts included both older and younger people from different socioeconomic and cultural backgrounds. Yet, most of the Pentecostal women in my study lived and/or worked in urban parts of the city called Maputo cimento (concrete Maputo), which had a great number of concrete houses and a relatively modern infrastructure with electricity, water and the Internet (see Chapter Three). They had attended school, and many were completing or had completed higher education. For a year, I took part in the weekly counselling sessions at a local NGO, Capacitar, that trained people on the outskirts of Maputo to give psychosocial assistance in cases of sexual and domestic violence and illness (Slegh 2009). Some of the counsellors were also religious leaders, and through this group I joined a Bible study group with, in contrast to my other interlocutors, much less well-educated women from the Assembly of God Church. These women actually wanted to learn from me how to deal with their husbands and to know about all kinds of sexual diseases and coisas do lar (things pertaining to married life and the home). Though they wanted me to talk, whereas I wanted them to talk, 39 I

did fieldwork in the city of Beira, in central Mozambique, for one month, where I found the same concerns among converts of Brazilian Pentecostal churches about family, gender and marriage as in Maputo city.

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I did gain some valuable insights into the lives of urban Mozambican women from the lower social classes. In many ways the challenges in their lives were comparable with those of my other interlocutors, the main difference being that the better-educated women had more opportunities to improve their lives. And for these women, domestic violence between husband and wife, between relatives, violence used by government officials and witchcraft accusations were a daily reality. In addition to the various different church services I attended, I participated in a Bible group at Maná Church and in some women’s and youth groups at other churches, and attended a business course and the ‘therapy of love’ at the Universal Church. The focus group I organised consisted of eight young converts (men and women) from different Evangelical and Pentecostal churches, though usually only three or four of them would turn up. We came together every two weeks for several months, and friendships developed between the participants. We had conversations about their churches, their views on prosperity, on sexuality, on tradition, on husband–wife relations and on the impact of HIV/ AIDS. The participants commented that they enjoyed participating as they were missing spaces in their society where they could openly discuss intimate and sensitive issues. Because they varied in their opinions about these issues, the discussions helped me to understand the different trajectories Christians followed in a rapidly changing urban society. Although I had to focus on women, who were the principal group of converts, I also made an effort to establish contacts with Pentecostal men. However, the first attempts were interpreted as advances with a view to an affair. As these few men continually violated my private space, I abandoned some of these contacts, even though they could have been acting according to locally accepted socio-cultural scripts (see also Gune and Manuel 2011). I also met various men who had no other ulterior motives than being my interlocutor and friend and who sometimes were more open about their frustrations in relating to women than women were about men. As I was married, it was not difficult to relate to older persons and to talk about marriage and sexuality. They often asked if I was married, otherwise they could not talk with me about married life and sexual experiences. At the same time, because I had no children and was still young, it was also not too difficult to relate to the unmarried women I met. Another challenge of my research was the complicated access to Brazilian Pentecostal churches. From colleagues in Brazil and Mozambique I had learned that the Universal Church in particular was not open to investigators as previous negative publicity in the media had made them wary. Moreover, as most anthropologists researching Pentecostal churches experience, it is difficult to participate without being or becoming a convert. For these reasons, I decided not to focus on one particular church as the principal place of fieldwork but

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rather on the converts themselves. I did not go to a church to meet people but instead found people who would take me to their church. By following people instead of churches, I gained better insight into their other activities, for example the fact that they went to several churches at the same time. I also did not lose contact when they moved to a new church. By presenting myself as not being primarily interested in churches per se, they would also take me to other events. And because I had not chosen pastors as gate persons, people felt freer to share their lives with me, also when it was not congruent with the church’s ideology. At the same time, however, I was able to participate more or less as a convert as I am a Christian and presented myself as such. To a certain extent this may have limited what I asked because sometimes I was considered an insider, but it did facilitate access. Precisely because of my own knowledge of and experiences with Christianity, I was able to see how the interpretation of Bible texts and the meaning of faith were context-specific. An additional challenge was that while churches are normally meeting places, the Brazilian churches were different (see also van Wyk 2014). It was not usual for people to speak to each other at church and, in fact, it was important not to get to know each other very well. When people came to know each other too well it could be ‘dangerous’ and generate jealousy and distrust. This was the start of my inauguration into a Pentecostal atmosphere that did not necessarily increase trust and harmony between people. While, to begin with, I simply approached people, a promised interview usually did not materialise; only after an introduction through someone I knew would I be able to obtain a phone number and increase my chances of an actual meeting. I also experienced difficulties recording interviews. People would often refuse to give certain details when I used the voice recorder or to share information felt to be sensitive. The level of distrust between people was such that they did not easily open up. Moreover, spiritual issues were seen as dangerous subjects to discuss. This was partly owing to the country’s colonial and socialist past, and also because pastors urged converts to keep things private between themselves and God. Although people were willing to share parts of their lives with me, these were not for recording. In most cases therefore, I chose to make notes and trained myself to remember what had been said. Thus not all the quotes I use were recorded, and most have been copied from my fieldwork notes. Almost all my interviews and conversations were in Portuguese. It is my second language, as it was for several of my interlocutors too, who had grown up with a local language. But for many converts Portuguese was their first language. They had grown up in Maputo or another city where their parents considered it important that they learn the official language (see also Groes-Green 2009: 662–3). I learned the basics of the locally spoken Changana or Ronga language, but when I interviewed someone who did not speak Portuguese, often elderly persons, I needed an interpreter. The quotes

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from interviews and conversations are my translations from Portuguese. To protect the people I met, I have used pseudonyms throughout. As said, a difficult topic to talk about was spiritual issues and ‘tradition’. People often use the word ‘tradition’ (tradição) when referring to local customs, including beliefs and rituals related to (ancestral) spirits. Educated ‘modern’ persons are not supposed to be involved in such things (see further Chapter One). Talking about it would be suspicious, so how could they have knowledge about it? I identified as much as possible with my interlocutors’ experiences with spirits by adopting techniques related to methodological ludism (Knibbe and Droogers 2011). This approach takes the capacity of play in fieldwork seriously by dealing ‘simultaneously and subjectively with two or more ways of classifying reality’ (Droogers 1996: 53): that of the people under study and that of the researcher. Thus, I gradually learned from my interlocutors how I could ‘see’ spirits and talk about them, sometimes by referring to the experiences of others who were involved in ‘tradition’. I could share what I had heard, and so could they. It was by getting access to their ‘cultural intimacy’ (Herzfeld 2004) and behaving according to their rules that I discovered how relations, gifts, money, silence, spirits, sexuality and violence are all bound to one sphere. While I mostly enjoyed doing fieldwork, I also recognise Ilana van Wyk’s experiences during her fieldwork in Durban on the Universal Church, when she states that getting close to the Church’s members and frequenting church services was not particularly ‘nice’ (2014: 30). Pastors in the Brazilian Pentecostal churches in Maputo were often quite aggressive towards local cultures, to people’s families, and towards believers. It was often difficult, when visiting people’s homes, to see how their children were hungry because their mother had offered almost all her money in church. Yet I also felt and continue to feel that the enormous popularity of these churches and believers’ determined commitment should be taken seriously. If ‘we’ dislike this type of churches, we need to understand why millions of others feel attracted to them. This ethnography therefore focuses on those who actively participate in and shape Brazilian Pentecostal practices in Maputo, examining how and why upwardly mobile Pentecostal women deliberately take high risks to participate in a neo-liberal economy and in cultural change, and increase hardship and insecurity. It moves beyond an investigation of religious conversion as a coping strategy and a response to social change. Instead, the following chapters examine Pentecostal conversion as a force of change in its own right, revealing the way Brazilian Pentecostalism shapes new notions of prosperity and family life in an African society.

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CHAPTER 1

Gender, Family and Social Transformations in Maputo ‘You need to pray while walking through the streets of Maputo,’ Joana tells me on the way to a Brazilian Pentecostal church.1 She points to a group of men who are sitting on a wall next to some barracas (stalls) where women dressed in colorful capulanas (printed cotton clothes) are selling vegetables and drinks. I feel that these men, enjoying a Mozambican 2M beer, have their eyes fixed on us. Joana grabs my arm to cross the street to where we will catch the chapa (public transport, minibus) to her church. Young guys shout out the destinations while a crowd of people who have just finished work jostle to find a seat on their journey home. We are squashed together to allow more people on to the chapa and when we leave, Joana warns me to take care: ‘Why is someone looking at you? Why is someone following you? Does he have good or bad intentions?’ It is twilight. The noise of chapa horns, mobile phones and crackling radio speakers fill the air. The smell of exhaust fumes is pervasive. I had met Joana at her office at the university before going to her church. She gives me a meaningful look as she says: ‘It is Friday.’ I remember the conversation I had with her and her friend Julia last week when they explained why they were still unmarried at the ages of 29 and 40 respectively. They told me about Fridays and how it is ‘men’s day’, when men visit bars, drink and chat up women, or when they secretly visit their amantes (lovers). Julia and Joana had not accepted their former partners’ ‘Friday sessions’. Friday evening is also the weekly time for liberating evil powers in Pentecostal churches. Joana and I enter the church building where about a thousand people, mostly upwardly mobile women like Joana, have already started praying and shouting under the guidance of the pastor who is screaming through huge speakers, ‘We are at war’ (Estamos em guerra). ‘Go awaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyy, you demon, go, go, go, go… burn, burn, burn’ (queima, queima, queima). Everybody is furiously waving their hands to drive the evil out of their lives and screaming ‘go out’ and again ‘go out [bad spirit], go out and never come back again’. The 1 4 August 2006.

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pastor continues: ‘You, who follow these women everywhere, even into their beds, leave them, in the name of Jesus Christ.’ Some of the children start crying when they see their mothers yelling and kicking. This is Joana’s fourth liberation session in a series of eight. Over these eight weeks she is also fasting and preparing a financial offering of US$2,000 (she earns US$100 a month) that she will deliver during the final session. Her aim is to conquer all the evil powers in her life and to open up a road to future success and happiness, including a faithful husband. Regularly, Pentecostal women summoned me to pray when we were on the street in Maputo. They stressed that we needed to be aware of and protect ourselves against negative spiritual influences that were hiding everywhere. We had to keep our distance from what was happening around us, as we had to first judge the intentions of people who approached us. They could often tell me the exact moment when someone had approached them on the street or in a building, and, how afterwards, they had lost their job, or their partner had disappeared because the person they had met had evil intentions. They tried to anticipate possible harm as far as possible. Brazilian Pentecostal pastors warned women of the men who turned up with impressive cars and nice presents and advised them to investigate the men’s intentions first. At the same time, Pentecostals needed to be conscious of any prospective chances. Meeting people, be they potential partners or employers, could be the start of a successful project or life path. Thus, praying and ‘walking in the Holy Spirit’ were vital when considering these situations and challenging blockades. A particular relationship has emerged between transnational Brazilian Pentecostalism, women and Maputo. The edited volume by Glick Schiller and Çağlar (2010) examines the variation in how transnational activities (re)shape and (re)imagine urban life. The role and influence of transnational connections depend on the mutual constitution of the national, local and global. Through Brazilian Pentecostalism, Mozambican Pentecostals are developing a new vision of Maputo’s history and particularly the role of ‘evil’ in it, in contrast to or as a revision of the views and positions of their grand/parents in this city in the past. The new ways in which they perceive and experience the urban space follow from their new positions as women in Maputo – the subject of this chapter – and their engagement in the Brazilian Pentecostal battle against evil that will be discussed in Chapter Two. This chapter provides a historical overview of the interplay between family, gender2 and the city of Maputo in the framework of the formation of a 2 By using the term gender I mean that opinions about roles and practices of women and

men are particular social and historical understandings and representations (Alsop et al. 2002: 3). The concept of family has also been socially constructed and there is no

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Mozambican nation-state.3 It aims to offer a socio-historical background as to why upwardly mobile women are engaging in such large numbers with transnational Pentecostalism as a practice of pioneering. Among Mozambicans living in Maputo, different opinions about the future of their nation are related to the loosening of control of historical kinship structures, including ancestral spirits and gender roles. In this process, women who take up new positions and cross boundaries seem to be connecting with and shaping the pioneer mentality of Brazilian Pentecostalism. I will first elaborate on the profound impact that labour migration and forced wage labour had on family life under Portuguese colonialism in the middle and at the end of the nineteenth century. The system of labour had a specific influence on women and men in the rural and urban areas of southern Mozambique.4 In the subsequent post-colonial period, gendered forms of labour and family structures in Maputo developed further under the specific circumstances of socialism, war and neo-liberalism. I want to show that women, unlike in the past when their participation in the formal public spaces of the city as the centre of civilisation of the nation-state was limited, have been conquering the city streets in recent years. This change has influenced perceptions regarding the role of men and women, their kinship and affective relations in the development of Mozambican society in Maputo. The reproduction of life Historically, the area that is Mozambique today consisted of many different ethnic groups with their own kinship structures, marital practices and wealthproduction systems. In each of these groups, men and women had their own positions (Sheldon 2002: 1–43). The northern groups were organised along matrilineal kin structures, whereas the southern Tsonga and Chopi societies static or universal form (Gittins 1992). In this study, the word family may refer to the extended family and local kinship structures as well as to the nuclear family. Both gender and family relate to the larger reproductive order that includes issues of marriage and sexuality. 3 I am aware that the concept ‘nation-state’ is contestable because the view on the African nation-state often departs from European models, and it consists of ideology and political discourses that may provoke both support and resistance (Morier-Genoud 2012). Contradictions and particularities of nation- and/or state-building in Mozambique will feature in this chapter. 4 Since I focus on Maputo, the historical narrative concentrates on the southern part of Mozambique, which was more influenced by the Portuguese colonial government, Christian missions and labour migration to South Africa than the central and northern regions were.

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were organised according to patrilineal kin systems. In the patrilineal south, households engaged in agro-pastoral production under the authority of a senior male. Women had a central role in this system in food production through their agricultural work, as is expressed in the Tsonga proverb: ‘The heart of the village is the mortar [for pounding grain]’ (Sheldon 2002: 22). Men were involved in hunting, fishing and livestock and in supporting the agricultural work, for example through tool making ( Junod 1996b [1912]: 13–85; Zimba 2003: 49–51).5 The reproduction of society depended on marriage, agricultural work, food preparation and control over a woman’s fertility, in which lobolo6 played a crucial role. Lobolo is a marriage payment made by the bridegroom’s family to the bride’s family to compensate the girl’s parents for bringing her up, to establish kin relations, distribute and accumulate wealth and maintain the lineage (Feliciano 1998: 249–67; Junod 1996a [1912]: 109–20; see also Granjo 2005). In the process, the two families and their ancestors become related, which embeds the bride and bridegroom in a network of kinship, assuring a good marriage and procreation. The accumulation and exchange of lobolo, as controlled by older men, was essential for men to gain legitimate access to women’s labour, sexuality and fertility, and for both men and women to gain adult status and establish their positions in society. Penvenne (1986: 1) wrote that her male informants ‘typically viewed the acquisition of bridewealth, lobolo, as a principal goal in their lives’. Despite male domination in providing the material support of lobolo, these ‘lobolated’ women were in a stronger position to defend their individual interests than those who were not. Women could establish powerful positions through their reproductive roles, using their powers of fertility and healing (Loforte 2003; Sheldon 2002: 29–32). Polygamous unions enhanced the possibility for women to share the workload with other wives and senior women could exercise power over junior ones (Zimba 2003: 54–6). In short, kinship has been an essential social institution in regulating the exchange relations necessary for the reproduction of biological, economic and socio-cultural life. Bloch and Parry (1982) speak of the regeneration (or reproduction) of life in which death, birth, marriage, sexuality, food and money are all bound up in one sphere. All are important and depend on each other for the smooth running of social life (for Mozambique, Feliciano 1998: 297–323). The

5 Zimba

(2003) emphasises the cooperation between men and women. For example, although men hunted, women were part of its dynamics through their important role in preparations and logistics. 6 Lobolo is Portuguese for lovolo in the southern Mozambican languages of xironga and xichangana (Sitoe 1996: 99).

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balance between these different aspects of reproduction changed during the formation of the Mozambique nation-state. Wage labour, migration and the colonial state In the second half of the nineteenth century, the existing power relations in southern Mozambican societies started to alter with the labour migration of young men to South Africa (Harries 1994). These younger men started to earn money outside the usual exchange relations described above, and the older men began to lose control over work, the exchange of goods and marriage arrangements because their grandchildren were earning their own money, were independent of the larger family and could pay their own lobolo (Harries 1994: 98). In the early nineteenth century, Nguni kingdoms were established in southern Mozambique following the dispersal of the Nguni across Southern Africa in the period of Mfecane, a time of political disorder and violence in Zululand.7 They established the Gaza Kingdom in southern Mozambique and incorporated the Tsonga (Liesegang 1986: 8–12). Control of territory by the Nguni, especially under King Ngungunyane (1884–95), restricted male access to land and hunting and contributed to labour migration (Harries 1994).8 Portuguese colonisation added a further dimension to migrant labour patterns. Following their arrival in Southern Africa at the beginning of the sixteenth century, the Portuguese were not very successful in colonising Mozambican territories, as the British and various local regional empires like the Gaza Kingdom made counter claims to the same territory (Isaacman 1975; Newitt 1997). A decisive step in the long-term process of integration of a large geographical area was the Berlin Conference of 1885, when Africa was divided among the colonial powers, which led to revived Portuguese attempts at colonisation. Another important step was the Portuguese conquest of the Nguni in the south in 1895, when they defeated the Nguni leader Ngungunyane. Increased Portuguese colonial control at the end of the nineteenth century marked the start of more effective incorporation of the various ethnic societies into larger structures, such as the state and the global economy. This profoundly, and for some violently, changed the organisation of production as well as that of social and biological 7 There are different readings of the Mfecane period (see e.g. Hamilton 1995). One inter-

pretation understands it as part of the founding of a highly militarised and centralised state by Zulu kings accompanied by extreme violence, while another explanation situates Mfecane in a longer period of state-making that involved migration and combat (for a discussion, see Ferguson 2013). 8 Macamo (2005a) offers an overview of the discussion on the various reasons for the labour migration.

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reproduction, and influenced the lives of families and individuals (Feliciano 1998). Traditional healers I interviewed related women’s current problems with spirit spouses to Mfecane and the colonial wars (see further Chapter Four). From 1926 onwards, with the fascist New State in Portugal, a programme to restore Portuguese influence was introduced through the rigorous control of colonial populations (Newitt 1997: 445–82). The system of Indigenato was implemented by the colonisers, thus introducing a distinction between citizen and subject (Mamdani 1996) with two classes of people: the ‘native’ (‘indígena’) and the ‘non-native’ or ‘assimilated’ (‘não-indígena’ or ‘assimilado’). The ‘native’ class was positioned under customary law and had to do forced labour (chibalo). The ‘non-native’ class (Portuguese, Afro-Portuguese, Asians and those of mixed race) had Portuguese citizenship rights, lived under civil law and was not subjected to forced labour. A group of ‘natives’ could obtain the status of ‘assimilado’, depending on their position and behaviour (Cabaço 2010: 108), by applying for a certificate of assimilation, but were often accused of being ‘pocket whites’, dark-skinned people who carried a document in their pocket that said they were white (Penvenne 1995: 9). The Indigenato created a bifurcated world where Africans were inferior to whites (Cabaço 2010: 29–48) but at the same time these marked oppositions were conditional and were experienced differently by rural and urban residents, by men and women, by young and old depending on which class they belonged to and the degree of Portuguese influence in their region (Cabaço 2010: 131–42; O’Laughlin 2000; Penvenne 1995). The decision by the Portuguese colonial authorities to tax the population forced the ‘natives’ to enter the labour market to earn wages (Newitt 1997: 406–10). Work thus became part of the colonial system and included labour migration. An agreement was reached with the South African authorities who paid part of the salaries of migrant workers as a tax to the Portuguese authorities (Harris 1959: 50). Wage labour was defined as a male activity but, in the absence of male breadwinners, women were also forced to work for the state to pay tax (Macamo 2005a: 74; Sheldon 2002: 50, 51). From this time onwards, work was no longer primarily connected to a village and family life but to the larger entity of the state. This brought profound shifts in Mozambican households and, in contrast to earlier forms of labour migration, men were not present for a large part of the year and women had to take over their work.9 Conjugal relations shifted; men 9 According

to Harris (1959: 51), well over 50 per cent of Tsonga males in the 1950s were away for long periods of time working for wages in South Africa or somewhere else in Mozambique, like Lourenço Marques (now Maputo). For current ongoing male migration patterns to South Africa and their impact on issues of gender, see Tvedten et al. (2010).

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lost their previous position in the household as well as their influence and control. This changed and challenged existing relations between men and women, as Ronga10 songs about women’s disrespect for men during this period bear witness to (Sheldon 2002: 57). The process whereby older men lost the control they had enjoyed over work, the exchange of goods and marriage arrangements intensified (Arnfred 2001: 31; Feliciano 1998: 283–94). These social changes brought a worsening of living conditions, just as they also introduced new opportunities. Some women were active agents in the colonial world and succeeded in escaping power structures that they found oppressive, while others became victims (Sheldon 2002: 46; Zimba 2003). In general, forced labour aggravated women’s workloads as women had to produce more while their menfolk were away. Macamo (2005a: 83) shows how wage employment brought new meaning to people’s sense of self: ‘wage labor created individuals out of undifferentiated social contexts and placed them before the need to find a personality within the new context’. The social changes led to new and conflicting claims of community and personhood. Colonial Maputo: a man’s world? When the Portuguese colonial authorities started to gain more control in southern Mozambique they decided to develop Xilunguine into Lourenço Marques, which later became Maputo (Penvenne 1995: 32). Xilunguine was a town inhabited by ‘natives’ and ‘non-natives’ alike, a community of traders, travellers and port workers. It was the land of the Ronga-speaking people: the Mpfumo, Maxaquene and Polana. The port became important to South Africa’s mining, agricultural and industrial heartland and to Mozambican labour in South Africa. Similar to other colonial cities in Eastern and Southern Africa, Lourenço Marques developed as an administrative colonial centre and had an entrepôt function, exporting South Africa’s minerals to support European national economies (Bryceson 2006: 1–17). The colonial authorities transformed the place into a city of whites and ‘assimilados’, a city for the ‘civilised’ (Lachartre 2000: 26–8; Penvenne 1995). According to Jenkins (2006: 111), the development of Lourenço Marques ‘reflected a long-established Portuguese attitude to urbanism as representing “civilisation” when juxtaposed with the largely agrarian character of the country and its population’. From the start, Lourenço Marques was made up of two distinct parts: the Portuguese cidade de cimento (cement city) and the indigenous cidade de caniço (reed city) that surrounded the southern European-styled inner city. The dual structure of Maputo was also influenced by the urban model of 10 The dominant ethnic group in Maputo Province in southern Mozambique.

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the apartheid system in South Africa (Oppenheimer and Raposo 2002: 39; Penvenne 1997: 348). Using pictures of the ‘cement city’ from Alexandre Lobato’s collection (1970), Zamparoni (2000) shows that Lourenço Marques was a man’s world in the early part of the twentieth century. No women appear in the photographs as the city’s public places were exclusively male. The population figures for Lourenço Marques between 1940 and 1960 show that more than 60 per cent of the population was male and about 35 per cent female (including ‘natives’ and ‘non-natives’). According to Penvenne (1986: 15), men outnumbered women within the formal boundaries of the city, whereas the male–female ratio was more balanced in the suburbs (‘reed city’) in the colonial period. Wage labour was directed at men (Penvenne 1995: 1, 5, 6; 1997; Sheldon 2003). Not only indigenous women but also white women experienced constraints and difficulties in finding wage labour (Penvenne 1986: 3; Zamparoni 2000). In the eyes of the authorities, indigenous women were linked to rural areas, agriculture and biological reproduction. While men were introduced into wage labour and some into literate culture as a way of incorporating them into nationhood, women’s roles were directed to the field of nature (see also Ferreira 1996; Yuval-Davis 1997). Women’s food production made the forced work of men possible and, as such, women contributed indirectly to urbanisation (Sheldon 1996: 5, 6). Passes and identity cards were introduced in 1914 to regulate the movement of indigenous people but they were primarily issued to men, and women and children were restricted to the rural communities. In 1946, identity cards were also introduced for women living in the urban areas. They had to apply for a special pass to travel although these were only issued with the consent of parents, husbands or other authorities (O’Laughlin 2000: 14). Nonetheless, one of the forms of resistance by women against forced colonial labour was to move from the rural areas to the city, reacting to a combination of economic, ecological and social factors. Men, who were to provide them with a livelihood, were failing to return from their long-distance migration (Penvenne 1995: 8) and droughts were occurring as well. The critical push, according to Penvenne (1997: 364), was usually personal and familial, like divorce and widowhood, but also included forced child marriage, physical abuse and/or the death of a parent. While migrating women contributed to the process of urbanisation through their informal and agricultural activities (Sheldon 2003), it was much more difficult for them to have a professional career, and they often had to resort to working illegally to make ends meet, varying from selling charcoal and firewood to prostitution (Penvenne 1995: 110). Cashew-processing factories were opening in the 1950s and provided women more opportunities to work for a wage, although they earned less than men (Penvenne 2015). More women

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started to do domestic work that had previously been done by young males (Penvenne 1995: 142–50). Urban women were usually divorced, single or separated, a fact that concerned the colonial authorities. The colonial administrators and also African male leaders saw the many female-headed households in Lourenço Marques and their lack of husbands as a grave social and moral issue (Penvenne 1997: 343, 348–50; Sheldon 2002: 66). In colonial reports, indigenous women in the cities were principally talked about in relation to prostitution and illegal activities (Sheldon 2002: 60, 61). Most colonial documentation was, however, articulated around concerns about Mozambican men (Penvenne 1997: 363), showing the relative unimportance of women in the colonial nation-state project. This does not imply that they were insignificant in the nation-state formation but that they had to develop a particular relationship with the urban space in the context of the colonial nation-state where they could manoeuvre between ‘illegal’ and ‘legal’ positions. From the start, women’s economic, legal and social space in this new urban setting was profoundly contested. However, their interaction with the urban space gave rise to a redefinition of who women were. They developed new modes of working, dressing, expressing and defining their sexuality, creating autonomy as well as dependencies, and shaping family and community structures (Casimiro 2004: 116; Loforte 2003; Penvenne 1997; Sheldon 2002, 2003). Mother Africa and Father Marx11 Keeping the city clean is mainly the task for women. Are we going to take men out of the factories to come and sweep? (First Mozambican President Samora Machel, in Chingono 1996: 217)

Anti-colonial groups were brought together in the Front for the Liberation of Mozambique (Frelimo) in 1960 to fight for independence from Portugal (Newitt 1997: 517–40). To succeed, the participation of all Mozambique’s ethnic groups was required and, in this respect, Frelimo adopted the idea of a nationalist project that had previously been introduced by the Portuguese. The struggle was based on socialist principles, and Frelimo promoted class solidarity and equality between men and women, addressing the oppression of women in the colonial system but also in traditional structures. Women insisted on participating in the struggle for liberation, demonstrating their pioneering spirit at the time (Arthur 1998; Casimiro 1986; Isaacman and Isaacman 1983/84). However there were

11 I have borrowed this phrase from a book with the same title by Hilary Owen (2007).

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limitations to women’s emancipation in the formation of the Mozambican nation-state under the leadership of Frelimo. Following independence in 1975,12 when Frelimo formed the first national government, it introduced a programme to banish class divisions and traditional social structures. From the start, it was an intellectuals’ party with many assimilados who had grown up in the Portuguese urban areas (Newitt 1997: 541). In their view, a democratic, unitary and non-racial state could be reached through socialist programmes, such as that of communal villages in the countryside where the majority of the population lived (Dinerman 2006: 51). These villages were supposed to replace older lineage structures, discourage ethnic loyalties, introduce democratic structures, offer Portuguese lessons13 and provide access to modern healthcare facilities (Newitt 1997: 546−50). In their efforts to build one national culture based on Marxist-Leninist ideology, Frelimo was critical of all kinds of traditional rituals, such as lobolo and initiation rites. In its modernist approach, Frelimo leaders also felt that many traditional rituals and social structures subjugated women. In contrast to colonial policies, Frelimo encouraged women to engage in wage labour. From a socialist perspective, women were only considered emancipated if they could support themselves economically and be productive. Women thus had the opportunity to participate in collective production, and the number of women working in factories in the cities rose (Sheldon 2002: 153–94; see also Oppenheimer and Raposo 2002: 20–1). Women’s opportunities depended on their social class. For women whose fathers had obtained a formal job in the colonial economy, it was easier to find employment in factories and receive some education (information provided by informants; see also Sheldon 2002: 153–83). Most of these women also lived in the ‘cement city’ (Sheldon 2002: 170–1) while women of lower social status, living in the ‘reed city’, were often active in urban agriculture and as such contributed significantly to urbanisation because their food supplies were necessary for the survival of the urban residents as rural food production was low (ibid.: 169). Many feminists have been critical of the liberation of women through waged work. These critics find this too economic an answer to male and female inequality, and the Marxist approach negated the work women had in the household. The critique has also been expressed for Mozambique (Tripp et al. 2009: 39), and the division between domestic work and waged work continued to exist, resulting in tension between women’s productive and reproductive work (Loforte 2003: 42; Casimiro 2004: 142–3; Sheldon 2002: 153–94). The new 12 Independence

was officially granted in 1975, although colonialism actually ended in 1974 with the fall of the Salazar regime in Portugal. 13 Portuguese became the official national language.

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family forms that were introduced by Frelimo were particularly critically viewed. Frelimo promoted the ‘socialist family’ as the basic cell of society. This family was composed of a monogamous, nuclear family as opposed to the polygamous and extended African family (Arnfred 2001: 41–2), which meant, in reality, that women in the city became much more economically dependent on men than they had been in the countryside because the urban household economy was much more based on wage labour, in which mainly men participated. The Frelimo government said that the nuclear family had to be founded on reciprocity and equality between spouses. Everything that was part of the old, traditional family had to be eliminated, including polygamous relationships. The result was that polygamous relationships went underground. Where in the rural areas several wives would live together and share the work in the household, wives in the city did not always know each other, and levels of competition and jealousy were high (Arnfred 2001: 36–44). For women in the urban areas today this continues to be a major concern, and even a reason to start frequenting a Brazilian Pentecostal church, such as in the case of Joana who I presented at the start of this chapter. According to various older women I spoke to, the problem was (and still is) that old things were abandoned under the influence of Frelimo’s modernising ideologies, ‘but nothing came to replace it’. For example, initiation rites were prohibited but no new form of sexual and marital education was implemented, and since parents were not used to talking about such (shameful) matters with their children, the rites still had to be practised secretly or children learned what they needed from friends and television (see also Costa 2007: 67–97). New structures could not be forced on to people or were not developed, which created feelings of uncertainty about gender roles, marriage and family life that resulted in a constant struggle about behaviour and responsibilities (Arnfred 2011; Sheldon 1996: 8–9; Sousa Santos and Trindade 2003). With the economic decline, a growing number of men could not earn a salary, and women who took care of their household started to look for ways to earn money. This appears to have shaped tensions in husband–wife relations and led to domestic violence. However, women also benefited from Frelimo’s emancipation policies. Contrary to the Portuguese colonial period, a growing number of women were able to now go to school and/or engage in wage labour. Most of the Frelimo’s Mozambican Women’s Organisation (OMM, Organização da Mulher Moçambicana) campaigns, which tended to be concentrated in the urban areas, offered women the chance to have a formal function within OMM, receive some form of education and develop ideas about their social position (Chingono 1996: 215). Although Frelimo’s policies were mainly directed at the modernisation of the countryside, their policies appear to have had a more direct effect in the cities. Abrahamsson and Nilson (1995: 83) argued that because contact between

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Frelimo politicians and peasants decreased Frelimo’s policy rapidly urbanised (see also Pinsky 1982; Pitcher 2002: 67–100). Moreover, contrary to Frelimo’s intentions, migration to urban areas rose as a result of the difficult conditions in rural areas where economic growth was not taking off ( Jenkins 2006: 117).14 Frelimo’s focus on the development of the countryside included a perspective of the city as parasitic ( Jenkins 2006: 116–17). As a result of Portuguese colonial influence on the city in Mozambique, the city, for Frelimo, represented decadence, colonialism, capitalism and exploitation; the city had to become socialist (Sidaway and Power 1995: 1471–5). The government restricted the supply of resources there and nationalised the housing stock, with various structures being implemented to monitor residents. Grupos Dinamizadores or Dynamising Groups (GDs) were set up to mobilise the masses to fulfil Frelimo’s objectives (Oppenheimer and Raposo 2002: 87–91; Pinsky 1982). The GDs had to impose new political and social values on urban residents, organise the infrastructure, such as cleaning the streets and guaranteeing security in neighbourhoods, resolve conflicts and report back to the central government. They in effect became instruments of political control and part of the Operação Produção (Operation Production) that urged urban residents to be productive (Brito 1991: 236–46; Costa 1993: 6–9). Anyone who could not prove that they were being productive by producing the right documents was relocated to a communal village in the countryside for re-education as part of Frelimo’s socialist programme.15 Women were particularly affected as they were less likely to have a waged job that provided the necessary documents. Literacy levels were lower among women too, which made it more complicated for them to obtain the documents required.16 In addition, more people became active in the Frelimo administration and were dependent on income generated by the state for their own survival. The city was losing many of its inhabitants as the Portuguese, various other settler groups and some assimilados had left the country. The city was faced with a loss of know-how and a low supply of goods. Frelimo invested in the development 14 In 1970, 5.7 per cent of Mozambique’s population lived in cities. In 1980 the figure had

risen to 13.1 per cent and by 1990 it was 26.8 per cent (Matos et al. 2006: 18). In 2007, when the last census was held, the figure was 30.4 per cent (INE 2010: 1). Some of these figures are estimates because no census was held between 1980 and 1997 and different definitions of ‘urban’ were used over the years (Oppenheimer and Raposo 2002: 12−20). What is clear is that the urban population has grown dramatically since the 1950s in a process that intensified in the 1980s. 15 See the novel Transit Camp by Borges Coelho (2007). 16 In the documentary film The Last Prostitute (Azevedo and Mesquita 1999), five women speak of their experiences in re-education centres for prostitutes in the forests of Niassa Province.

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of a cadre in the cities for its government administration. At independence most Mozambicans – 93 per cent of women and 86 per cent of men – were illiterate (Sheldon 2002: 105). This and the lack of trained personnel, especially in the education and health sectors, made the government decide to train teachers (Honwana 2008: 6). Many of my young Pentecostal interlocutors were the (grand)children of people who had been incorporated in the Frelimo administration. Their relatives became teachers and administrators, and others worked in the (few) local industries. The war That the Frelimo government’s main influence was to be found in the city is also illustrated by the last few years of the war when Renamo (Resistencia Nacional Moçambique) dominated Mozambique’s countryside but could not invade the cities that were controlled by Frelimo.17 This highlights the ambivalence in the nation-state project’s rural–urban divide that had gendered dimensions. According to O’Laughlin (2000), Frelimo’s reaction to the dualist structures of ‘natives’ and ‘non-natives’, which had been implemented by the Portuguese, helped to dig a grave for its own policies that were meant to bring about change. In fact, Frelimo adopted a version of the dualistic view on society by seeing rural inhabitants as a homogenous group – as the ‘natives’ were seen by the Portuguese – and underestimating the diversity of the rural economy and power relations. Views of the rural areas and the nation were urban-based and shaped by the Frelimo elite who had themselves been ‘civilised’ by the white settlers: Frelimo’s vision of a homogenous subsistence-oriented peasantry did not recognise the diversity of rural livelihoods, the dependence of households on the market for inputs as well as consumer goods, the consequent importance of maintaining rural markets and transport, the importance of regular wage income, and the role of women in commercial production. (O’Laughlin 2000: 38)

Moreover, with regard to its policies of women’s emancipation, the leaders underestimated the various local differences in female roles and positions and the fact that for some women the existing structures could strengthen their position in society. In some cases, the structures Frelimo implemented actually weakened women’s positions (Arnfred 2001; Urdang 1989). This was also related to the fact that Frelimo was dominated by men from southern Mozambique who had been raised in Tsonga culture and society, which resulted in a national identity that was heavily influenced by Tsonga culture (Ngoenha 1999). The much more 17 Renamo

nevertheless succeeded in creating a sense of insecurity in the urban areas (Vines 1996: 100–1).

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patriarchally inclined Tsonga culture is different from the northern matrilineal societies. According to Arnfred (2001), the combination of Tsonga patriarchal culture and European views on men as heads of households increased male dominance within Frelimo and influenced male perceptions of family and society. These discrepancies were a contestation that was brought into play between Frelimo and Renamo, and a combination of internal struggles, economic decline and foreign intervention led to the devastating civil war between Frelimo and Renamo.18 Renamo’s tactics were to destroy everything related to the building of the nation-state in order to frustrate Frelimo’s modernising national project (Vines 1996: 87, 95; Wilson 1992: 532–3, 540). Renamo destroyed roads, bridges, hospitals and schools. Moreover, the fighting primarily occurred in the countryside, precisely where Frelimo was trying to set up communal villages as an important component of its nation-state building. Renamo soldiers ruined crops and rural technologies, and massacred local people, especially in the south of the country where Frelimo’s power was strongest (Wilson 1992: 533, 558). Furthermore, numerous stories are recounted of Renamo soldiers arriving in villages late at night and making boys and young men kill their own family members as a rite of initiation to becoming a Renamo soldier.19 Women were raped and forced to become the partners of Renamo soldiers. Renamo thus alienated people from their communities or society and frustrated the sense of national belonging.20 At the same time, Renamo received widespread support in certain rural areas from peasants who opposed Frelimo’s radical modernising project (Geffray 1991). 18

In response to Frelimo’s support for ZANU, the Zimbabwean nationalist movement that had been fighting white minority rule, Renamo combatants were trained by the Rhodesian regime of Ian Smith. Later on, when ZANU came to power, Renamo enjoyed the backing of the South African Apartheid regime because Frelimo also supported the African National Congress (ANC), the anti-apartheid movement. What triggered Mozambique’s civil war has been the topic of extensive debate (see e.g. Cabaço 2010: 271–94; Cabrita 2000; Finnegan 1992; Geffray 1991; Hanlon 1984; O’Laughlin 1992). Nordstrom (1997: 46–62) shows that several groups including private militias, quasi soldiers, civilian collaborators, foreign strategists and profiteers all shaped the dynamics of war on the ground, making it difficult to talk of the war only in terms of the two opposing forces, namely Frelimo and Renamo. 19 Attacks were also committed by ‘freelance armed bandits’ who operated opportunely in the general chaos in rural areas (Vines 1996: 97). Increasingly, stories are told about the misconduct of Frelimo soldiers too, while the dominating discourse is about the misbehaviour of Renamo soldiers (see e.g. Igreja 2008). 20 Finnegan (1992: 93) gives another example. During the civil war, Frelimo created special days for conveying an ideological message, like the special day for Mozambican women and for Mozambican heroes. But these became days to fear because Renamo used them for its attacks.

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The violent acts of killing and rape could be interpreted as part of a dispute on how life, including gender roles, should be reproduced, and this played a role in the fighting (Owen 2007: 110–12; Vines 1996: 5; Wilson 1992: 564). While Frelimo said it was committed to modernising kinship, family, production and sexuality, Renamo claimed it was in favour of reinstalling traditional lineage structures, rural chieftaincies and traditional hierarchies. These different views of society also involved gender roles. Frelimo incorporated women in the production process but, according to Renamo, this happened at the expense of traditional cultural roles and activities. Correspondingly, Renamo called for the reinstitution of traditional gender roles.21 The conflicting views of the position of women became ‘shockingly literalized in the form of real physical attacks on women and girls, as well as in the physical and symbolic destruction of domestic home spaces’ (Owen 2007: 110). The currently increasing worries about spirit spouses among women are related to these occurrences. Spirits of murdered and raped persons are still seeking vengeance (Honwana 2003; Igreja et al. 2008; see further Chapter Four).

5  Avenue Eduardo Mondlane, Maputo. In contrast to the colonial period, women are very visible on the city’s avenues. Photo: Rufus de Vries.

21 Wilson

(1992) demonstrates how, in practice, Frelimo and Renamo could have been acting according to both sets of opposing views.

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Paradoxically, perhaps, the war would also result in new roles for women. As their husbands had died or had had to fight, living conditions worsened and, with women no longer able to rely on family ties, they were forced to become financially independent. This led to changing kin and family relations (Chingono 1996: 209–43; Lubkemann 2008: 304–30). Subsequently, this process was reinforced by the introduction of neo-liberal economic structures in the postwar era when many men lost their jobs and women intensified their activities in petty trade and the informal markets to generate income (da Silva and Andrade 2000). This process has particularly changed the urban space and has led to increasing numbers of barracas (stalls) and a greater presence of women on the streets. Post-war Maputo: a feminising city? When walking through Maputo it is possible to see a mixture of colonial and post-colonial, formal and informal, urban and rural, local and global cultures. Since the end of the 1980s, Mozambique has been transformed into a democratic, capitalist state. An important moment was the 1989 Frelimo Party Congress when Frelimo officially decided to break with the party’s Marxist-Leninist ideology and implement multi-party democracy. This happened after several years of a centrally planned economy and civil war that had resulted in Mozambique’s economy becoming bankrupt. From 1987 onwards and under the auspices of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, the government implemented various structural adjustment programmes and privatised governmentfinanced industries and its social services. The policy’s biggest impact has been in the cities where people lost their jobs, prices increased and public services, like hospitals and schools, became unaffordable for many. Although this meant that women had harder lives, as it became more difficult to buy food and access healthcare for their children, there were also women who benefited from the situation because of new possibilities for physical and social mobility that came with the reforms. Women became involved in whatever type of work they could find ( Sheldon 2002: 229–66). The increases seen in petty trade and informal activities was mainly due to the activities of women (Lopes et al. 2007: 79–86). Some women managed to get jobs as domestic workers in the homes of the growing middle classes and the ever-increasing numbers of expat households in the cities. The signing of the peace agreement between Frelimo and Renamo in 1992 that effectively ended the war prompted the arrival of many new donor organisations in Mozambique. Mozambican society opened up to the larger world and started to receive new sources of information such as additional television channels, new journals and the Internet (see e.g. Pitcher 2006: 98–9).

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Non-governmental organisations focusing on women’s rights and emancipation were set up (Casimiro 2004; Tripp et al. 2009), and new ideas about men’s and women’s roles and the family were introduced. These developments have given women, especially those in the higher social classes, opportunities for new types of work, better education and the chance to revise their thoughts about local cultural practices. Although the numbers of women in the formal labour market remained limited (Oppenheimer and Raposo 2007: 30), more qualified women entered the work force (Maimuna 2007). Depending on their position and background, women in Maputo gained more financial independence and became less dependent on past kin ties (see also Andrade et al. 2001: 106–50). More women have started to work in government positions, and their presence in Maputo’s ‘cement city’ has become evident (Sheldon 2002: 235–9). A missionary told me that when she arrived in Mozambique in 1996 hardly any women were driving cars: all the cars were driven by men.22 Today, many women drive a car. The 2007 census (INE 2009b: 11–38) shows that in comparison with the 1997 census more women live in the ‘cement city’ of Maputo. The most urbanised and nationalised part of Maputo, the ‘cement city’, was predominantly male (Araújo 2005: 48–9), but now, at least in numbers, is more female-oriented. Moreover, a recent report illustrates that in Maputo, over the past 15 years, the female-headed households have demonstrated a more consistent reduction in poverty than the male-headed households (Tvedten et al. 2015). Increasingly women are ‘invading’ the city and doing so more prominently than ever before. The role of women in the Frelimo party has, however, been declining and the party now attracts mostly men (Casimiro 2004: 144–9; Sheldon 2002: 204). With the introduction of multi-party democracy, Frelimo’s leaders had to reach the masses but seemed to lose their commitment to social change, allowing more room for the type of men they had previously wanted to keep out, and ultimately they have given women less space in the party (see also Werbner and Yuval-Davis 1999: 1). The parties that were participating in the first multi-party elections in 1994 did not address women’s issues and women were barely represented in the organisations that took part in the elections ( Jacobson 1995). In spite of the relatively good representation of women in government positions today (Tripp et al. 2009: 162–3) and a rise in organisations that deal with gender issues (Casimiro 2004), the nation-state and its capital city in many ways continues to be a male-dominated affair (Osório 2002; Paraskeva 2009; Tvedten et al. 2015). Men and women in Maputo experience the paradoxes between male-dominated ideologies and the emergence of new femininities (and masculinities) in diverse ways. Scholars undertaking research on gender, sexuality, marriage and 22 Conversation, 16 February 2005.

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the family in Maputo, show how in the (re)construction of both masculinities and femininities gendered ideologies and practices, inherited from pre-colonial, colonial and post-colonial discourses, are contested, appropriated and changed, leading to mixed identities and practices (Aboim 2009; Groes-Green 2011, 2012; Manuel 2011). The dominant ideal of a nuclear family, marriage and housewives often clashes with the lives of women who are called ‘modern’ and ‘independent’. Manuel’s descriptions (2013) of cosmopolitan women in Maputo are confirmed by the many Pentecostal women I met who were in their late twenties and mid-thirties, were obtaining a university degree and were establishing their professional careers. Some of them made conscious choices to stay single, live alone in an apartment in the ‘cement city’ and not commit to marriage. Brazilian Pentecostalism stimulated them to nurture a certain independence. Others, with similar education and professions, wanted to marry, but the men they met found them too independent. These women hoped to find a partner who also wanted an ‘equal relationship’ during the Therapy of Love organised by the Brazilian Universal Church (Chapter Five). Pentecostal women living in Maputo’s suburbs (‘reed city’) often referred to the difficulties of finding a partner with money. Some of their friends lived as curtidoras (literally ‘enjoyers’), who are young women who have sexual relationships with men who are often older and married and who support these women financially (Groes-Green 2011, 2014; Hawkins et al. 2005). As part of the many discussions that are going on in Maputo about the ‘decent’ Mozambican women who should dress appropriately and become married, they try to find respectability by looking for a relatively or potentially wealthy Pentecostal partner, such as an obreiro (assistant of the pastor), in one of the Brazilian churches. Although these women have different backgrounds and make different choices, they exemplify the common search for a femininity in Maputo that ‘bridges the dilemmas of pursuing dreams of independence and freedom while ensuring some kind of social respect and recognition from kin and broader society’ (Groes-Green 2011: 297). The Frelimo government’s changing cultural politics are adding a further dimension to these dilemmas and feelings of uncertainty about what it means to form a family and to be a Mozambican man or woman. With the end of its socialist policies, Frelimo abandoned the rules against traditional cultures and started a strategy of rehabilitating pre-socialist cultural elements.23 Yet, as already said, various Mozambicans, especially in the urban areas, had been exposed to and engaged in the colonial project, mission churches and Frelimo’s socialist modernising ideals. They have assumed new hybrid identities, become 23 There are different views on Frelimo’s change in cultural policies that could be caused by

external or internal conditions (see Dinerman 2006; Geffray 1991; Pitcher 2002; Sitoe 2003; Wilson 1992).

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less dependent on their (ancestral) kin, stopped carrying out certain rituals and now even question what the role of ‘tradition’ should be (see also Manuel 2011; Sumich 2008). Some of them and their children started frequenting Brazilian Pentecostal churches. To them, Frelimo’s readoption of traditional culture is the reason for the failure of the post-war neo-liberal and democratic projects to create more jobs and to combat poverty and domestic violence. Others blame their parents for not having introduced them to ‘Mozambican’ culture. Various parents had not allowed their children to speak a local language when growing up, in line with the socialist project, and now these children cannot communicate with their grandparents who do not speak Portuguese. This process is, however, currently changing as local languages are once again becoming more important. There seems to be a ‘seemingly arbitrary circulation of the unknown’ for many in African cities (Simone 2001: 17) in relation to traditional culture. Are initiation rituals good or bad? What should the role of ancestral spirits be? What are appropriate gender positions? Lundin (2007: 168–71) describes how residents of Maputo show signs of ‘social schizophrenia’ because in one situation they might relate to ancestral spirits but deny these relationships in another setting. Uncertainty about the influence of spiritual beings, distrust in (affective) relationships and problematic access to money all figured in witchcraft stories that were circulating when I was in Maputo. One example was that many beautiful, well-educated and prosperous women who had remained unmarried had been sacrificed to a spirit by their kin when they were children for the spirit to provide wealth. As the women were in possession of these powers they were not allowed to marry (see Chapter Four). This is a grave allegation but illustrates how older structures of reproducing life, including the regulation of access to women and wealth, are under extreme pressure. As more and more people are becoming richer and others poorer, as fewer ‘normal’ households can be found and more assertive women are contesting certain gender norms, it is felt by many people that the patterns of exchange are no longer healthy and that Mozambique’s future is unstable. It is in this reality that the pioneering techniques of Brazilian Pentecostalism are flourishing. Conclusion: pioneering new lifestyles Reproductive relationships, ancestral spirits and gender roles are playing a central role in discussions about the route Mozambican society should take. In Maputo, it is generally felt that women’s central historical role in kinship structures, which are crucial for the development of society, is under pressure. Upwardly mobile women who are pioneering new lifestyles and cultural positions see their sociocultural positions as unstable. Their new positions have to be established and are

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as yet unbalanced. This situation is the outcome of a history of social transformation that has brought rupture, conversions, contradictions, conflicts, violence and new opportunities. Several historical periods – Mfecane, colonialism, socialism, civil war, democracy and neo-liberalism – have created cultural ruptures for society at large and for individual lives in particular, shaping opportunities and constraints. People have had to distance themselves from familiar ways of organising their lives and have had to engage in new models of community and personhood that may be conflicting, interesting, challenging and uncertain. The city space has been at the centre of these gendered social transformations. Nation-state formation has been mostly a male affair, yet women have shaped their own views and activities in the process. Although women had limited access to the formal, national spaces of the city, they have contributed to the process of urbanisation through informal and formal activities. In recent years, women have been invading the city streets more noticeably and also the formal spaces that represent the nation-state. While male positions appeared to be clearer and less contested (but see Aboim 2009; Groes-Green 2012 and Manuel 2011), women still need to prove their capacities, reliability and aptness to adapt to new roles. Their role is more insecure, reflecting the questions about which route Mozambique should take. Prominent in the colonial and the post-colonial state’s policies was the explicit focus on breaking with a traditional past, which was particularly effective in the urban areas where the state could exercise most power. Besides the constraints, changed circumstances have produced new ways of moving forward. Where some people see the discontinuities with the past as the root of all problems in Mozambican society (Honwana 2002, 2003), I will show that the ruptures cannot go far enough for a growing group of people. The women I met are creating and searching for alternative spaces in the city that break with the limits of the male-dominated nation-state in the city. Religious movements are, for example, such alternative spaces that do not necessarily offer coping mechanisms but more generally provide opportunities to explore new possibilities and cultural positions even though they may be risky. Brazilian Pentecostalism is interacting with the current possibilities in a feminising city.

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CHAPTER 2

Transnational Spaces of Conquest In our conversations, Pentecostal women often stressed how they wanted to go ‘elsewhere’ or to ‘another place’ (um outro lugar) far from Mozambique, where they would be less affected by locally binding forces. They complained about kin on whom they had to spend their hard-earned salary, about the difficulties in finding a reliable partner and jealous colleagues who used feitiços or fetishes against them so they would lose their jobs. Dona or Madam Gracelina (45 years old), for example, felt paralysed because certain powers were blocking her family – she, her husband and their children – from prospering. Her husband had profited from the new emerging economy in the city after the war and had a good job at an ICT company. However, he recently lost his job when he became seriously ill. Then, Dona Gracelina decided to open a business, but she was not able to get the right licence from the government. Like others in such a situation, she was assured that evil spiritual powers were hindering their success and happiness. In the Brazilian Pentecostal God is Love Church she had been frequenting for some time, she handed over the project file with the plans for the new company and copies of all the papers she had to arrange for the licence to a Brazilian pastor. He would take it with him on his travels until he was back in Brazil, where the Church’s founder was going to pray for her. During the service it was revealed that an evil spirit stood behind Dona Gracelina and was following her wherever she went. The pastor screamed to the spirit to go away and proposed that Dona Gracelina defeat the demon with a programme of prayer, offerings and fasting.1 Brazilian Pentecostal pastors proclaim that faith is capable of moving lives, families and nations and that people do not need to accept a low salary, a small house, illness and an unhappy marriage. These stand for stasis and stagnation, and show that something is blocking one’s well-being and prosperity (van Dijk 2006). The power of the Pentecostal gospel removes blockades and produces enormous success. Whole nations can move forward and progress with the force of the Pentecostal faith. The centrality of movement was very present in the lively church services that I attended where the power of the Holy Spirit 1 Based

on various conversations, meetings and church services between February and July 2007.

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was manifest in pulsating music and shaking bodies. Moreover, borders were constantly crossed by the pastors who travelled all over the globe in their efforts to open new places of worship in different localities. This chapter focuses on the transnational dimensions of Brazilian Pentecostalism in Mozambique by exploring the forms of mobility it generates. Many studies have shown how religious forms have travelled with migrants and how they have set up religious groups in their new home countries, shaping transnational religious movements. However in the case of Mozambique, Brazilian Pentecostal churches are not catering for a Brazilian migrant community but for local Mozambicans. Through Brazilian Pentecostalism and engaging with the ideas and practices of Brazilian pastors, Mozambicans can become transnational. I start with a brief overview of the historical dimensions of the relationship between religion and mobility in southeastern Africa. I will show that the power of healers often depends on their capacity to transcend boundaries. For example, the arrival of Christian missionaries in the past allowed people to appropriate powerful practices, ideas and techniques from abroad that were crucial to moving forward politically, spiritually, culturally and socio-economically. Then I will focus on the current transnational mobility of Brazilian Pentecostalism in Mozambique and its relationship with the local cultural situation, highlighting how the South–South transnational space is enhancing a process of cultural discontinuity and conquest that is shaped by the history of the Lusophone Atlantic. Subsequently, I will argue that Mozambican women, and especially upwardly mobile women, are finding the transnational Brazilian Pentecostal field attractive because of their position in the urban national domain. From these women’s perspective, the immobile dimensions of the reproductive field in the urban national arena contrast with the mobile forms that the transnational Pentecostal domain offers in the form of pioneering techniques. Religion and mobility in southeastern Africa The centrality of motion in Pentecostalism connects to a tradition of healing practices and missions in southeastern Africa. What is fundamental to the profile of prophets, missionaries and healers in countries such as Mozambique, Malawi, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Tanzania and South Africa is the act of crossing boundaries (Luedke and West 2006;2 see also Werbner 1989). For example, healers in Maputo all seem to come from elsewhere, either from other parts of Mozambique or from another country in the region (West and Luedke 2006: 1). In their advertisements, Mozambican curandeiros (traditional healers) stress their experiences in 2 Luedke and West (2006) also show how healers reproduce and create borders.

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other countries. Using ‘foreign’ knowledge seems to prove the efficacy of their healing techniques and medicines. Popular healers, pastors and prophets appear to come from the other side of a border. Borders and boundaries are not only national and geographical but also cultural, linguistic, scientific and religious. Healers are frequently ambivalent beings at the cutting edge of societal structures. While others should behave like everybody else, healers can cross socially accepted boundaries as this gives them the power to heal. They possess spiritual powers that allow them to move across dangerous borders, borders that are too perilous for others to cross.3 Various healing rituals, such as cleansing rituals after the war in Mozambique (Granjo 2006, 2007), are about crossing boundaries and moving from a polluted position to a pure one. As a result of trade, wars and migrant labour, centuries of interaction between people in Southern Africa have contributed to the learning of one another’s healing techniques (Feierman 2006).4 In addition, the arrival of missionaries and European doctors added to the importance of the transgression of boundaries for the power of healing. Even in the earliest encounters between Africans and Europeans, both parties absorbed the aspects of each other’s healing practices and techniques that were experienced as powerful and efficacious (Comaroff and Comaroff 1997: 364; Vaughan in Luedke and West 2006: 4). African healers have incorporated Christian, Muslim and scientific elements in their practices, such as the Koran, the Bible, medical gloves and white dresses (for Mozambique, see Luedke 2007; West 2005: 120–6). The arrival of Christian missions in Mozambique, allowed people to appropriate powerful practices, ideas and techniques that were crucial to moving forward politically, culturally and socio-economically (Cruz e Silva 2001a; Macamo 2005a; West 2005: 109–32). This will be elaborated on in what follows from a gendered perspective for the case of southern Mozambique. Christian churches and the Mozambican nation-state The Protestant and Catholic churches had an important function in providing education and access to the economy during the colonial period in Mozambique. Overall, the colonial authorities collaborated with the Catholic Church, especially during the period of Portugal’s New State (1926–74) (Morier-Genoud and Anouilh 2013: 187–8), while the Protestants had a difficult relationship with the authorities (Cruz e Silva 2001a; Helgesson 1994). Through its education 3 The

insights on healing and crossing boundaries relate to the longer anthropological tradition of studying liminality. See Turner (1967) and van Gennep (1980 [1960]). 4 Territorial and regional cults are an example of this exchange (Schoffeleers 1979; Werbner 1977).

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programmes, the Catholic missions played an important role in the unifying nationalist colonial project of the Portuguese (Cabaço 2010: 197). While the Catholic mission incorporated mainly men in these programmes, Sheldon (2000: 28) notes that a few women became involved with mission centres to escape unhappy marriages. She also reports that the mission stations were an alternative for local family life for some African women too, which further influenced the missionaries’ negative view of African family life (Sheldon 2002: 87). Education was directed towards making African women into European-style housewives, teaching them domestic skills that were seen as desirable for them to have in order to join the colonial economy (Comaroff and Comaroff 1997; for Mozambique, see Casimiro 1986: 44, 45; Sheldon 2002: 79–113). In this way, a small number of Catholic-educated women could also link up with the colonial project of nationalisation. An alternative nation project was developed in the Protestant missions as the Protestants were suspected of working against the interests of the Portuguese and of stimulating an indigenous national identity that opposed colonial domination (Cruz e Silva 2001a; Ngoenha 1999; Saute 2005). Most of the Protestant mission churches and African Independent Churches (AICs) in southern Mozambique were initiated by returning migrants (Harries 2007; Helgesson 1994: 131–6), particularly Mozambican mine workers returning from South Africa who had come into contact with mission posts and AICs at the mines. The knowledge they had gained about Christianity and their ability to read the Bible were positive assets back home. One pastor at the church who had come from the Swiss Protestant Mission in South Africa said, ‘Imagine, a black person, during the colonial period, being able to read!’5 The case of the influential Swiss Mission, today the Presbyterian Church, is illustrative. It started with a Mozambican evangelist, Yosefa Mhalamhala, who came from the mines in South Africa (van Butselaar 1987: 49–65; Harries 2007: 77–82). As the emerging Church had to operate beyond the control of the Portuguese administration, it was not possible to establish a mission in Lourenço Marques and the Church started to grow in places in Gaza State that were controlled by the local kingdoms. At the beginning of the 1880s, the Swiss Mission was especially popular here among women who had converted after experiencing powerful visions and dreams (Harries 2007: 84–5). Women saw their chances of linking up through religion with new and foreign possibilities as they had fewer chances under the colonial authorities compared to men who could, for example, go to new places as migrant workers. As women were used to being spiritual practitioners, their involvement in the new religion was an extension of their own practices. Some Swiss church leaders were preoccupied 5 Lecture by Pastor Américo Zavala at the Presbyterian Church in Magude, 18 July 2008.

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with the influence of women’s ‘emotional tendencies’ that were too similar to local practices of contacting ancestors through dreams and visions, and the Swiss missionaries feared that converts were misunderstanding the real spirit of Christianity. At the end of the nineteenth century, when it became easier for the Swiss Mission to operate in Lourenço Marques, the Church attracted many new members, while the number of adherents in the rural areas stagnated (Harries 2007: 101). In the city, the Church played a fundamental role among the young indigenous urban population whose families were mostly part of the colonial economy. These youngsters were growing up in the period of Portugal’s New State, when the Indigenato was being introduced. Through the Swiss Mission it was possible to have an education in the local languages, as opposed to the Portuguese-language education offered by the Catholics. According to Cruz e Silva (2001a), this and the discussions organised within the Church contributed to a political consciousness and the shaping of nationalist sentiments based on local loyalties instead of loyalty to the Portuguese. While the majority of adherents were male, women were also part of the Protestant missions in Lourenço Marquez. Some had influential roles, for example the female writer Lina Magaia (Cruz e Silva 2001a: 171–6). Even though girls and boys both had the opportunity to participate in the churches’ youth education system, for girls this was directed towards family life, the home and cooking (Cruz e Silva 2001a: 53­–4). Various Frelimo leaders were educated by the Protestant missions, among them its founder Eduardo Mondlane (Swiss Mission), the first President of the Mozambican Republic after independence, Samora Machel (Methodist) and Armando Emílio Guebuza (Swiss Mission), who was President from 2005 to 2015. After independence, many political leaders came from these Protestant churches and so, in this sense, the Protestant churches became closely connected with the formation of the nation-state, as the Catholic Church had been in the colonial nation-state project. Directly after independence, the Marxist-Leninist Frelimo government adopted an anti-religious stance. The Catholic Church, which had collaborated with the colonial regime (Morier-Genoud 1996), and the Jehovah’s Witnesses (Morier-Genoud 1996: 29), who openly resisted Frelimo’s nationalist policies,6 suffered from Frelimo’s position on religion. Traditional healers were also persecuted (Lundin 2007: 107–8; Pinsky 1982: 41). The Protestant churches, where most of Frelimo’s leaders originated from, were closer to the state but they too

6 Jehovah’s Witnesses also refused to participate in Renamo’s war programme in 1984/85

when Renamo was seeking to establish systematic control over certain regions (Wilson 1992: 558–60).

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suffered from the hostile policy towards religion (Cruz e Silva 2008: 164).7 Church ministers were imprisoned and it became hard to organise activities.8 The meetings of the Dynamising Groups (DGs), for example, were expressly organised at the same time as church services (Morier-Genoud 1996: 31). However, the collapsing economy and Frelimo’s growing dependence on civil society for the distribution of food, clothes, schooling and health facilities, changed political attitudes. Moreover, its religious policies were generating negative publicity, in contrast to the generally positive image of Renamo, which made a point of showing respect to religion (Morier-Genoud and Anouilh 2013: 192) and received support from civil society groups in the West, primarily the US (van Koevering 1992: 109, 115–16, 123–4). In the early 1980s, a new period of more constructive dialogue between Frelimo and the churches emerged (Morier-Genoud 1996: 57–8; van Koevering 1992: 107). President Machel confirmed that the government and churches would, together, improve the situation of Mozambicans but a much more liberal climate only began in 1986 with Machel’s successor President Joaquim Chissano (Seibert 2005: 132–3). Full religious freedom was introduced with the democratic Constitution of 1990. Shortly afterwards, Catholics and Protestants intervened successfully in the peace talks between the Frelimo government and Renamo leaders who signed a peace agreement in 1992 (Morier-Genoud and Anouilh 2013: 193–7: Vines and Wilson 1995). Frelimo’s anti-religious position has left its mark on Maputo. Several of my older interlocutors told me how the importance of religious life and churchgoing had decreased. For example, a Pentecostal man (42 years of age) whose family was part of the Catholic community in Maputo’s Chamanculo neighbourhood said that during Machel’s presidency, ‘we did not care any more about the Catholic Church’ and that ‘morality disappeared’ with the subsequent civil war.9 Pinsky (1982: 41) reported on the situation in Hulene neighbourhood that ‘the churches had lost much of their influence in Hulene and some had closed down for lack of adherents. But the group that seemed to be faring the worst were the practitioners of traditional medicine. They had suffered a considerable loss of prestige in the community.’ 7 For

ambiguities in the relationship, see Morier-Genoud (1996) and Rossouw and Macamo (1993). 8 For example, members of the Assembly of God Church told me about the imprisonment of their Pastor Mulungu (see also Morier-Genoud 1996: 29). However, others said that there was never any persecution of believers. Experiences have varied (MorierGenoud 1996; van Koevering 1992: 107). The Constitution stated that citizens had the freedom to believe or not believe in a religion but their rights were unclear and imprecise (Morier-Genoud 1996: 27). 9 Conversation, 21 February 2005.

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After the war ended, a religious revival started (Cruz e Silva 2008: 165; van Butselaar 2000). Many AICs were established, such as Zionist and Apostolic churches, a process that had already started in the 1980s, and foreign missionaries and churches arrived. More curandeiros were beginning to work in the city, and the new churches benefited from the new freedom of religious expression and Frelimo’s loosening of its control in the city space. The growth in churches was also related to the rapid urbanisation following the war, which drew refugees from the rural areas into the peri-urban areas where AICs in particular found fertile ground. Many of these new churches have become popular with women, or have at least had a different appeal to women compared to men (Agadjanian 1999; Cruz e Silva 2001b, 2008; Mateus 2001; Pfeiffer 2002; Pfeiffer et al. 2007). These scholars see an important link between the feminisation of the city and the simultaneous neglect of the socio-economic reality by the state, which could account for the increase in religious practices in Mozambique. They point to the state’s inability to organise basic living conditions in the city context, which has made life especially difficult for women who have to run a household or take care of their children. Cruz e Silva (2008: 170) describes how the AICs consist of ‘the peripheral and marginalised par excellence’. Pfeiffer et al. (2007) argue that women in Chimoio in the central-western Manica Province are increasingly seeking spiritual help in AICs as well as in Pentecostal churches for reproductive health problems, whereas men are visiting traditional healers to engage in ‘occult’ practices to manage their misfortunes related to employment. The structural adjustment programmes of economic reform have deepened economic inequality and exacerbated household stresses, which are affecting men and women differently. This can be seen in patterns of church attendance. However, the newer Pentecostal churches in the urban areas of Southern Africa, such as the Brazilian Pentecostal churches, are primarily attracting women who do not have a marginalised position in socio-economic terms (Frahm-Arp 2010). Pentecostal converts are often economically successful or at least carry with them the potential for upward mobility.10 Even when these converts find themselves unsuccessful economically, which was a reason women mentioned for frequenting a Brazilian Pentecostal church, their participation in the urban space is different from that of marginalised citizens as they are not necessarily among ‘modernity’s malcontents’ (Comaroff and Comaroff 1993). The new churches are full of women doctors and teachers, and others who run 10 It

would be interesting to find out whether there are differences between patterns of adherence in cities like Chimoio compared to Maputo. Maputo has most of the country’s upwardly mobile citizens and has more variety in socio-economic groups, which could be reflected religiously.

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businesses and go to school. I argue that it is not women’s marginality but their increasingly central presence that is creating new challenges and tensions and defining their religious activities.11 Upwardly mobile women in Maputo are conquering supposedly male spaces but as women have always been relatively marginalised in the urban areas, at least in more formal national spaces, the urban space is not capable of serving these ‘emerging’ women. In light of this, it is significant that many more men and fewer women can be found in the older Protestant and Catholic churches today than in the AICs and Pentecostal churches. Many of the women I met at Brazilian Pentecostal churches had left either the Catholic or older Protestant churches, complaining that the real issues in life were not being addressed there, such as divorce, domestic violence and the role of ancestral spirits. These women felt that, like the government, church leaders were not facing the challenges and possibilities of urban society adequately. This feeling was intensified by the links between the churches and state officials. Where the Swiss Mission initially offered an alternative space to develop a new (urban) identity in the colonial period (Cruz e Silva 2001a; Macamo 2005), today the AICs and Pentecostal churches are taking this position. In the case of Brazilian Pentecostalism, this development cannot be seen as being independent of the transnational character of Pentecostal churches. The transnational mobility of Pentecostalism12 Growing transnational connections have led to religious forms of belonging acquiring a new intensity in many parts of the world, often in competition with national citizenship. Pentecostals and Muslims have increasingly been invading the public sphere by exploiting new forms of communication through the use of transnational ties and the mass media (Csordas 2009; Hüwelmeier and Krause 11 This

may, in different ways, apply to the AICs too. In her study of the Johane Masowe Movement in Harare, Mukonyora (2007) argues that while women are considered marginal in the city and in the post-colonial state of Zimbabwe, women in the Masowe Movement have claimed a specific place to express themselves, for example by interrupting men’s sermons with songs and in the ways they speak in the name of the Holy Spirit and perform healing rituals. Her analysis allows us to see women not only as victims but also as active agents in the making of the urban world (see also Scarnecchia 1997). It seems that the discussion about the differences and similarities between AICs and Pentecostal churches (e.g. Meyer 2004; Engelke 2010) has more to do with the diverse ways these churches participate in modernising processes. I agree with Engelke (2010) that the issues of cultural (dis)continuity are central in both the AICs and neo-Pentecostal churches but feel that they are being played out differently. See further Chapter Three. 12 This second part of the chapter is an elaboration of van de Kamp 2013a.

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2009; Meyer and Moors 2006; Meyer 2009). Through their transnational links, religious groups and ideologies offer possibilities for identification and loyalty that allow groups to bypass or confront the nation-state and erode its attempts to monopolise identities and commitment (Beyer 2001; Corten and MarshallFratani 2001; Rudolph and Piscatori 1997). Focusing on Pentecostalism, Corten and Marshall-Fratani (2001) argue that the transnational character of contemporary religion is taking on a new significance compared to earlier missionary activities because the role of the nationstate has decreased and the representation of a Pentecostal global community allows for an opening up of possibilities for people that goes beyond their local cultural context and provides them with other modes of identification and belonging:13 In the developing world, the failed promises of the nation-state concerning modernization have resulted in the de-legitimisation of their ‘mega-rhetoric of development’ and have opened the field to the work of the imagination of everyday individuals, fuelled by images, idea and resources from elsewhere, to re-script their lives, both individually and collectively, finding new ways to appropriate and inscribe themselves within global modernity. (Corten and Marshall-Fratani 2001: 3)

Most studies of transnational Pentecostalism focus on South-North links, such as the presence of African or Latin American migrant churches in Europe or the US (e.g. Adogame 2013; Levitt 2007; Mafra 2002; van Dijk 2004, 2005; Währisch-Oblau 2009; Wilkinson 2006).14 These scholars have mainly analysed the role of Pentecostalism in situations of migration, following the broader field of transnational studies. Transnationalism has become one of the main concepts in the social sciences in the study of an increasingly globalising world (e.g. Appadurai 1996; Basch et al. 1994; Hannerz 1996; Kearny 1995; Sassen 2007; Vertovec 2007). The first studies on transnationalism showed the limitations of the national focus. Scholarly analysis used to position people in fixed groups like tribes, ethnic groups and 13 The

Roman Catholic Church is known as a transnational religious organisation. However, approaching transnationalism as a process of transcending national arenas puts the transnational features of the Catholic Church in a different light. In Mozambique, the Catholic Church was part of the colonial nation-state project and since independence has focused on Africanising, nationalising and ‘Mozambicanising’ the Church (MorierGenoud 1996: 33–4). In this sense, the Swiss Mission in Mozambique had more transnational characteristics because it criticised the colonial state. 14 For case studies on South–South religious links, see Corten and Marshall-Fratani 2001; Oro et al. 2009; Rocha and Vásquez 2013; van Dijk 2006, and on triangular exchanges between the Americas, Europe and Africa, see Argyriadis et al. 2012; Chanson et al. 2014.

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nation-states, while increases in trans-border activities have shown the opposite with people transcending borders and developing multiple and fluid identities (Gupta and Ferguson 1992). Migrants in particular have been showing that the markers and boundaries of ethnicity and identity are negotiable and contextcontingent. In anthropology this has resulted in ethnicity becoming an almost unworkable concept. As a result, anthropologists of migration have started to see transnationalism as their principal focus of interest (Mazzucato 2004: 131; Vertovec 2007: 963). Traditional studies of migration focused on immigrants who left their home countries and adopted a new life in the host country where they started to integrate. Subsequent studies of migration took into consideration the fact that immigrants develop networks that span their home and host societies, stimulating the flow of people, ideas and goods between regions. Studies on religious transnationalism have addressed the role of religion for migrants in maintaining the link between the home and host society (Vertovec 2004). A central question is how transnational religion plays a role in preserving a sense of cultural continuity or in encouraging cultural change in contact between migrants and the new society in which migrants are subjected to a forceful public agenda that usually emphasises integration. In this context, it has been argued that transnational Pentecostalism encourages stability in situations of mobility and provides for cultural continuity by offering migrants a ‘home away from home’ (Adogame 1998; Sanneh 1993; Ter Haar 1998). In the case of Brazilian Pentecostalism in Mozambique we are not, however, dealing with a migrant community. Mozambican converts continue to live in their own society while participating in a setting where relations are developed and maintained that link Brazilian and Mozambican societies. What exactly is the relevance of transnational religion and related questions on cultural (dis) continuity and (dis)integration in such an environment? Several scholars have pointed to the emergence of transnational spaces that are not necessarily shaped by international migration but by processes of communication and exchange generated by capital expansion and the Internet or other forms of communication between specific nation-states (Appadurai 1996; Clifford 1992; Hannerz 1996; Meyer and Moors 2006). These studies analyse how citizens can develop identities that are not necessarily national, for example through the development of subjectivities and identities based on ideas, customs, practices and emotions that enter nation-states via travellers, television and the Internet. It is this idea of people becoming transnational by engaging in mobile structures, cultures and ideologies that is relevant in the case of Brazilian Pentecostal churches in Mozambique. This process takes on special dimensions in transnational Pentecostalism in Mozambique in that converts’ cultural nearness to the local society appears critical. Brazilian Pentecostalism in Mozambique demonstrates the locally

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embedded meaning and development of transnationalism (Glick Schiller and Çağlar 2010). Being part of the local society, unlike in situations of migration, many converts struggle to understand how their Pentecostal morality and spirituality can remain unaffected or even ‘uncaptured’ by local circumstances, powers or cultural realities (van Dijk 2006). They want to become independent of locally binding forces, i.e. to become more culturally and socio-economically mobile and to cross boundaries, such as in the case of Dona Gracelina at the start of this chapter. As said, Dona Gracelina wanted to open a business. She had managed to rent a nice building for the starting company at a central location in the city centre and had bought all the necessary equipment. There were also some possible future customers Dona Gracelina was in contact with, and she was all ready to start. However, after having dealt with the right government department in Maputo for several months, government officials would not hand over the required licence. She suspected that the officials were waiting for her to pay them an additional sum of money to proceed, but she refused. Dona Gracelina felt paralysed because of the power the government officials had over her: she was being kept by ‘evil national powers’. It was through transnational Pentecostalism that she would be able to break out of this situation, something that was made real with the business papers that would leave the country to receive a blessing in Brazil. In this context Dona Gracelina was made aware of the negative impact of national spiritual connections: through her possible links with ancestral or other spirits her project was failing, but by engaging in transnational Pentecostalism she could move away from these ‘origins’. As outsiders, Brazilian pastors confront Mozambicans in a variety of ways with the ‘evil’ aspects of their culture or life. To question the power of local healers, the pastors mimic the behaviour of a curandeiro/a when s/he is in a trance. They bring objects into church that local healers work with, and show that they can touch them without any negative consequences. In the traditional Mozambican context this is considered offensive and dangerous, but the pastors show that one should not be afraid if one is in the sphere of influence of the borderless power of the Holy Spirit. Another example is the Therapy of Love (see Chapter Five). During one therapy session, the pastor imitated the behaviour of Mozambican couples who, according to Brazilians, are shy, do not have the courage to look each other in the eyes or to touch their partner in public spaces. Then the pastor held hands with his wife, embraced her and gave her a kiss to show what love is, but also to demonstrate the shortcomings of local customs. By doing all this openly, the pastors want to force open cultural values as a way of bringing about transformation. They urge converts to cross cultural and spiritual boundaries, extending the tradition that spiritual practices involve boundaries that can be transcended.

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Mozambicans do not travel literally to cross boundaries. Brazilian pastors have done so, and it is their trajectory that creates a space of mobility. Mariz (2009) describes the dislocation by Brazilian pastors within and outside Brazil who leave their homes and families to preach the gospel. This is valued as an important strategy of spiritual development because, by leaving one’s family, it is possible to be fully dedicated to the missionary project. The geographical journey facilitates a radical break with one’s former life and allows for the formation of a new person. During services in Mozambique, Brazilian pastors often used their personal journeys as an example of what faith looks like and what it can achieve. My Pentecostal interlocutors often commented that the Brazilian pastors were stronger than Mozambican pastors because the Brazilians had travelled a long distance to an unfamiliar place where they did not have family. They also said that the pastors often do not have children or only one because pastors have to travel a lot and normally only stay for a few months in a church branch.15 Since they constantly move to another branch inside and outside Mozambique, it is almost impossible to have a family and maintain relationships (see also Freston 2005: 41; van Wyk 2014: 62–6).16 Thus, pastors must possess potent spiritual powers, as they experience many hardships but are strong and dedicated. Brazilian pastors build on these perceptions, telling their audiences about their spiritual creativity in finding their way in new locations and the miraculous events that helped them in developing new church branches everywhere in the world. Furthermore, most of the assistant pastors in the Brazilian Pentecostal churches are Mozambican – from different regions in Mozambique.17 But they disregard the diversity of ethnic groups and cultural customs in Mozambique and elsewhere, as they simply consider them as devilish. Regardless of the particular ancestral spirit that might have attacked converts, a government policy that could have influenced women’s lives, or the education they pursued, in the end, they were involved in a spiritual war and should fight any devilish forces. To transform, one has to travel and transcend the familiar, including one’s family and culture, and suffer hardships to create new possibilities. By 15 A

Pentecostal woman told me that Brazilian pastors have themselves sterilised (27 October 2005). 16 Mafra (2002) describes how many pastors of the Universal Chruch are poorly educated and without former international experience, which has influenced the cultural translation of Pentecostal messages. At the same time, a career within the Church allows them to progress and develop a middle-class lifestyle (Mafra 2001: 44). 17 It seems that the Brazilian churches in Mozambique are increasingly led by local pastors, as the Mozambican government applies pressure to foreign churches to employ local pastors. But the main leadership positions continue to be held by Brazilians.

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participating in Brazilian Pentecostalism one embarks on a journey. Mozambican believers leave elements of local culture behind, begin to experience their lives differently and see things in a new light. Since converting, Dona Gracelina had started to walk through the city with a particular attitude, alert to all the (evil) influences that could affect her. Even though bodies remain in the same location physically, subjective dislocation and transnational positioning have the same effect as embarking on a real journey regarding social and cultural perceptions, values and practices. While breaking with or the will to break with local socio-cultural structures and practices is an intrinsic aspect of Pentecostalism in Africa (Meyer 1998a), this is reinforced by its transnational dimension. In continuity with traditional healers, prophets and missionaries in Southern Africa, Brazilian pastors, coming from even further away, are perceived as powerful healers. Yet here the mobility religion effectuates primarily results in a person becoming a ‘stranger’ in the local environment rather than an ‘insider’ in a strange reality (van Dijk 1997; cf. Werbner 1989). The regional cults that have emerged in a context of labour migration in Southern Africa have had an important function in reorganising socio-cultural and spiritual lives and providing a home for migrants who were strangers far away from home (van Binsbergen 1981), as has also been argued for African Pentecostalism in Europe (Adogame 1998). Instead, in the South– South transnational movement of Brazilian Pentecostalism, the call for a break with cultural customs shows religion as a producer of a ‘foreign’ place (van de Kamp and van Dijk 2010). Crossing (cultural) boundaries is thus not experienced as disconcerting or uprooting, and if such feelings arise, the church does not provide a ‘home’. The transnational Pentecostal space is about creating transformation by openly transcending national, cultural and spiritual boundaries, for example by nullifying the power of government officials, severing relations of dependence with kin or incorporating new modes of love by embracing and kissing one’s partner in public. An atmosphere of contestation and struggle has to be created to ensure a breakthrough and transformation. A new life can only develop when old ways have been contested, such as by openly questioning the power of local healers. From their transnational experiences, pastors develop a superior position in this struggle and encourage converts to do the same. Brazilian pastors confront their public with spiritual powers that are involved in their day-to-day lives, stimulating reflections on local society with the aim of creating a detached position regarding local circumstances. As a result, specific ideologies, practices and experiences develop. The following section describes how the formation of the specific transnational Pentecostal space in Mozambique is being influenced by a particular perspective on the history of South–South Atlantic relationships.

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South–South Pentecostalism and the Lusophone Atlantic Since the sixteenth century, the histories of Brazil and Africa have been interrelated through the Portuguese presence on both sides of the southern Atlantic. Above all, the traffic of African slaves to Brazil between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries shaped relations. Whereas the majority of slaves came from West and Central Africa (Sweet 2003: 18), slaves from the Mozambican region arrived in Brazil too (Capela 2002; Rodriguez 1997: 450, 490, 517). With the end of the slave trade in the nineteenth century, these South–South contacts decreased. From a Brazilian perspective, the political and economic South–South relations that developed during the twentieth century were mostly in South Africa (Filho 2008). However since the 1970s, when Brazilian foreign policy started to have a globalist instead of a more Americanist approach (Pinheiro 2004), Brazilian policies, agreements and treaties of cooperation have been established with different African governments (Visentini 2005). In the early 1980s, a Brazilian president paid an official visit to Africa (visiting Nigeria, Senegal, Guinea, Cape Verde and Algeria) for the first time. Later on, during the presidency of José Sarney (1985–90), who visited Cape Verde, Angola and Mozambique, the Community of Portuguese-Speaking Countries (CPLP) was set up. Despite the onset of a liberal economic era, Brazilian foreign policy was still predominantly protectionist at this time although it started to change during President Cardoso’s administration in the 1990s. The Brazilian army participated in United Nations peacekeeping missions in Angola, Mozambique18 and Liberia, and a trade agreement was signed between Mercosur, the South American Common Market and the South African government.19 The Brazilian worldview, traditionally aligned with those of other developing countries, was gradually substituted for one that saw Brazil as a potentially developed country (Barbosa et al. 2009: 63). Under President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s administration (2003–10), this development culminated in a strong foreign policy agenda that focused on intensive South–South cooperation (Visentini and Pereira 2007) including improving the integration of Afro-descendants in Brazilian society.20 The diplomatic staff in Africa was ‘Africanised’, the number of 18 In

September 2005 an exhibition was held at the Brazilian–Mozambican Cultural Centre (Centro Cultural Brasil-Moçambique) in Maputo on Brazilian participation in the UNOMOZ peacekeeping mission in Mozambique in the early 1990s. This UN mission appears in the novel O Último Voo do Flamingo by Mozambican writer Mia Couto (2000). 19 Nelson Mandela, former president of South Africa, came to Brazil in 1998. 20 History books have been rewritten. The Brazilian law 10.639/2003 promotes education about Afro-Brazilian and African culture in the educational system (Mungoi and Rodrigues 2008).

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Brazilian embassies and cultural centres there increased, educational exchanges between Brazil and Africa expanded and bilateral trade grew.21 A large part of Brazil’s technical cooperation takes place with Africa (Mendonça Jr 2013; Visentini 2012). The Senegal’s President Abdoulaye Wade even declared Lula to be ‘the first black Brazilian President’ (Lechini 2008: 68). Cultural exchange has increased substantially in music, film, television, literature and fashion (Arenas 2011: 1–44; McMahon 2013; Scliar et al. 2005). President Lula’s foreign policy was criticised for being informed by utilitarian interests and for being predominantly geopolitically inspired with a view to acquiring a seat on the UN Security Council (Visentini 2014; Barbosa et al. 2009: 66, 71–7). In addition, this could be morally justified by referring to the slave past. After his seventh visit to Africa in October 2007, Lula claimed that Brazil had all the conditions to contribute to an ‘African Renaissance’, saying that ‘we want to overcome the cruel past of slavery, which made us unhappy on both sides of the Atlantic. We have historical bonds. We are ethnically and culturally similar’ (Valor Econômico 2007 in Barbosa et al. 2009: 72). Under Brazil’s current president, Dilma Roussef, the budget for technical cooperation has been cut. While President Dilma wishes to align development cooperation with Brazil’s commercial interests (Leite et al. 2013), there have been growing concerns about blurring boundaries between cooperation, trade and investment after failing projects in Mozambique, such as in the case of ProSavana (Clements and Fernandes 2013; Wolford and Nehring 2015). The recent political, economic and cultural interactions between Brazil and Africa have run parallel to the Brazilian Pentecostal churches and missionaries travelling across the Atlantic. While discussions take place about the extent to which Brazil as a mestiço (mestizo) country may play a different role in Africa compared to Western countries and China (Fontaine and Seifert 2010; Visentini 2014: 51–2), Brazilian pastors and African converts have established unique and remarkable South–South connections. The eye-catching white church buildings of the Brazilian Pentecostals in Southern Africa have made their presence very visible. These churches are well known for their fanatical demonisation of ‘traditional’ religions, fulminating, for example, against any form of macumba and condemning it as occult. Macumba, which is a foreign word in Mozambique,22 is a pejorative term in Brazilian Pentecostal jargon and used to denounce 21 Brazilian

companies Petrobrás, Vale do Rio Doce and Odebrecht are very active in Africa. For an overview of Brazilian economic and political relations with Africa, see Barbosa et al. (2009); IPEA/BM (2012). 22 Although a similar word in the Tsonga languages in southern Mozambique refers to the spirits (thanks to Elísio Macamo for this information), Pentecostals considered it as a Brazilian Pentecostal term and appropriated it in that way.

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Afro-Brazilian religions as witchcraft or black magic.23 Since the religions of the African slaves who were shipped to Brazil form the basis of all kinds of AfroBrazilian worship, Brazilian Pentecostal pastors consider the heart of all evil to lie in Africa (Macedo 2000; Birman 2006: 65; Freston 2005: 46–7). It is this evil that they came to Africa to fight.24 Converts told me that there is a lot of macumba in Mozambique and that the Brazilian pastors were saving them from macumba. The circulation of cultural and spiritual imagery between Brazilian pastors and Mozambican converts is grounded in the Lusophone Atlantic.25 This is a particular space of historical, cultural and religious production between Portugal, Brazil and Africa that has been shaped by diverse colonial encounters (Naro et al. 2007; see also Gilroy 1992).26 The Lusophone Atlantic is a shared cultural space along which people and imagery move. Brazilian-Mozambican Pentecostals have created a specific Christian, or even Pentecostal, transatlantic space of interaction and exchange (see also Sarró and Blanes 2009). A clear example of the Pentecostal Lusophone exchange is the understanding of feitiçaria, a synonym for macumba or witchcraft for Pentecostals. Since the 23

There is no agreement in the literature on the linguistic origins of the term macumba and what it exactly denotes. Hayes (2007: 287) explained that: ‘Some scholars linked “macumba” to a Bantu language and a certain type of percussive musical instrument. Given the centrality of percussion in African and African-derived religions, this may account for the use of the term in reference to the ritual practices of Bantu-speaking slaves and their descendents, who were especially prominent in Rio from the late eighteenth to the mid-nineteenth century.’ For non-practitioners in Brazil’s upper classes, macumba has a pejorative connotation. According to one of the best Brazilian dictionaries, Houaiss, macumba is a designation by laymen of Afro-Brazilian cults in general. Capone writes that ‘In Brazil, the Macumba as a religion or sort of magic, assumes various forms and expressions according to the locale’ (2010: 73) and is called Candomblé in Bahia (Ramos in ibid.). 24 A Mozambican pastor at the Universal Church explained that there are many more demons in Brazil than in Mozambique ‘but they came to Brazil because of the slaves, thus their origin is in Africa’ (conversation, 12 March 2007). 25 Strictly speaking, Mozambique is on the Indian Ocean and is geographically not part of the Atlantic, but it is included in this constellation because the Atlantic has influenced local dynamics in the Mozambican region and vice versa (Naro et al. 2007: 8). 26 Naro et al. (2007: 8) criticise the idea of a ‘Lusotropicalism’ as proposed by the Brazilian sociologist Gilberto Freyre, as an idea of an ‘all-encompassing, culturally specific and transhistorical Portuguese colonial project’. They propose the Lusophone Black Atlantic as a space of historical and cultural production to demonstrate how the historical continuities across this historical space are composed of myriad local and specific discontinuities, local cultures and ‘perspectival refractions’ (ibid.) that extend their influence well beyond the Lusophone context. For critical reflections on the possibilities of a Lusophone fellowship, see Bastos et al. (2002); Cahen (2013).

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early colonial era, feitiço (fetish, literally something made) has become a central, if not obsessive, focus in outsiders’ discourses on Africa. The word was a Creole term, and the Portuguese used it to refer to amulets and all kinds of devotional objects. When they arrived in West Africa and saw that Africans were using amulets, they called them feitiços (Pollak-Eltz 1970: 37–8; Sansi-Roca 2007). Other explorers, such as the Dutch, English and French, misinterpreted the origins of the word feitiço and saw it as African, applying the word to everything related to African cults. For them, fetissos were not only magic charms but also African gods and their priests were the fetisseros (Sansi-Roca 2007: 27). The Portuguese feitiço became synonymous with African religion, which increasingly became framed as devilish and evil in the colonial encounter (see e.g. Pietz 1985).27 In Brazil, at the end of the nineteenth century, the word feitiçaria started to appear in relation to criminal acts. Policemen and judges persecuted people involved in magical and spiritual practices that were used for evil purposes and were called feitiços. Moreover, this use of feitiço referred to the supposed evils in Brazilian culture, namely the presence of ‘inferior’ civilisations, essentially African cultures and Afro-Brazilian religions such as Candomblé and Macumba (Sansi-Roca 2007: 30).28 Pentecostals still connect Afro-Brazilian cults to this ‘fetishism’. Pentecostal pastors in Brazil preach against feiticeiros, the priests of the Afro-Brazilian religions. Likewise, they preach against feitiçaria in Mozambique, where they regard the traditional healers, the curandeiros, as feiticeiros and call their practices macumba. It is striking how on both sides of the Lusophone Atlantic, i.e. in Brazil and in African countries, the revitalisation of an ‘African identity’ is part of the history of perceptions of feitiçaria. Van de Port (2007) evocatively analyses the beautification by the Bahian government of the Afro-Brazilian cult Candomblé in the northern Brazilian state of Bahia, where most descendants of Africans live. These cultural politics are supported by the tourist industry, elaborated on by the entertainment industry and the media, and receive backup from 27 Theories

on fetishism (Goldman 2009; Latour 1996; Pietz 1985) centre on what it (mis)represents. Fetishism is about the image that was created of African spirituality and Africans more generally. In this sense, it was simultaneously a preoccupation of modern Western ideas of religion in which the fetish, an object with a soul, could not comply with the enlightened ideal of what is to be considered a religion (Keane 1997). 28 In Brazil, studies on the presence of African religions (Bastide 1978; Rodrigues (1945) [1906]) have dealt with the ‘African purity’ of these religions and the extent to which they can be considered sorcery. According to Hayes (2008), Bastide’s classification of the various Afro-Brazilian religions has resulted in a contemporary appropriation of Candomblé as part of Brazilian culture, while macumba is perceived as destructive, as feitiçaria (see also Capone 2010). This may be one reason why Pentecostals prefer using the term macumba.

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Candomblé priests who are searching for respectability. The colour white plays a crucial role in these politics, and spotless white has come to dominate the public appearance of Candomblé. However this white has also come to represent everything that the colour seemed to hide for non-practitioners: the shadows of the occult, the blood of animal sacrifices, death and violence. It is precisely this ambiguous presence of Candomblé imagery that invites one to look beyond the visible. And it is here that Pentecostals take the opportunity to report on the satanic behaviour in Candomblé (van de Port 2007: 253; see also Almeida 2009; Birman 1996; Mariz 1999), as they do with African religions in Africa. They warn followers to watch out for this feitiçaria by revealing the ‘real’ meaning of Candomblé’s white. Comparable processes of public imagination are taking place in Mozambique. As described in the previous chapter, Frelimo has started a process of revaluing traditional Mozambican culture. Mozambicans have to value their culture as a force for developing a prosperous Mozambican nation. Traditional healers receive more support, government officials use authentic Mozambican clothes and traditional rituals take place at official state ceremonies. There is a revival of Mozambican identity and discussions about what it actually is and means (see e.g. Bertelsen 2003; Sousa Santos and Trindade 2003; Macagno 2008; Meneses 2006; Serra 1998). Being African is hot, and one should be proud of it.29 Many Mozambicans reject this return to Mozambique’s past, which for them has so many dark sides that its ‘whitening process’ (van de Port 2007) is vanishing. The clearest expression of this standpoint is heard in Pentecostal churches where members forcefully reject national cultural politics and promote a global Christian culture with Brazilian accents. Both the Mozambican government (and related civil society organisations) and the Brazilian Pentecostal churches are thus engaged in a process of restyling aspects of Mozambican culture, albeit in different and even opposing ways: the Mozambican government is ‘civilising’ local healing, while Pentecostals stress its ‘uncivilised’ features . These cultural policies echo transnational and national history. During the colonial era, Mozambican assimilados had to break with feitiçaria, and under the subsequent Marxist-Leninist Frelimo regime, feiticeiros or traditional healers were persecuted. Today, these healers have become part of the nation-state project but the current revitalisation of curandeiros’ power over good and evil spirits keeps the imagery of feitiçaria alive. Although members of the upper and middle classes rarely speak openly about their visits to curandeiros, they warn each other of the disastrous influences of feiticeiros everywhere, fearing that their material 29 This

attitude is also expressed by groups performing capoeira, an Afro-Brazilian slave dance, in Mozambique. The Centre of Brazilian Studies (Centro de Estudos Brasileiros) in Maputo offers courses in capoeira.

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well-being will be the subject of feitiçaria practices. Numerous stories circulate of suspicious medicines put under people’s chairs at work, in newly purchased cars or at the doors of luxury houses. Women share their anxieties about the feitiços used by other women to win over the hearts of their husbands. In these myriad meanings of fetish, the city becomes the central arena. De Boeck and Plissart (2004) have shown how there is a visible and an invisible city in Kinshasa where, in addition to the physical and visible urban reality, there is an invisible immaterial architecture and infrastructure that contains people’s desires, imaginations, actions and spiritual realities. A city like Kinshasa is thus difficult to domesticate and impossible to capture in one master narrative. De Boeck and Plissart (2004: 19) compare it with fetishes because it is a ‘constant border-crossing phenomenon, resisting fixture, refusing capture’. The same is true for Maputo. People’s imagery does not consist of a corpus of fixed representations, and a variety of images is continuously being mediated by television, Pentecostal pastors, traditional healers and state officials. The extent to which one of these bodies is able to capture the city is central in the cultural contestation about what should be considered feitiçaria, with the nation’s capital being the crucial place for the development of a specific cultural identity. In the case of Brazilian Pentecostals, their efforts to build the most prestigious buildings at central locations in Maputo attract media attention and produce loud decibels during church services that can be heard across a vast area are all part of their attempt to incorporate the urban space (see also van Dijk 2001; de Witte 2008b). Meanwhile, new influences are constantly entering the urban space via migrants, television, the Internet and expats. As a result, no one specific body, such as the state or the church, controls the whole urban space, and a web of plural meanings and social imagery is boosted. Converts are a part of these processes. Dona Gracelina, who was trying to open a company, grew up in a family with assimilados where feitiçaria was something one was not supposed to talk about because it was only ‘the uncivilised other’ who dealt with such matters. However, since different forms and interpretations of feitiçaria are less silenced and more present in the public sphere, feitiçaria have come to play a new role in people’s lives. I met converts who were confused about family members who started by saying that something that happened long ago had consequences for their lives. For the first time, they were hearing that certain incidents with spirits in the family may have been behind their failure to marry. To find out about the influence of the past in the present, they had to participate with their kin in sessions with a local healer. But, often these healing sessions had not helped them, and they misunderstood what happened during a ritual they had to carry out. Convert Patricia (29 years) explained how the curandeiro started to put something on her feet and that when she asked what it was all about, her family told her she should not ask

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questions.30 Curandeiros/as commented that sometimes they are incapable of helping their urban clients because they are unaware of their past and do not want to cooperate with the spirits.31 In addition, modern, urban people find the rituals of local healers disgusting because the blood of animals is used, and they find the circumstances unhygienic, preferring the clean white spaces of Brazilian Pentecostal churches. In contrast to their families and local healers, Brazilian Pentecostal pastors explained openly to Dona Gracelina and Patricia what the practices in their family mean according to the Pentecostal view in a way that connects with women’s aspirations. Brazilian pastors have been able to transfer their approach to Afro-Brazilian religions into the Mozambican context despite the many differences between the Mozambican spiritual reality and Afro-Brazilian cults. Mozambicans apparently recognised their experiences in the stories the Brazilian pastors related, while the Brazilian pastors could easily connect with what they learned about Mozambican realities. In his description of the Universal Church in Southern Africa, Freston (2005: 41) points out that ‘in its worldwide expansion, the [Universal] church has shown flexibility in small “glocalising” methodological adaptations, … but always remaining essentially the same in doctrine, organisation and emphases’. Studying the expansion of the Universal Church in Argentina, Oro and Semán (2001: 187) also demonstrate how its daily ritual battle against AfroBrazilian religions, as practised in services in Brazil, needed adaptation in the Argentinian context where Afro-Brazilian beliefs are much less influential. To reinvent the dormant figure of the Devil in the Argentinian imaginary, pastors made use of several media, for example the film The Exorcist and Catholic hagiography. As in the Argentinian case, the Universal Church has adapted to other cultural settings, with positive and negative results (Corten et al. 2003). However in my encounters with converts and pastors, I learned that the ‘glocalising methodological adaptations’ (Freston 2005: 41) and ways of ‘translating the Devil’ (Meyer 1999) imply first and foremost maintaining a certain distance between Brazilians and Mozambicans, and their respective knowledge of each other’s spiritual world, experiences and imaginations. The capacity of Brazilian Pentecostalism to create a critical distance to local perceptions of spirits depends on a ‘real’ distance. While both Brazilians and Mozambicans use the word macumba, they do not share much in its content, variety, differences and particularities. The orixás, the spiritual entities that figure in Afro-Brazilian religions and originate from religions in West Africa, and the spirits active in 30 Conversation, 14 March 2007.

31 Interviews with different curandeiros/as held on 15 November 2006, 5 December 2006

and 8, 27 and 28 February 2007.

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Southern Africa are all declared ‘demonic’ by Brazilian pastors (Macedo 2000: 7–19). As many pastors and converts in Mozambique said, ‘the Devil makes people believe that they are dealing with a specific ancestral spirit, but it is a demon’. Brazilian pastors claim that in all these cases and wherever they are, they deal with the same demonic powers. Mozambican Pentecostals were unfamiliar with the term macumba but today they will talk about macumba, referring to the influence of evil spirits in their lives. In other words, it appears to be sufficient to acknowledge the destructive potential of macumba without going into further specificities. It is even considered dangerous to know too much about macumba. Mozambicans do not need to know the exact spiritual history of their families or the nature of Afro-Brazilian spirits. And for Brazilians, the basic information about some central spiritual figures in Mozambique can suffice.32 The less one knows, the more foreign one can be(come), and thus one is able to transcend boundaries. In other words, the concept of macumba allows the Brazilian missionaries to make a connection with African spiritual realities, and at the same time, by using this foreign terminology, they can help Mozambicans to become a ‘foreigner’ to these realities or to distance from evil. It is the combination of comparable spiritual experiences and the foreign distance of Brazilian pastors that would appear to make Brazilian Pentecostalism particularly suitable to transgressing local attachments and limitations. Pioneering transnationally While Dona Gracelina was setting up her company, she and her husband reaffirmed their marriage vows. Dona Gracelina explained that they officially got married twenty-five years ago, but the ceremony had not taken place under God’s supervision. To mark their new life and for it to go well, she felt that she needed to have a new wedding ceremony, especially as her husband had also converted. After the wedding, she showed me pictures of herself in a white wedding dress, accompanied by bridesmaids at her church wedding, and she also showed me photos of her civil wedding celebrations in the Palácio de Casamentos (Palace of Marriages). While couples quite regularly reaffirm their marriage vows around the time of their 25th wedding anniversary, in the case of Dona Gracelina and her husband, their conversion played a crucial role. Similar to other Pentecostal couples, they were afraid that ancestors were intervening in their life in a negative way, as they no longer wanted to subordinate themselves to the local social institution of exchange relations that are necessary for the reproduction of life that is at the basis of traditional kinship relations, including marriage (Bloch and Parry 1982; Feliciano 1998: 297–323; see also Chapter One). Lubkemann (2005) and Groes-Green 32 See Chapter Four on the spirit spouse and the Afro-Brazilian spirit Pombagira.

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(2014) describe how Mozambican migrants in Europe and South Africa keep sending money home, even if they do not return to Mozambique, because not supporting kin is seen as dangerous to one’s well-being and one’s success in a new country. If migrants stop assisting their kin back home, ancestral spirits will become discontented and start acting – for example sending illness – to remind migrants of their obligations towards kin. In this sense, being far away, as many women dream of, does not free them of their kin relations. Curtidoras who marry European men and start a life in Europe can actually gain a lot of respect from kin because ‘they made it in Europe’ (Groes-Green 2014: 252). Those women who literally succeeded going ‘elsewhere’ and becoming happy have gained a certain freedom while remaining active members of their families back home. The Pentecostal women I met who were doing relatively well financially did not necessarily want to leave the country to make money but wanted to distance themselves from their kin. It is precisely because of the obligation to share their wealth with kin that they wished they could break free from the relations of dependence that were created through marriage and the dangers of feitiços everywhere. Knowing that moving to another country would not necessarily force a break with ancestral spirits, they were looking for powers that could overrule their spiritual dependencies, whichthey experienced as a burden. Brazilian pastors’ generation of a transnational power to cross cultural and spiritual boundaries seems to be making Pentecostalism particularly relevant for these women. Brazilian pastors offer an adequate framework for addressing and combating the negative influences of spiritual powers on affective relationships and professional careers. In the eyes of Pentecostal women, pastors’ success in combating husband spirits both in Brazil and Mozambique (see Chapter Four), and in setting up churches everywhere in the world, testifies to their superior spiritual power in the domain of marriage, sexuality, money and business. Women’s positions as cultural mediators in their reproductive roles (Tripp et al. 2009) connect with the transnational Pentecostal transcendence of boundaries. As demonstrated in the previous chapter on constructions and imaginations of the nation, women on the one hand appear as signifiers of the community’s honour while on the other hand, this position also allows them to negotiate new cultural meanings in the contested transitional spaces of a society in transformation (Tripp et al. 2009; Yuval-Davis 1997). Under successive national policies, Maputo’s socio-economic life has been continuously reshaped, and this has affected gender positions and women’s possibilities to position themselves in the urban domain. Although it is now more or less accepted that women will work for a salary, their growing self-awareness and new modes of dress, relating and behaviour are often the subjects of heated debate because others consider them inappropriate for an ‘African woman’ and an ‘African marriage’ (Groes-Green 2011). Upwardly mobile women are caught in a difficult situation, as they are maintaining or reshaping their

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reproductive roles in the regeneration of society while simultaneously exploring beyond its cultural boundaries. Here, upwardly mobile women and transnational Pentecostalism are finding and reinforcing each other in their capacities. Women are taking transnational Pentecostal tools and visions to pioneer the urban domain in new ways, and challenge and move boundaries about the Mozambican woman in the national sphere in order to control and shape new lifestyles, as will be examined further in the following chapters. As pioneers, women are exploring the transformative capacity of transnational Brazilian Pentecostalism. Women’s cross-cultural activities include attempts to reshape the linkages between the intertwined productive and reproductive domains of marriage, sexuality, work and money, which are all bound up in one sphere. All are important and dependent on each other for the smooth running of social life (Bloch and Parry 1982; Feliciano 1998), although their links are currently unbalanced and unclear. Dona Gracelina was busy redefining their combination and how her success in the reproductive domain – a perfect marriage – would affect her business and vice versa. This was a crucial issue as her relative economic success took shape when her husband lost his job. While Dona Gracelina said that this was the result of witchcraft medicines used by his colleagues, she needed to carefully design her career without allowing suspicion to grow against her. Her success could not influence her husband’s ‘failure’. Women like Dona Gracelina cannot fall back on a cultural routine and a stable social field. As women with new socio-economic positions, their situations are uncertain, and they are not in control of all the social and spiritual forces that impinge on their positions. Their new economic positions open up the chance of increasing control in their lives and the opportunity to conquer the city by setting up businesses, driving their own cars and relating to men in new ways. However, they must strategically manoeuvre their access to new life spaces, and Pentecostal women explored the transnational Brazilian Pentecostal space as a form of getting ‘elsewhere’ socially and culturally. Conclusion: becoming Pentecostal ‘strangers’ The transnational Brazilian Pentecostal space has become especially relevant to urban upwardly mobile women who are seeking to direct and control their new social positions in a shifting and uncertain but challenging urban environment. Uncertainties about new ways of living demand a critical cultural reflection, especially in the reproductive domain, such as relationships with kin and partners. By navigating transnational Pentecostalism, they are exploring possibilities and anticipating a life trajectory to find and create options. Brazilian pastors’ spiritual and cross-cultural strength, which allows them to cross sensitive cultural boundaries, makes them attractive healers and counsellors when it

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comes to reforming the regeneration of life. In this respect, women’s historical position as cultural mediators (Tripp et al. 2009) connects with the transnational Pentecostal transcendence of boundaries. They find and reinforce each other in their capacities to challenge and move frontiers in the national sphere around the ‘Mozambican woman’ and reproductive issues. Through Brazilian Pentecostalism, women are developing a new vision of their place in Maputo in contrast to women’s positions in this city in the past. Their attachment to the Holy Spirit should make it possible for them to get better positions in schools, companies, the government and family life. In this sense, converts are aiming to change their life spaces in Maputo into ‘foreign’, alternative, places or transnational Pentecostal urban spaces. In exploring the South–South transnational Pentecostal space in Maputo, the historical connections of the Lusophone Atlantic serve as a meeting point for Brazilians and Mozambicans. Brazilians came to combat the origins of macumba, and although it is a Brazilian concept, it has been incorporated by Mozambicans. The presence of macumba imagery from Brazil via Pentecostal pastors and the focus on feitiçaria are paired with an opening up of the silencing of talk about spirits in Mozambique. Brazilian pastors have brought the spirits that travelled to Brazil so long ago with the slaves back to what is supposed to be their home, to remind Mozambicans of their roots. In the Pentecostal context, these roots are considered dangerous and evil, and the cause of problems in people’s lives. The exchange between Brazilians and Mozambicans has resulted in a specific transnational Pentecostal macumba embedded in Mozambique’s urban space. At the same time, the ways in which the Brazilian pastors refer to the African origins of macumba allow the Brazilian leaders to place themselves on a higher moral ground and to remain non-integrated. The Brazilian pastors carefully inspect their relations with the ‘simple and humble’ people of Africa (Crivella 1999: 40–53). They hardly spend time with Mozambicans and are careful not to engage in long-term relationships. They want to stay independent of local forces, structures and obligations, remaining able to move elsewhere quickly when they appear to integrate too much in a particular church branch or when they receive complaints from believers who participated in a spiritual campaign and paid large sums of money without a result. In this sense, and in the framework of a long transatlantic history, the Brazilian Pentecostal distance to Mozambican society sheds an interesting light on the more general discussion about South–South cooperation and the need for Brazilians to deepen knowledge of partners’ conditions and integrate better (Leite et al. 2013; Wolford and Nehring 2015). The following chapters examine women’s appropriation of the transnational Pentecostal distance to ‘Africa’ in everyday attempts to reshape the reproductive sphere. It will be shown how the explicit conquest in the pioneering practices of converts not only makes traversing boundaries possible but also creates new and violent ones.

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CHAPTER 3

Moving Frontiers: The Generational Trajectories of Pentecostal Women The previous chapters have offered a macro social narrative of the formation of the Mozambican nation-state and a framework for understanding Brazilian Pentecostalism in Mozambique as a critical transnational space regarding gender, reproductive issues and the urban. This chapter describes micro stories in this larger setting, focusing on Pentecostal women, and presents the similarities and differences in the life trajectories of the women I encountered in Maputo while on fieldwork.1 These plural trajectories of urban Pentecostal women need to be taken into account when analysing how their violent experiences of conversion, which will be examined in the following chapters, are shaped by historical social transformations, personal backgrounds and Brazilian Pentecostalism. The Pentecostal women I met ranged in age from 15 to 75. The women of varying ages were all preoccupied with issues related to gender roles, marriage, sexuality and family relations, but their particular positions, views and questions on these matters differed. In general, these differences correlated with their age and the specific historical periods in which they grew up. Pentecostalism in Africa generally seems to attract the younger generations (Gusman 2009; Lindhardt 2010; Trudell et al. 2002; van Dijk 1992),2 who perceive the particularities of the Pentecostal discourse as very powerful. Pentecostal conversion demands a break with the bonds of kinship and tradition, and presents an opportunity to transform one’s life and reduce the influence of others through the power of the Holy Spirit. Van Dijk (1992, 1999) shows how this Pentecostal message empowers youth to define the traditional powerful role of elders as being imbued with evil forces and to no longer obey them. Pentecostal leaders also explicitly target youth through the use of modern styles of worship, dress, language and teachings about relationships and sexuality (Bochow 2010; 1 A few parts of this chapter are elaborations of van de Kamp 2012a. 2 However,

the category of ‘young’ is relative because African (urban) populations are also young. According to Mozambique’s 2007 census, 85 per cent of the population of Maputo is under 40 (INE 2009: 6–10).

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Frahm-Arp 2010). Young people are generally open to appropriate innovative discourses and technologies (for Africa, see Abbink 2005), and Brazilian Pentecostalism in Mozambique is still considered original and new, unlike the older churches that are seen as being interwoven with the elders and traditions. However, as the life stories described in this chapter demonstrate, the new opportunities youngsters are taking and creating together with the Pentecostal ‘ideology of youth’ (van Dijk et al. 2011)3 can also be attractive for older persons. Some of the older Pentecostal women had converted at an earlier age, but many at a later stage in their lives. In several cases they followed the path of their Pentecostal daughters, who converted first and then brought their mothers to church (see also Lindhardt 2010). Hence the focus on the correlation between a person’s religious activity and a certain stage in their life (Gooren 2010). Using age and generation as an analytical perspective exhibits different trajectories of conversion over time and space, and how these change from one age cohort to another. The conversion stories show how women’s biographies are shaped by social histories and urban spaces, as described in Chapter One. The use of generation and age here is informed by three different but related perspectives, based on studies that have shown that meanings and manifestations of generational typologies arise in relation to particular historical periods, socio-economic developments, cultural understandings, specific spaces and that they are continuously in the making (Alber et al. 2008; Christiansen et al. 2006; Cole and Durham 2007). The first perspective is historical. For example, as a consequence of the recent neo-liberal economic reforms and in contrast to former generations of women living in the cities aged 50 and older (Loforte 2003; Penvenne 1997; Sheldon 2002), urban women are no longer as dependent on marriage for their economic survival, nor is having children vital to establishing their position and identity. These new circumstances are raising uncertainties and tensions among the growing group of upwardly mobile women and between different generations. This leads to the second perspective. The youngest generation (15 to 30 years) wants to be different from their mothers, but they do not always know how to achieve alternative forms of dating and marriage since they lack appropriate role models. At the same time, their mothers find the youngest generation disrespectful regarding advice from elders. In general, cultural norms of respect require younger individuals to listen to their elders (Loforte 2003), a situation 3 Van

Dijk et al. (2011: 11) argue that for certain forms of religious expression, such as Pentecostalism, ‘the element of being “youthful”, of having to transmit a youthful imagery and a youthful identity, appears as of paramount significance for its success. In these ways, often fundamentalist Christian and Islamic movements present a youthful imagery as recipe for success and public appeal.’

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that the younger generation often views as problematic particularly because they find elders’ views on relationships outdated. The third perspective shows that, within generations, women can have different opinions about the extent to which they should break with the opinions of the elders and with the generational stratification in their society. At times the younger female descendants try to avoid confronting their elders with their behaviour, while others are more outspoken regarding the old-fashioned views of their older kin. Their position in these matters is influenced by their Pentecostal conversion. Four generations of Pentecostal women I did in-depth interviews with fifty Pentecostal women aged between 15 and 75. They were divided into four generational types based on the specific historical context of a particular period since it is this contact that created categories of women who share similar experiences and opinions. These generational types not only differ with regard to biological time periods, but also in terms of the different socio-economic, cultural and political circumstances that formed these women as they were growing up. For example, women who were born at the end of the colonial period, in the 1950s and the first half of the 1960s, experienced the impact of Frelimo’s socialist policies on their lives in Maputo after independence. They therefore participate differently in the current neo-liberal socio-economic reality as compared to women born in the 1980s and 1990s. It should also be noted that there are differences between the women in these different categories and that the boundaries are not clear-cut. The division into categories that is used here serves to demonstrate that the trajectories of conversion and the ways in which conversion turns out to be violent are related to the entanglement of women’s and society’s histories. All the converts I spoke to were educated – normally the women had completed at least primary school education and/or were busy completing secondary school, and a significant proportion were studying at an institute of higher education or had a university degree. They were all ambitious. A central preoccupation in their lives was their relationships with kin and/or (possible or past) partners. In particular, the issue of marriage was fundamental, and this subject was brought up in every interview. The younger generation of women frequented church services to find a partner, arrange a wedding and find out about the spiritual powers that intervened in their complex relationships with men. The position of these women in society was defined by their role as mothers and wives. Yet this role became differentiated over time and space. The increase in women’s roles as (employed) workers and (official) citizens has progressively shown their social force inside and outside the domain of the family. In her study

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of women in Maputo’s Laulane neighbourhood, Loforte (2003: 190) describes the consequence of this development: In the neighbourhood, the participation of women in political organs surges through two functions – the traditional one of the socialisation of the family and the extrafamilial, covering the double status consigned to women: on the one hand as a mother and spouse, and on the other as a citizen and worker. This position, which is submerged by the logic of her status in the family, functions through a constant dichotomy and adaptation between one and the other.

Attempts to minimise this ‘constant dichotomy’ appeared to be central in the experiences and narratives of (Pentecostal) women. However, the ways in which these women were concerned with the dichotomy differed according to generation. For example, women generally did not contest the centrality of their identity as a wife and mother, but the younger generation wanted to give it a new meaning. They rejected being wives in the way their mothers were, but this perspective was inspired by their newly found positions as citizens, converts, students and professional workers. 60 to 75 year olds: ‘It takes years of struggle’ The converts of this generation were born in the 1930s and 1940s. In fact, I only met one Pentecostal woman who was over 65: she was 75 years old and a member of the Assembly of God Church. This Church, with its longer history in Mozambique than the other Pentecostal churches, has relatively more older women in its congregation, and the majority of women in Brazilian Pentecostal churches were under 60, making this a small category.4 Most of the converts in this oldest generation had a Christian background, were from families that had looked for a new sense of person and community in the mission churches (Macamo 2005a; see also Cruz e Silva and Loforte 1998) and had received education at mission schools in the colonial period. However, they stressed that their past affiliation with Catholic or Protestant churches had not been their own choice, and that their conversion to Brazilian Pentecostalism was their own way of creating their personal life trajectory. Dona Lucia (aged 63)5 is a good example. We were sitting in the God is Love Church with a group of women who were all younger than her.6 And like Dona Lucia, these women were obreiras or assistants to the Brazilian pastors: they cleaned the church, and during services they distributed the envelopes for tithes 4 In Maputo, only 3.6 per cent of the population is over 60 years of age (INE 2009a: 6). 5 I use the age the person was when I interviewed them for the first time. 6 21 November 2006.

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and offerings, prayed and caught those people who fell during exorcism sessions. They also introduced new converts to the ins and outs of conversion. They had just been dividing up the tasks for Dona Gracelina’s wedding ceremony (see Chapter Two) when I asked Dona Lucia how she came to frequent the God is Love Church. She kept silent for a while and then said: With me it went like this: my grandfather worked in South Africa. He was from Manhiça [74 km north of Maputo]. He returned here to Maputo and started a church that he had got to know in South Africa. He went to the district of his ancestors to bring the Gospel. … Thus I grew up in a family that belonged to God. But, my family’s church was not spiritual like this one [God is Love. By spiritual she meant the importance of the fight between the Holy Spirit and evil spirits].

Her grandfather agreed with her grandmother about raising their children as they wanted. ‘The customs my grandmother had lived with, she would do away with them. But, my father had several wives who brought along their traditions.’ As a child, Dona Lucia attended a Catholic Church because her school belonged to it. ‘I went to this Church but it was not something I chose.’ When she grew older she started frequenting the Assembly of God Church, and stayed for about fifteen years before leaving following internal conflicts. Her niece took her to the God is Love Church when the services were taking place in Charlot Cinema, and she liked it. I was intrigued by her words about her grandparents wanting to break with local customs, but Dona Lucia did not seem interested in the subject or could not talk about such a ‘dangerous’ theme.7 She only said, ‘There is a lot of macumba. There is so much macumba, and God saved me from it’ (see Chapter Two). According to her, most people go to church because of illness or marital problems. She acknowledged that she had children, but another woman immediately said, ‘but she has never been married’. The father of Dona Lucia’s children left her for another woman long ago. Our conversation ended with a request for me to buy meat from her as she earned money by selling meat from South Africa, travelling there regularly to buy it as it was much cheaper there than in Maputo. Dona Lucia’s life was marked by the fact that she could not be considered a married – and thus respected – woman. Other older Pentecostal women were also living in circumstances that were locally considered ‘abnormal’ for senior women. I got the impression that because there were only a few elderly women 7 It could be that I was the cause. I noticed that, like most of the older people, she reacted

to the fact that I was a white person. She asked me a few times if I was ‘someone who prayed with the people in church’ or a missionary, which would make it difficult to speak about ‘local culture’ because missionaries generally fulminate against local (religious) practices, and in that sense, for older people, were also connected to the colonial past.

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in Brazilian Pentecostal churches compared to other churches,8 the ‘odd’ circumstances of their lives explained why they had joined a Brazilian Pentecostal church rather than the churches their contemporaries attended. Dona Bea (aged 60) was considered ‘different’ because she had been mentally ill, ‘I was extremely ill when I joined the Universal Church [in the late 1990s] because of a tragedy in my family.’9 She had been a fortunate woman but she had lost her way in life. She told me how people started to take things and money away from her, ‘Here, in Africa, people are like that, when there is money, people are drawn. But I don’t care. I have God and He will bless me. I know that all this suffering is necessary to reach that destiny, waiting for me on the road to the future.’ During her years of illness, many curandeiros came to heal her but she turned them away. Finally, her husband took her to the Universal Church, although his family was Muslim and Dona Bea used to go to a Catholic Church. ‘In the Church the pastors asked me if I believed in God. I said yes. They blessed me and then I felt peace again.’ She told me how she had always been rebellious, and although her grandmother had prohibited her from going to school, she went anyway and she secretly went to bars at night. Her grandmother was a traditional healer, and although it was expected that she would succeed her, Dona Bea refused to follow in her footsteps. While elderly women normally have more authority because they become counsellors for younger generations in the family, mediate in situations of familial conflict or invoke ancestral spirits, Dona Luisa and Dona Bea positioned themselves outside the kinship structure. Unlike other women of their age, they did not act as wise, older women in the kinship structure that initiated younger generations into adult life and the traditions of the family. But they did counsel the youth in church. Their identity seemed to be much more defined by their independence from kin, also financially, which manifested itself in the construction of their own houses. Dona Bea was still homeless and, as she was not earning much, she was living in a squat. She stressed that many people in the Universal Church had companies, big cars and houses but that it had taken a long time for these people to become fortunate. ‘It takes years of struggle (luta).’ She reached for her Bible, opened it at the Book of Genesis (chapter 15), and said: Do you know how long Abraham had to wait to have a son? I lived a bad life. I was a woman of the world … drinking and smoking, I went with various men, and thus my blessings will take a long time to come. First, I need to make sacrifices for a long 8 Most

educated women of their age participated in the former mission churches or the Assembly of God Church. 9 Interview, 17 November 2005.

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period. It is a war. Tá amarrado [from estar amarrado, a typical remark used in the Universal Church to express how the Devil is restrained. The Portuguese verb amarrar means to restrain/pin down/chain up]

She always emphasised how she was caught up in a war with the Devil and how the medicines that curandeiros had given her in the past were still in her body and influencing her life. ‘But in the Universal Church the pastors teach us to not give up,’ she said. This attitude of not giving up, combined with independence, is nurtured in Brazilian Pentecostal churches. Converts are continuously encouraged to make their own choices and to be responsible for their own lives. They should not depend on or listen to (grand)parents, aunts and uncles, and should not be sensitive to the opinions of kin but decide what to do by themselves and in consultation with God. However ridiculous their attitudes might seem from the local society’s perspective, the Holy Spirit would make them numb to these ‘devilish’ cultures and views. 40 to 60 year olds: from Socialism to Pentecostalism Freston (2005: 60) wrote the following about the Universal Church in Southern Africa: … almost universally, it [Universal Church] has appealed above all to women, especially those between 30 and 50 years of age and the victims of marital infidelity. Significantly, the Folha Universal [the Universal Church’s journal] dedicates considerable attention to women’s issues, including equality in the workplace and ‘professional success and personal fulfillment’.

The experiences of Mozambican women who were born in the 1950s and early 1960s concerning marital infidelity, their new and recent professional careers plus their desire for personal realisation were coloured by the socialist period that followed independence when most of them were starting their married lives in Maputo. These women told me about the freedom they had experienced after independence. There was a positive feeling about all the chances Mozambicans would have to live like the former Portuguese colonists after the end of colonialism. The women stressed the new possibilities for breaking with certain cultural expectations and patterns in the framework of Frelimo’s socialist project. Dona Silmara (aged 57) grew up in Maputo where her relatives worked for the colonial authorities and the Frelimo government after independence. Like other women who were part of the relatively small Mozambican middle class, she received some schooling and got married in ‘the European way’ just after independence, i.e. she got married without performing the local marriage

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tradition or lobolo, which had been prohibited by Frelimo’s socialist policies. Her friend, Dona Isabel (aged 51), recalled how she even got married without giving advanced notice to her family!10 Even today this is almost unbelievable in a context where kin continue to play a central role in marriage arrangements. These women actively engaged in the socialist project of abandoning ‘backward’ practices in Frelimo’s attempt to modernise society (Sumich 2008). Dona Silmara and Dona Isabel immediately added that the new type of marriage turned out to be a deception. They had both divorced and, like many other women, were the victims of ‘urban polygamy’ (Arnfred 2001: 37–9) and domestic violence. As part of a new urban socialist middle class, these women became increasingly involved in domestic life (Arnfred 2001). Through their education and participation in Frelimo’s programmes, they incorporated the ideal of the nuclear family, namely parents living together and sharing responsibility for their children and for each other. The father and husband took care of his family financially, and the mother and wife was willing to be the companion and helpmate of her husband, taking care of the children and the household. For Dona Isabel, Dona Silmara and other women, this ideal ended in (urban) polygamy and domestic violence. As described in Chapter Two, Frelimo’s policies were aimed at abandoning older ways of life and incorporating new ones. However, this sudden change was not accompanied by an organised period of transition regarding family issues, and older forms of education about family life, like the former initiation rites, were not replaced with new ones (Arnfred 2001). This led to confusion and ambiguity, which the president himself demonstrated. During a speech in Gaza in 1982, Samora Machel claimed he was against traditions such as lobolo, but he was also against young people wanting to marry without a specific ceremony and without consulting their parents. ‘They behave like animals, and they say that this is Independence’ (Machel 1982: 34). Furthermore, he said that the youth called their parents outdated but, in his view, parents should maintain authority over their offspring. In some cases, the war separated couples. Dona Isabel’s husband was temporarily transferred to another province to work, and it was too dangerous for them to travel to see each other. He then started a relationship with another woman. The detrimental effect of the war on the economic situation led to many women engaging in informal work, such as selling fish, to supplement their household income. The fact that women frequently succeeded in earning more money than their husbands increased tensions and domestic violence.11 The majority of the 10 Conversation, 11 January 2006.

11 Domestic violence affects more than half of all Mozambicans (da Silva 2003: 163). It is a

central theme in the studies on gender issues in the country (Arthur and Mejia 2006; da

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Pentecostal women in this generation were separated from their husbands, but being divorced and without a career was an enormous obstacle to surviving in the city during the serious economic crisis that hit Mozambique in the 1980s. Their relative independence from kin meant that they could not always rely on their support, particularly given that without the social security of lobolo there was nothing for them to rely on.12 No support could be expected from the state either, and the fact that they had not lived up to the ideal of the ‘socialist family’ affected their self-esteem. Dona Isabel started drinking with her friend Dona Maria (aged 49), and they became alcoholics. Uncertainties about gender roles, the financial situation and the war all played a role in the divorces of women like Donas Isabel, Silmara and Maria. It was in the early 1990s, when the Brazilian Universal Church had just arrived in Maputo, that friends invited Dona Maria several times to go to services there, but she refused. She got a job as a secretary and began studying, but life did not work out well for her because ‘I drank, smoked and came home late at night’.13 Then Dona Maria started attending the Universal Church. ‘I didn’t really participate; I just went there on Sundays.’ One day she felt she had to make a choice for or against God: ‘I couldn’t stay somewhere in between, like the pastors say in Church: “you are warm or cold”.’ So she chose God: My life became structured again. I stopped smoking and drinking, I studied, I had a purpose in life again, I came to understand what the Bible was saying and who Jesus was. I learned that there is evil in life, the Devil tries everything. Do you see how many women we have in Church? Many marriages don’t work. The Devil is destroying our families. Therefore the Church has family services, the family is important to the church and we have to work against the influence of evil in families. … Now I understand why my husband and I had problems: the Devil had entered our life. But it’s only now that I know how to prevent the Devil’s influence.

Silva et al. 2006: 45–52; Osório 1997). This violence is commonly directed at women, and is thought to be part of the social and cultural norms and values that are part of a patriarchal system in which woman are subordinate to men. However, domestic violence is a complicated issue as it also involves historical developments such as colonialism and Marxism (Arnfred 2001), socio-economic circumstances and a history of punishment in Southern Africa (Alexander and Kynoch 2011). In Mozambique, several civil society groups, especially women’s movements, have been involved in designing a new law against domestic violence as well as new family legislation (Tripp et al. 2009: 136–7). 12 Lobolo is a form of social security and the payment guarantees that the husband’s family will take care of the couple. This system prevents women from getting divorced as they or their family will have to pay the lobolo back. 13 Interview, 13 June 2006.

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Donas Isabel, Silmara and Maria said that the former mission churches were incapable of reacting to their problems. When they were confronted with domestic violence and polygamous husbands, their pastors had no solution or ignored them. Topics such as domestic violence and polygamy were not openly discussed, and the influence of ancestral spirits and witchcraft practices were negated. The frictions in Dona Silmara’s household were intensified by strange happenings. For example, the lights suddenly switched themselves on in the middle of the night and nobody could sleep. The family felt a negative influence impinging on their lives, and Dona Silmara suspected that spiritual agents were involved. At her Presbyterian Church (the former Swiss Mission), people said that the problems would pass, but they did not. A friend told her that the pastors at the Universal Church knew how to deal with spiritual agents, and finally, after a fire broke out in her house, she decided to visit the Universal Church. The women all stressed how the Brazilian Pentecostal pastors had encouraged them to pursue professional careers. Dona Maria considered the years she worked in a factory as a waste of time since she could have been studying. As she moved several times and her parents divorced when she was a child, she had never attended school regularly. ‘At the age of fifteen I hadn’t even finished primary school and it was difficult to enrol.’ Her father sent her to work in a factory in Maputo at the end of the colonial era but now, in the post-war period, she and the other women were all keen to participate in the new socio-economic order. They had started new studies, followed business services and courses at the Universal Church, and had set up several small businesses. They were busy living the Pentecostal pioneering spirit. Dona Isabel always emphasised the struggle she was having to finish her university course. Early in the morning she went to church, during the day she worked and in the evening she attended classes. There was no time to rest because at weekends she had to prepare for exams and check up on her businesses. She also had to visit her parents and resolve family conflicts. She tried not to become too deeply involved in family issues, but her kin complained that she was not contributing enough financially. According to Dona Isabel, everyone should be responsible for his/her own finances, and she tried to pass on to her kin the pastors’ lessons on individual responsibility, tithing and self-initiative. Following numerous Universal Church’s programmes of prayer, fasting and offering money, Dona Maria finally succeeded in being selected for a Masters programme in Brazil. Dona Silmara, on the other hand, went bankrupt because she had offered all her money to the church (see Chapter Six).

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30 to 40 years olds: ‘we have to fight mental poverty’ This generation lives in an in-between position. Their parents, family members and (possible) husbands expect them to be a ‘traditional woman’,14 but the world of education encourages them to continue studying and to pursue a professional career, and also teaches them to be more critical about the supposed role of women. Their education and professional careers do not necessarily need to conflict with their roles as mother and wife, but this is often the case (see also Manuel 2011). Paula (aged 37) and Marcia (aged 33) were afraid of marriage, and refused to live the lives their mothers had (Dona Lucia’s generation). They wanted to share their household responsibilities with their husband, wanted to keep their financial independence and wanted a faithful husband. They thought this would be impossible. The domestic violence their mothers, aunts and older sisters experienced was a constant reminder of ‘what Mozambican men are like’. For example, Marcia (aged 33), who has a university degree and works as a teacher at a secondary school, said:15 My life is very different from my mother’s. I had the opportunity to study. I am less influenced by tradition than my mother is. My mother never went to school and the people she spends her time with are her sisters and aunts. I went to school; I know that there is more to the world than just raising children. … I don’t want to marry a Mozambican man. He always will leave the household work to me. I want a husband who knows how to clean the house and cook. Everyday I pray to God to ask him for the right husband, but maybe God doesn’t want me to marry. Our Brazilian pastor is not married either.

The pastor she refers to is a woman and the leader of the Brazilian Renewed Baptist Church that Marcia has attended for several years. Before this, Marcia visited various Pentecostal churches, such as the Universal Church. According to Marcia, the pastor has a strong personality that no man is able to tolerate. ‘God had different plans for her than marrying. Maybe, it is similar for me too.’ Yet, Paula, Marcia and the other women of their generation wanted to get married to enjoy the status inherent in marriage. Moreover, from the Brazilian pastors they have learned about the possibility of a marriage based on romantic love (see Chapter Five). The pastors supported these women in becoming independent of their families and local culture, and taught them how to find and deal with a husband. 14 This

could have different meanings for Pentecostal women: being only a housewife, obedient to one’s elders and husband, and accepting domestic violence, polygamy and one’s husband’s amantes (lovers). 15 The following quotes are from an interview and a conversation that took place on 7 April and 21 April 2006 respectively.

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Paula worked at a telecom company and was finishing her studies at the University Eduardo Mondlane in Maputo. She had been attending services at the Universal Church since 1994, when she had felt depressed and her family was facing problems. ‘In my family we have a lot of trouble with marriages,’ she reported.16 Only one of her five sisters married. It is said that we carry the names of our ancestors and therefore our ancestral spirits. Spirits claim persons. … It seems that my grandparents killed people during a war and that the spirits of those killed wanted some of us. There was no peace in our family. But, they weren’t ancestral spirits; it is the demons that make us believe this. The Devil knows that when your grandmother’s spirit asks you to do things, you do it. … I disliked tradition [a tradição], but only after I had entered the Church did I have the power to protest. Before that, I participated in everything. What could I do? It was a struggle.

This vengeful spirit manifested itself through Paula at Church services for two years. ‘I tore up various pastors’ dress shirts [this emphasised how strong the spirit was and difficult to deal with]. Then I was finally free.’ Slowly, her life changed, and today she can analyse difficult situations and react calmly, ‘I am in control,’ Paula emphasised. At first, her family did not accept that she would not participate in any kind of family ritual but now they no longer invite her. Paula said, ‘I don’t teach my children anything about tradition. More and more people are doing the same, so it will disappear.’ A few years after her conversion, Paula got married. Because of the violent relationship between her parents, she had decided not to marry but the pastors convinced her of the possibility of a different, happy life with a husband. She has two children, one aged 4 and a baby. However, recently, she started having problems with her husband ‘because of the young girls who run after married men who own a car’. Paula told me how her husband wanted to be different from his father who beat his wife and had amantes. But during his marriage to Paula he has become more like the father he so detested. According to Paula, men inherit the behaviour of their male kin (see also Cruz 2013). Compared to other generations, I found that converts in this generation frequently demonstrated an ambivalent stance towards tradition. Paula was always outspoken about her vision on ‘tradition’: it should – and would – disappear. Women of this age blamed their parents for their role in traditional practices that influenced their bad luck. But, they could also accuse their parents of breaking with tradition. Julia (aged 40) recalled how the fact that her father had not paid lobolo had brought misfortune. Her father had been educated at a Catholic 16 I met Paula regularly from 2006 to 2008. Most of the quotes here are from an interview

held on 21 June 2006.

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seminary in the colonial period and was supposed to become a priest. Julia clarified that local customs, such as lobolo, were barbaric in the eyes of her father and that he ‘had been proud of having a car and civilisation’.17 For Julia, it was his arrogance that had made him and his family poor: Today he has nothing because of this. He should have behaved differently. Now he says that none of us will progress in our lives. There is a negative atmosphere in our home. My parents have always quarrelled, and so I was afraid of marrying myself. When a man wanted to marry me, I withdrew. The misfortune of my sisters and I is all the fault of my father.

Her father should have done lobolo because, without it, people do not belong to any family and are short of protection from ancestral spirits. Since Julia had only negative experiences with kin and ancestral spirits, she went to the Universal Church to ‘rid herself of them’. Julia, Paula and Marcia grew up in Maputo in the period after independence when cultural customs had to be abandoned and it was strongly discouraged to speak the local languages (Lundin 2007: 105–8, 147–9, 168–73; Mazula 1995). At home their parents thought it better for the future of their children to speak the language they were being educated in, i.e. the official language, Portuguese. They could understand the local language, but it was not theirs and they could not or did not speak it. Some of these women are now looking for more affinity with their cultural past but at the same time also to distantiate even more from it. Women like Julia were experiencing problems that they believed were caused by attempts to become part of the culture of their ancestors while also wishing to leave it behind. In this ambivalent position, Pentecostal pastors give them clear instructions, ‘leave the past behind’ and ‘let the traditions disappear’. Women of this generation (and some from the previous generation) have struggled with limitations and restrictions in their professional careers. New institutes of higher education and study programmes opened up after they had already started working. They therefore studied in the evenings to compete in the emerging job market in the banking sector, NGOs, consultancies, tourism and government agencies. As part of a new or upcoming middle class, they saw the opportunities to start projects and companies in a city where signs of economic growth were starting to emerge. More people with money were looking for good food, cars, clothes and holidays and an increasing number of educated Mozambicans tried to earn money by catering to these needs. Unfortunately they did not always have the right contacts with the elite who controlled business in the city, and they encountered difficulties in their careers. 17 Conversation, 3 February 2007.

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The Pentecostal pastors instruct converts how to fight for change: by giving tithes and offerings, fasting, praying, following chains of church services and participating in spiritual and financial campaigns, converts gain the right to collect their blessings. Paula explained me that it is of vital importance to change one’s life personally: In Mozambique we are talking about the fight against poverty (luta contra a pobreza),18 but we have to fight mental poverty; it is a question of mentality. People are just sitting the whole day selling bananas and waiting for a job, but they have to do something. It is important to look forward. I have a good job and a good salary, but I want to earn more money so I’m always looking around for another job. You can’t ask God and do nothing yourself.

Paula has incorporated the central idea of tomar posse (taking ownership), as it is conveyed in Brazilian Pentecostal churches. A born-again Christian must realise her destiny by taking what is hers (Gomes 1994: 230–1). The world belongs to God, and God’s belongings are to be enjoyed. Prosperity, health and love are essential for human existence as they are the signs of having accomplished God’s creation. And even more than this, every believer must exercise his/her right to prosper (see further Chapter Six). 15 to 30 year olds: self-assured and confident While earlier generations are often uncertain about their position in the new socio-economic and cultural order, the youngest generation of converts is much more self-assured and confident. Young women, such as Marta and Elena, do not need to combat tradition or adapt to new socio-economic circumstances. Elena was 25 years old when I first met her in 2006. Because of family problems her mother had left the Catholic Church and started going to the Universal Church soon after it arrived in the early 1990s, taking her and her sisters to church with her. But only Elena became an active member in 2000. ‘I didn’t have any problems but I suddenly felt that I wanted to commit.’19 She explained how she learned to use her faith, developed self-esteem and learned to go after things. She liked the music and the dynamism in church. Elena was very ambitious, worked hard and studied seriously as she wanted to become a university professor. At 18 Armando

Guebuza, who was Mozambique’s president during the time of my research, was known for this slogan in the fight against poverty, emphasising that people should work hard to escape it. While this seems to resemble the Brazilian Pentecostal discourse, converts were critical about their government because they felt that their leaders are not good role models and are involved with the wrong (spiritual) powers. 19 Interview, 28 June 2006.

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the same time she wanted to progress in her current job in a company. For years she had worked in church as a pastor’s assistant, but as she wanted to dedicate herself to her studies she decided to stop, hoping to continue at a later stage. Luckily, her current boyfriend, unlike the previous one, was as ambitious as she was and supported her. She broke up with her former boyfriend when she realised that many Pentecostal marriages were not working ‘because people thought that faith would be sufficient for their marriage to succeed. But one has to use “intelligent faith”. It is important to also use your brains’ (see further Chapter Five). Elena felt that converts should think for themselves about how much they wanted to offer in church as people did not have to do everything a pastor said. Marta (aged 22) is a university student. She had been Catholic but since turning 17 has frequented the Maná Church. She recounted, ‘at Maná I learned that when you have faith, you are really able to achieve something in your life. Often we think negatively, we think of our problems. But we should think positively.’20 Before seriously dating her boyfriend she told him that he would have to live with the fact that she would often be away from home because of her job and that he would have to take care of the household at times. Her boyfriend was not necessarily opposed to this, but he found the role uncomfortable. This was a topic many of my participants quarrelled about, quarrels that were often worsened by their in-laws. Marta’s mother-in-law and sisters-in-law found her behaviour unacceptable because a good woman should be at home and cook for her husband. She and her boyfriend were saving money for their wedding, as Marta narrated:21 I prayed a lot to God to have my own business and I succeeded. This year I am going to get married, and they say that usually the man is the one who pays for the celebrations. But I know how much my boyfriend earns, it is very little. I want to help pay for the wedding; after all it is our wedding. I also want to have my own cash, to buy my own things, my clothes. I know that he is not going to like the fact that his girlfriend needs to have her own business, but I don’t see what is wrong with it, I earn my money honestly.

In comparison with older generations, Marta and Elena entered institutions of higher education more easily, had access to computers, internet facilities and books, and had grown up with (foreign) television, including the famous Brazilian telenovelas. Their education was made up of global influences and these had broadened their perspectives on how society could be organised, including family life and marriage. They had many aspirations that matched with the Brazilian neo-Pentecostal message. They did not necessarily frequent the 20 Conversation, 25 February 2005. 21 Conversation, 7 May 2007.

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church because of a problem, as former generations had, but became part of the church through their friends or aunts, and found an environment they could identify with, unlike in their former churches. Neo-Pentecostal churches were places where their ambitions and dreams were fed and young people were given responsibilities, as opposed to the society in which they lived. Many of them were actively involved in the church, for example as pastors’ assistants. At the same time, they seemed more critical of the neo-Pentecostal churches than the other generations; they were more used to expressing their own opinions. They were disconnected from local culture to a certain extent. Portuguese was their mother tongue and they did not participate in traditional ceremonies. Now and then they recounted their shock when suddenly confronted with practices they thought belonged to the past. When they were unsuccessful with boyfriends, their female kin took them to curandeiros and sometimes to prophets in the African Independent Churches (AICs). They told me with disgust how they had to bathe in the blood of animals or to swallow strange medicines. Such treatments mostly failed to work. Healers explained that these young girls were too detached from the worldview and practices of the healers, which complicated their participation in the healing process.22 Owing to the revival of Mozambican traditions, this generation could also obtain more knowledge about customs and ideas they were not acquainted with. Interestingly, this search had brought some of them to Brazilian Pentecostal churches where traditions were explained, and even though pastors approach ‘tradition’ critically, they connect with the youngsters’ wish for more openness on such issues. The young converts seemed to choose a confrontational position towards local cultures and elders. Women like Marta became angry about their aunts who told them that they should accept the behaviour of their future husbands, for example men having lovers (amantes). They quarrelled about these issues and made it clear that they would not accept that type of behaviour. Some of them, such as Elena, had boyfriends who shared these views. In particular the young Pentecostal men I met were also looking for ways to become ‘new men’. They had experienced the violence their fathers had used against their mothers and, congruent with their education, they wanted wives as partners, women with whom they could exchange ideas and who would not be totally dependent on them. According to some of these men, the majority of the women they met were unprepared to be such a partner. All these young people in one way or another were experiencing limits. Especially marriage arrangements and the influence of kin augmented tensions between couples and between generations. At the same time, the younger generation ‘educated’ and inspired the older one. 22 Interviews with curandeiros on 15 November 2006, 8 and 28 February 2007.

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For example, Marta’s mother learned from her how to sign up for university and started joining Marta at church. These cases reflect the lives of the highly educated youth. In the case of Ana, Vitória and Madalena (aged 21, 18 and 17 respectively), who come from poorer families and lived in Maputo’s ‘reed city’, the situation was different. The three friends had been attending services at the Universal Church daily for three years. Vitória and Madalena were in the tenth and eleventh grades23 but Ana had failed to enrol in the new school year because she was staying with her sister in South Africa. The first time we had a chat,24 in Vitória’s house on the outskirts of Maputo, they were watching a Brazilian soap (telenovela) and discussing the betrayal of the characters in it. Vitoria wanted a boyfriend but so far the boyfriends she had had always disappeared after a while. So she was attending the Universal Church’s Therapy of Love. Her mother had taken her to curandeiros and healers at the Zionist churches, but they had not helped her. She said: In church it is possible to get to know men who are serious; they learn from the pastor that they should be faithful to their wife. … I joined the Universal Church because there they talk about our problems. There they speak about courtship. I lived in the world, I went out a lot, had various boyfriends but I didn’t feel good, I had no peace and felt that life had no sense. Suddenly I was pregnant, I had a son, but the father disappeared. Today I know that I should take more care. It is better to marry a man from the church.

As they were the first generation of women in their families to have so many years of education, they could rely less on a history of female emancipation in their families than Elena and Marta could. Nevertheless, they shared their desires to get good jobs, engage in affectionate relations based on romantic love and marry men who would be faithful. In addition, they were acquainted with the challenges, uncertainties and conflicts of urban society, having grown up in families that had managed to survive a period of war and the introduction of a neo-liberal economy. The families of Ana, Vitória and Madalena have specialised in the informal sectors of trade and commerce that have increased since the 1990s (Lundin 2007: 90–3). The young women look for chances and opportunities, encouraged by their participation in Brazilian Pentecostal churches. They articulate fewer opinions and worldviews than Elena and Marta, but want to influence their future life. Most of the people from lower-income families live in the ‘reed’ suburbs or bairros (popular neighbourhoods) of Maputo, outside the ‘cement city’ that 23 Secondary school goes through to 11th or 12th grade (a preparatory year for those who

want to go to university).

24 8 November 2006.

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6  The ‘cement city’ next to the ‘reed city’ in neighbourhood Sommerschield, Maputo. Photo: Rufus de Vries.

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developed in the colonial period (see Chapter One). This has caused a renewed segregation in the city in terms of housing and access to facilities like electricity, water, transport and the internet ( Jenkins 2009: 97–103; Jorge and Melo 2014; Oppenheimer and Raposo 2002). Moreover, the increasing number of expats in the city, who work at embassies and for the numerous NGOs and international companies, are taking over the houses in the ‘cement city’, paying rents that are unaffordable to most of my interlocutors. In the bairros in particular there is a relatively high percentage of young people and women (Raposo e Salvador 2007: 109). Many of these women try to find jobs in Maputo cimento and/or a well-off man. Groes-Green describes (2014) how a considerable number of these women try to date a rich white man who can become their patrocinador (patron or sponsor). I met many women from the bairros in the Brazilian Pentecostal churches where they hoped to find a wealthy man by participating in the Therapy of Love sessions or to become wealthy by attending the services that focus on prosperity (see also Cole 2010). While there are many Brazilian Pentecostal churches in the bairros, these women often opted for attending the services in the city centre to increase their chances of meeting a rich man; or, such as in the cases of Ana, Vitória and Madalena, they attended the daily services in the bairros but went to the Therapy of Love sessions in the city centre (see Chapter Five). At the same time, several of my interlocutors from the centre were starting to move to the bairros, where they were building their own houses because rents in the city centre were too high (see also Loforte 2003: 9). Paula, Marcia and Marta are good examples. The ‘reed city’ is increasingly becoming a ‘cement’ one, making the already permeable boundaries between the two even more diffuse (Bertelsen et al. 2013). The converts who move to the bairros continue to attend services in the city centre but have also started frequenting the same churches in their own neighbourhoods. In particular, the Universal Church is constructing huge cathedrals at central intersections leading to the bairros, which may change the composition of their congregations. Conclusion: the rupture of continued pioneering The intensity of the socio-cultural changes in a short period of time in Mozambique raises questions about how new the practice of pioneering by Pentecostal women is (Morier-Génoud 2014). For example, most of the oldest generations of Pentecostal converts, who are now in their fifties and sixties, were already Christians before converting to Brazilian Pentecostalism. They or their parents had previously broken with aspects of their local culture by becoming a Christian, and so, in their own ways, Catholics, Methodists, Presbyterians and Jehovah’s Witnesses were pioneers themselves in the past and had opened up new frontiers (Macamo 2005) that could generate forms of violence as well

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(Pinto 2005; see also Fields 1985). In this respect, Pentecostal conversion can be seen as being a follow-up to past forms of Christianity (Meyer 1999). The question therefore is how Pentecostal women position themselves in their society’s Christian history. Moreover, various converts had engaged with Frelimo’s policies, which aimed to break with a traditional past. So, how is the focus on rupture in Pentecostal conversion connected to former ruptures in Mozambican history? As said earlier, the role of Christianity, and specifically Pentecostalism, in social transformations has generated discussions about the extent and levels of cultural change or discontinuity caused by it (e.g. Bialecki and Daswani 2015; Engelke 2010; Marshall 2009; Maxwell 2006; Meyer 1998b, 1999; van Dijk 1992, 1998; for Mozambique, see Moriér-Genoud 2014). Robbins (2007) has elaborated on the fact that anthropologists, and thus also anthropologists of Christianity, tend to stress cultural continuity rather than discontinuity. In his view, anthropologists present culture as a deep structure that is constantly being reproduced, even in times of globalisation and modernity. Robbins sees the work by Comaroff and Comaroff (1991, 1997) as supporting his argument. The Comaroffs argued that conversion to Christianity did not necessarily imply a ‘real’ conversion but was mainly a (forced) way of entering the world of Western hospitals, education and economics. As Robbins (2007: 12) put it, Converts’ fundamental ways of looking at the world have not really changed. People actually convert for everyday, pragmatic reasons – in search of things like money and power. These arguments assert that, while converts may dress up their speech and behavior in the clothes of Christian change, underneath them they are the same people pursuing goals fully recognizable from within their traditional cultures.

Based on fieldwork among Pentecostals in Papua New Guinea, Robbins argues that conversion as radical change is possible. The group he studied affirmed how they no longer followed the ways of their ancestors and how everything had changed. They came to see their lives in terms of Christian conversion: they experienced rupture and invested in discontinuity. In an attempt to understand African Pentecostals’ claims of rupture, both Meyer (1998b) and Engelke (2004, 2010) have highlighted how conversion involves cultural discontinuity as well as continuity. Conversion enables people to move back and forth between a past life and present and future lives. By portraying the convert Gaylord, Engelke (2004) makes a case for seeing conversion as a gradual process. While Gaylord knows what it means to be a convert, he does not immediately turn out to be the ideal convert. He has to learn to be a convert, moving between his past and new lives. Moreover, in Gaylord’s accounts, the past with its ancestral spirits, kin and rituals continues to play a role. They keep on acting on converts’ lives, and the constant focus of Pentecostals on evil

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powers holds ancestral spirits centre stage (Meyer 1999). The past, inscribed in new ways, remains important in looking forward. Thus both discontinuity and continuity seem to take place at different levels, and converts move between the two positions. Meyer (1998b: 340) even concludes that the Pentecostal discourse of cultural discontinuity addresses the gap between people’s aspirations and actual circumstances rather than effectuating a cultural break. The rupture of Pentecostal conversion is primarily a discursive process (see also Meyer 1999: 213–37). It is a new form of addressing conflicts between tradition and modernity, and building a bridge between the past and the future. Similarly, Cole (2010) argues that young women in Madagascar who, like women in Mozambique, experience cultural change are negotiating modern paths for themselves that should not be viewed as a rupture with their heritage. Instead, they should be seen to be building on former cultural changes, including the introduction of Christianity in the past. From an historical perspective, conversion to Brazilian Pentecostalism in Mozambique can also be seen as a form of continuity with the former Christian missions that brought change (Morier-Génoud 2014). Similar to what Meyer (1999) described for the Ewe Christians in Ghana, the ancestors of Pentecostal converts in Mozambique expressed their desire to change by becoming Christians. In the colonial period, Mozambicans were attracted to Catholicism or Protestantism because it offered them the material and conceptual means to become ‘civilised’, dissociate from certain ‘backward’ practices, become a new type of person, create modern families, establish new spiritual affiliations and participate in new communities like the Mozambican nation-state (Cruz e Silva 2001a; Macamo 2005a). In this sense, Brazilian Pentecostalism has brought a ‘second Christianization’ (Schoffeleers in Meyer 1999: 213). Pentecostals are promoting a modern life and the break with tradition with even more fervour. As Dona Lucia commented, her parents still continued to practise tradition despite their Christian conversion, but she wanted to make a definitive break. In the light of Mozambican history, it could be said that Dona Lucia’s and other converts’ ruptures with their culture are a matter of degree. In addition, taking the lives of Donas Isabel, Silmara and Maria, the Pentecostal emphasis on destroying local culture seems to be a continuation of Frelimo’s struggle to banish tradition and create a modern nation but in a new form. Without wanting to deny these processes of continuity, especially from an etic or more distanced position, I would like to stress the importance of converts’ experiences and practices of cultural discontinuity. Their investments in rupture could be seen in continuity with a history of vulnerability and violence (Macamo 2005b) in which rupture becomes a social condition that both disorders and reorders social reproduction (Lubkemann 2008).

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Whereas the concept of macumba did indeed offer Dona Lucia and Dona Bea new ways of expressing themselves and their past, it did not principally offer them a bridge to move back and forth to and from a past and future life. Appropriating macumba was a break with this possibility of back and forth movement that the former mission churches and the Frelimo government had allowed. Living the past as macumba makes it impossible for converts to be part of that very past. Though converts encounter the revitalisation of spiritual agents and traditions in society, they separate themselves from it by being in a transnational Pentecostal space. They transpose themselves into a Brazilian Pentecostal frame of space and history. More importantly, in doing so, they actively engage in wiping out the past. Paula did not teach her children about tradition; she pretended that it did not exist. Of course, as a side effect, her and other converts’ emphasis on evil spirits has kept the past alive in a Pentecostal way. But their attempts to break with spirits and traditions and to silence the past have had consequences (see also Gross 2012). Marta continuously has conflicts with her in-laws because she has distanced herself from their view of marriage. Paula’s children cannot even talk with elderly people like their grandparents, who only speak the local language. These children are one step removed from their family’s history. Converts find it problematic that they can still be influenced and followed by the past (see also van Dijk 2005). Even though Julia’s father had broken with traditions, she and their nuclear family continue to be entangled with their kin’s history. To Julia, the break has not gone far enough. This being the case, the most important preoccupation for Julia and other converts is who controls the powers of the past. Who is in control of ancestral spiritual powers and the course of national history? They acknowledge a historical continuity. Exactly because the past continues to be present in their lives, especially through the activities of ancestral spirits and kin, and can hamper new ways of progress, the need for a rupture becomes more urgent every day. Therefore converts actively engage in what Robbins (2007) stresses is a Christian culture that claims radical change and expects it to occur. In their efforts to effectuate change, converts distance themselves from kin (Dona Isabel, Dona Maria, Paula) and quarrel with partners and in-laws (Marta). At the same time, this does not mean that it is always clear to converts what Pentecostal rupture entails in specific situations in their lives, and they might diverge in their opinions and actions (see also Daswani 2013). In addition, their conversion can be temporary, and they might reconnect to their past in new ways in the future. Still, in my view, the discussions on conversion as change or rupture have not given much insight into the implications and consequences of conversion that is experienced as rupture. The attention paid to the Pentecostal language of rupture has to be complemented by considering the embodiment of rupture. Rupture gains its force and meaning in what people do and how they shape their

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lives (Engelke 2010: 196). It is important to realise that Pentecostal converts in Mozambique are mainly women who are struggling with their reproductive roles in today’s urban society (see also Cole 2010: 17–19). They are opening up new socio-cultural frontiers. Often it was the fathers, for example in the cases of Dona Luisa and Julia, who converted to Christianity in the past. Today, more women make their own choices. In the case of Pentecostal converts, most women navigate new terrains. They do things that were not possible for women before, such as getting a university degree, living on their own and forcing men to share responsibility for the practicalities of the household. It is in this setting that the rupture of Pentecostal conversion gets its specific meaning and force. It is through the transnational power of the Holy Spirit that Paula has gained the courage to be absent from family ceremonies and Marta dares to confront her partner and her in-laws about their outmoded views of marriage. It is the specific moments of connections between political and socio-cultural changes in urban society, the presence of Brazilian Pentecostalism and women’s new pioneering activities that are shaping the significance of conversion as a rupture in various generations, including complex and contradictory dynamics behind women’s practices. The consequences of how women in the South–South transnational Pentecostal movement embody and shape rupture will be the subject of s­ ucceeding chapters.

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CHAPTER 4

Converting the Spirit Spouse On a warm Saturday evening in January 2007, Julia took me to Teatro Avenida1 to see the play Niketche. The play is based on the novel of Mozambique’s famous female writer Paula Chiziane. The central character is the woman Rami, who is married to Toni and living in an illusion of a perfect love. Rami discovers that her Toni is a ‘national husband’, a fierce polygamist; he has various lovers. During the story, Rami gets to know her co-wives, and together the women start to confront their husband with the consequences of his polygamic behaviour. The promotion flyer of the theatre explains that the play aims to demonstrate the labyrinth of conflicting and contradictory emotions that reflect ‘the condition of the woman in a world of convergences between the traditional and the modern’. Afterwards Julia and I chat about Niketche, and she tells me that while she lives with her parents, she owns a house in the city centre that she rents out to expats to be able to pay her mortgage. She says, ‘Several men want to rent my house and want me to be waiting for them. But I never know when they will come, so I need to wait all the time. Why should I make myself dependent on them?’ Later,2 she tells me that during the past week, for the first time in her life – she is aged 40 – she participated in a Ronga marriage. The ceremony lasted two days. On the first day, the lobolo was celebrated at the house of the bride’s family, and on the second day, the civil marriage took place, and the party continued at the house of the family of the bridegroom. I was somewhat surprised that this was her first time to attend such a marriage. Julia commented that the women in her family do not marry, ‘because they suffer from a kind of spirit’. It was then that she started explaining that her father had not wanted to do the lobolo for her mother (Chapter Three): luckily, my mother had six children, but now they do not marry. We do not meet the right man. They see us as an object and not as a woman. The men we like always leave us and we stay with the bad men. Our colour [she points to her skin] is very complicated, Africa is like this. 1 This theatre is home to one of Maputo’s renowned theatre groups, Mutumbela Gogo. 2 3 February 2007.

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Many Pentecostal women told me how a certain spirit obstructed their intimate relationships, and I noted that Brazilian Pentecostal pastors were busy exorcising a specific spirit called the ‘husband of the night’ or ‘spirit spouse’3 that prevented women from marrying and conceiving. Curandeiros said that in every extended family women have a spiritual husband. The symptoms women connected to such a spirit experience include having sexual intercourse without the physical presence of a man, not succeeding in marrying, the sudden disappearance of their partner and/or disputes with them even though they both loved and longed for each other. If they are married, the relationship is tense, the husband is not interested in his wife but ‘views her as his sister’, and sexual intercourse is problematic or women do not conceive.4 Socio-spiritual transformations In my search to understand more about local meanings of the spirit spouse, I visited various curandeiros.5 When I asked them about the spirit, they mostly emphasised first the importance of the relationship between persons and spirits in assuring the reproduction of life: when a person dies and is buried, his/her spirit is believed to go on living. The spirit has a powerful influence over the living. There are different types of spirits that may be considered either good (ancestral) or evil (foreign). Good ones are the ancestral spirits – called tinguluve – who take care of the well-being of their descendants and are responsible for the procreation of the family. They therefore have a central role in customary marriage, such as lobolo, which consists of the exchange of gifts between the families and ancestors of the bride and bridegroom, and guarantees the continuation of those families and the social order in general.6 In essence, gifts oil social and 3

In churches and conversations, the spirit spouse was called marido espiritual (spiritual husband), espirito da noite (spirit of the night) or marido da noite (husband of the night). In the local Ronga and Changana languages, the curandeiros speak of two types of spirit spouses: xikwembu xamathlari (spirit of a person killed in a violent way) or xikwembu muhliwa (spirit of a person killed or stolen through witchcraft) (cf. Bagnol 2006: 181). Throughout this text, I use the term spirit spouse. 4 This chapter is an elaborated version of van de Kamp 2011. 5 I spoke to several healers working in different regions (urban and rural) in southern Mozambique. I thank Prometra-Moçambique, Narciso Mahumane, Job Massingue, Joice from Boane, Isaura from Patrice Lumumba and Cremildo and curandeiros from Maluana and Chibuto-Macalawane for sharing their knowledge with me. While their accounts generally corresponded, some stressed particular explanations and aspects more than the others. The curandeiros’ explanations largely agreed with Honwana’s (2002) outline of spirits in southern Mozambique. 6 See Bagnol (2006) and Granjo (2005) for recent studies on the dynamic individual and social meanings and practices of lobolo in southern Mozambique.

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spiritual relations and, in some circumstances, a woman herself can be offered as a gift in compensation for any harm suffered in relationships. Following the same logic of the lobolo, she is a gift to establish or reconcile relationships, and can be given to an avenging foreign spirit that belongs to a murdered or disadvantaged person who has not been properly buried and cannot live on as an ancestral spirit in its family. The ‘evil’ spirit seeks revenge by attacking the murderer’s family with illness and misfortune. To calm the spirit, compensation for his death and his reintegration into society is needed, which could happen through marriage to a girl in the murderer’s family.7 The spirit becomes the girl’s spouse and, through marriage, the restless spirit finds a family and turns into a good spirit.8 The curandeiros I spoke to date this as a practice from the nineteenth century when major social changes were taking place in Southern Africa as a result of the migration of Nguni groups – the period that is often referred to as Mfecane (see Chapter One). A special role was played by King Ngungunyane, who was from one of the Nguni groups that established the Gaza Empire in southern Mozambique. King Ngungunyane (1884–95) was known for the violent wars he fought against Portuguese colonial oppression and his attempts to incorporate groups from other parts of the country, like the Ndau of central Mozambique, into his kingdom (Liesegang 1986). Since the Ndau were murdered and enslaved against their will and some of the dead Ndau bodies were not properly buried, they came to get revenge in Nguni and Tsonga families by mupfuka; the spirit of the dead person could resuscitate and seek rehabilitation and reintegration (Honwana 2003: 71–4; Igreja et al. 2008; Langa 1992: 29–32, 43–6; Pfeiffer 2002).9 In his study of the kinship structures of the Chope people in southern Mozambique, Webster (2009 [1976]: 293–300) demonstrated the logic of incorporating foreigners and enemies, such as the Ndau, in the local society by letting them marry with a Chope woman. According to Passador (2011), this logic of integrating foreigners has characterised the long history of conflicts and wars in southern Mozambique, pacifying enemies and accordingly foreign spirits (see also Ferguson 2013). In addition to the ongoing impact of historical foreign spirits, worries about a new wave of vengeance spirits seeking social reintegration have increased in the post-war era (Fry 2000: 80; Igreja et al. 2008; Marlin 2001; Schuetze 2010: 126−52). Curandeiros explained how the spirits of persons killed in the civil war 7 Depending on the region and specific family histories, the exact process of reintegrating

the spirit differed, but what was central was a gift as compensation, often a virgin girl. curandeiros called this spirit the xikwembu xamathlari (spirit of a person killed in a violent way). 9 For a regional comparison, see Werbner (1991: 151–2, 188–9) on western Zimbabwe. 8 The

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are expected to seek revenge in the coming years. Now that soldiers who underwent cleansing rituals (Granjo 2007) are getting old and dying, spirits that were temporarily calmed by these rituals are expected to become active again because they are still seeking revenge. According to both curandeiros and Pentecostal pastors, there are active avenging spirits in every (extended) family. Moreover, curandeiros pointed to the lack of knowledge of kinship structures and spirits among families in Maputo because many families have lost kin and refugees have lost touch with their places of origin, including their ancestors. Knowledge of their family’s spiritual history is fading, according to curandeiros, as a result of women from the rural areas where the war was fought having fled to the cities. According to curandeiros, it is not necessary to suffer from the spirit spouse as it is possible to appease the spirit by its social reintegration through marriage (see also Passador 2011). However many people feel that the balance between the social and the spiritual, which is important for the organisation and reproductive force of society, has been disturbed. The fact that kinship structures are not functioning properly means that the right procedures to reintegrate the spirit are not being followed. This view was expressed in conversations and interviews with both Pentecostal and non-Pentecostal individuals, including curandeiros (see also Cavallo 2013: 185–225). The prevalence of women suffering from a spirit spouse adds a further dimension to fragile social–spiritual relations. The fact that more girls than boys were related to a spirit shows the gendered impact of social transformations. In some curandeiros’ accounts, it was stressed that virgin boys were also given to the avenging spirit. According to these healers, the spirit can only be reintegrated and the girl can only marry when the spirit belongs to both a boy and a girl. If the girl is an adult and is going to marry a physical husband, the lobolo gifts the family receives for the girl are offered to the spirit spouse. Then the spirit should allow the boy to use these gifts for the lobolo of his future wife. The children that are subsequently born to these parents will carry the spirit’s name, ensuring its full reintegration and compensation for his death. In this way, and following the logic of affiliation, Webster showed (2009 [1976]: 300) in the case of Chope society, the spirit becomes a genro (in Portuguese) or mukonwana (in Ronga), a son-in-law, in the family’s kinship structure, and from then onwards, the spirit spouse becomes reasonable and the girl is allowed to marry.10 Until the right procedures are performed, the girl remains related to the spirit and faces afflictions, especially in her relationships with men (Bagnol 2006: 185–202). As organising lobolo is difficult today because of a lack of money, conflict and irresponsible men (according to the women and a few men) and because the 10 Another

2006).

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possibility is accompanying the spirit back home with gifts (see e.g. Bagnol

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presence of a spirit spouse is either silenced by kin or not properly addressed,11 more women than men are remaining connected to spirit spouses. It was also said that cases of women married to a spirit are better known as it is more usual for men not to marry and to have different relationships than it is for women.12 Suspicions about relations with spirit spouses are encountered when tensions rise regarding the behaviour of women. Some were accused by their in-laws of having a spirit spouse if they failed to carry out their obligations as a wife, such as cooking and/or accompanying their husbands on visits to kin. Most of the women I spoke to wanted to divide up the household tasks. Not all men were necessarily opposed to cooking and cleaning, but most feel uncomfortable dealing with these tasks (see also Cumbi 2009). Domestic roles in the home become a major source of tension when the in-laws confront young families with what they see as blurred gender roles. In this respect, I heard women complaining about mothers-in-law in particular. In the past, recently married women often moved to their husband’s family house but today’s upwardly mobile women want to invest in a nuclear family. Yet in one way or another, they are supposed to show their mothers-in-law affection by visiting them on a regular basis, bringing presents or even cleaning their houses, which this younger generation of women considers old-fashioned. Some mothers-in-law interpret their behaviour negatively, saying: ‘she is forgetting her roots’, ‘she does not know any more who our ancestors are’ and ‘she has a bad spirit’. Mothers-in-law can gain a powerful position through relations with their sons, which are challenged by upwardly mobile (Pentecostal) women. Traditionally, women’s powerful positions are related to male counterparts such as (grand)fathers, husbands, brothers and sons (Loforte 2003: 17–19). Some women also complained about their sistersin-law. The oldest sister-in-law has an important role in marriage negotiations and the lobolo procedures (Loforte 2003: 18). At the same time, men explained how their wives were being influenced by their own mothers, and they found it difficult to develop a life with their wives with the constant presence of her

11 Curandeiros said that many women are ignorant of their spiritual marriage because their

kin are embarrassed to inform them of it. said that because most murdered persons during the war were men, there are more male spirits who want a woman. Honwana (2002: 63–4) claims that most of the Ndau spirits were male. The plant named mvuhko (or mpfuka), through which the Ndau obtained their special powers of resurrection, was given to babies to protect them for the remainder of their lives. Some of Honwana’s informants said that men and women alike got this substance, while others said that only men received it (see also Earthy 1931: 226–7).

12 Others

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family in the house. The conflicts that develop between couples sometimes end in accusations of witchcraft or spiritual marriages.13 Most studies on spirit spouses have been carried out in rural and peri-urban settings, in particular in relation to (traumatic) experiences in the last civil war (Honwana 2002; Igreja et al. 2008). In line with an emphasis on religion’s role in bringing certainty and security, these scholars have pointed to the crucial role of spirit spouses, and spirits in general, in the process of reconciliation and restoration in post-war Mozambican society (see also Schuetze 2010: 412−39). In the first place, the performance of war spirits in certain healing sessions offers a space for communicating about sexual violence and murder, and plays a role in shaping memories of the war (see also Perera 2001). Secondly, the marriage of the spirit to a woman (and man) contributes to restoring relations between spirits and the living and, as such, to the renewal of communities and society. In this context, avenging spirits offer a way of dealing with the traumas of war. Yet, Passador (2011: 169–91), writing about the rural district of Homoíne in southern Mozambique, argues that the integration of war spirits can never be considered to be definitive as people might break with the obligations of the alliance (see also Marlin 2001),14 leading to a reality of distrust and suspicion that principally involves women. As women are married to the foreign spirit, they have a crucial position in maintaining or terminating the alliance, increasing suspicions about these women. It is this ambiguous female position that also seems to play a role in how the new independent attitudes of upwardly mobile women in Maputo are being judged. The upwardly mobile women I spoke to, including non-Pentecostals, often went to curandeiros and prophets in AICs because of possible relations with spirits of vengeance, but they either found the whole healing process meaningless or did not feel any change. Their ambivalent opinions of spirits is related to the particular history of spirits in Maputo in the process of nation-state formation (Chapter One). Julia understood that the reason she had a relationship with a spiritual spouse was because the lobolo procedures were not carried out when her parents got married. Her father belonged to the group of assimilados (civilised indigenous people) in Lourenço Marques during the colonial period, and he broke with practices considered uncivilised, such as lobolo. According to Julia, their nuclear family was not protected from any harm or the influences of spirits 13 I was also told about a few cases in which men were thought to be engaged in a spiritual

marriage (see also Cavallo 2013: 173–7). I got to know one woman who accused her husband of having a spirit spouse because he was not taking an interest in her any more. 14 Marlin (2001: 298) argues that possession by spirits of men killed in the war ‘offers neither resolution nor the restoration of a previous sense of order’. Wiegink (2014: 165–91) demonstrates how relations with war spirits also can legitimise violence.

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with evil intentions because the failure to perform lobolo had disconnected them from their ancestral spirits and kin. Other women I met also had parents who refused to talk about or engage with ancestral and foreign spirits. Their children, however, are being confronted with spirits whose presence has become more visible with the new emphasis on local histories and cultures in the post-socialist era. Sometimes, younger generations are taken to ancestral places or to curandeiros but feel dissociated from them. Some authors have spoken about the ‘social schizophrenia’ many urban Mozambicans are experiencing (Lundin 2007: 168–71). To the outside world, people have to show that they are free of ‘backward beliefs’, while they continue to be entangled with the past. Even though a national identity is being promoted where ‘tradition’, such as traditional healing, local music and fashion, is being revived, the spiritual dimensions of ‘tradition’ are still causing embarrassment and anxieties. To Julia and others like her, the growing influences of uncontrollable powers, including spirits, are disorganising society. For them, Frelimo’s return to tradition is the reason why the post-war neo-liberal and democratic project is failing and why Maputo has become an inchoate city (see also Bertelsen 2003). Brazilian Pentecostalism, in contrast, is a route to banishing the spirits and related cultural traditions forever, and to reorganising society. The Pentecostal project is all the more pertinent for women now that another type of spirit spouse15 has become increasingly active. Rumours have started circulating about women who are being ‘eaten’ by spirits. When I talked about marriage, people often asked: ‘Why is it that so many girls in one family who are beautiful and well-educated are not marrying?’ To them, it was clear that spiritual issues were involved. Lowering their voices, as this was a dangerous and serious matter, they said that (grand)parents were selling their (grand)children to evil spirits through a feiticeiro (witch doctor) to become rich. The child feeds the strong spiritual powers needed for luck and wealth.16 People explained to me that this bought spirit spouse, who provides wealth as long as the family takes care of him, can be very violent and continuously needs new children, preferably girls, because he is male. When telling such stories, people stressed that others are often unfamiliar with the kinds of forces they are dealing with. The people I 15 This was the second type the curandeiros spoke of: xikwembu muhliwa (spirit of a person

killed or stolen through witchcraft) and more generally was also referred to as xindontana; this can be translated as little tyrant and has a pejorative connotation (see also Cavallo 2013: 188). 16 In this region, this spirit spouse that ‘eats’ human flesh refers to the spirit of persons who have been appropriated or killed for the benefit of another person. This generally involves accumulating wealth at the cost of others, which points to witchcraft (Fry 2000: 79, 80; West 2005: 35–9 for northern and central Mozambique; Bähre 2002; Niehaus 1997 for South Africa).

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spoke to were afraid that they were unaware of the powers that were controlling them, and many women suspected that they could have been given to such a spirit. Julia was one such person: she was angry that her parents had neglected their ancestors, and now she and her unmarried sisters were suffering because a spirit might attack them. Julia had thus developed a negative view of the role of spirits in society. This intensified when Brazilian Pentecostal pastors made her increasingly aware of the dangerous relationships she was entangled in. The South–South transnational spirit of Pombagira17 When Brazilian Pentecostal pastors began holding church services in Maputo’s empty cinemas in the early 1990s, word quickly spread about their performances and how they were exorcising spirits. Mozambicans who attended these services stressed their amazement at how pastors were openly talking about ancestral spirits and witchcraft, which had previously been unheard of in an urban centre dominated by a history of culture policies focused on abandoning ‘backward beliefs’. More than ten years later, when I arrived to do my research, Brazilian outspokenness about spirits was no longer newsworthy. Yet converts were still fascinated by how Brazilians had been able to discover the ‘Devil’s tricks’ in Mozambique. Converts told me that there were numerous demons in Brazil, such as the spirit of Pombagira, whose effects and actions were similar to what was occurring in Mozambique. In Afro-Brazilian imagery, Pombagira is a female spirit that personifies the ambiguities of femininity and female sexuality (Hayes 2008), and is known as the Mistress of the Night or the Lady of the Cemetery. The spirit is attractive and dangerous, and can also be the spirit of a prostitute. Even though experiences of Mozambican women with the spirit spouse are not usually linked to prostitution, various women told me that a related problem is that women are not able to control their own bodies or marry because they are involved with ‘evil’ spiritual forces. The term Pombagira was principally used in the God is Love Church. In the Universal Church, the term marido da noite (husband of the night) or marido spiritual (spiritual husband) was mainly used, but the pastors there normally talked about cases related to Afro-Brazilian religions. At the services I attended in the God is Love Church in 2006 and 2007, there was no permanent pastor, and Brazilian pastors who were travelling around Africa came for a few days or weeks. At one Friday afternoon service,18 a Brazilian pastor, who had just arrived from Nigeria, preached about Revelation 12, focusing on how God kicked the Devil out of heaven. ‘All demons have 17 This section is an elaboration of van de Kamp 2015. 18 2 March 2007.

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been conquered,’ the pastor concluded before explaining about the various types of demons. He gave the example of the spirit of Pombagira who ‘destroys marriages’: This spirit blocks women’s possibilities for marrying or they don’t conceive or the husband leaves after a few years of marriage. Because this spirit is jealous and doesn’t want you to have another man. […] This problem is the demon of Pombagira. Here in Mozambique, you have the marido da noite, don’t you?

He told the audience about how, just after his arrival the previous day, he and his wife had received several women in the church office: When I said Paz do Senhor [Peace of the Lord], they fell down on the doorstep [he looked very satisfied with this] and some vomited all sorts of things, it’s all macumba. The spirits themselves say who they are, so I immediately knew what kind of spirit I was dealing with.

He also related the Pombagira spirit to women who date a rich man who can become their patrocinador (patron or sponsor): Why does a girl of 16 stay with a man of 60? It is about money. What should she do with him? Bath him? If he loses all his money, will he not return to his former wife?

The pastor’s discovery of the work of the Devil in Mozambique within a day of arriving demonstrated his access to superior spiritual forces and his transnational power over demons. Wherever the pastor was, demons revealed themselves. He also used examples from Nigeria, where he had just been: I was in Nigeria. I have never seen so many macumba!, more than in Mozambique. They perform rituals where mothers give their children away to a demon in return for money! But, after driving a big car for some months, they become louca [crazy].19

The transnational connection between Africa and Brazil, which includes a shared history of ‘African spirits’, is the medium for discovering and reflecting on the dark powers at work in Africa. Particularly fascinating is the fact that no precise translation of the (Afro-) Brazilian cosmology to the African one seems to be necessary. The Brazilian pastors do not know the histories of the spirit spouse (as described in the previous section) and Mozambicans are unfamiliar with the meaning and role of the spirit of Pombagira in Brazil. The power of the South–South transnational translation is based on a superficial knowledge of the kind of spirits at work (Chapter Two). To establish a connection between Brazilian pastors and Mozambican converts, it is important that pastors show 19 Up

to this point, he did not seem to realise that these practices were also happening in Mozambique, in relation to the xindontana.

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that they know the tricks of the Devil, who uses local beliefs and relations to do his work. At the same time, it is necessary to have a distanced position to ‘evil’. The less one knows, the more foreign one can be(come), and one can thus break more easily with devilish ties. While the pastor preached about various demons, such as those that cause unemployment, he continuously returned to the spirit spouse. At the end of his sermon, when prophecies were revealed, the pastor announced: ‘There are several women who are not able to marry.’ Some women raised their hands, and the pastor pointed to one young woman to come forward. He asked her if the problem was the marido espiritual. She nodded. He turned to the audience again: ‘There is someone, when she lies in bed at night who is visited by a man at midnight who has sexual intercourse with her. It is the marido espiritual.’ Another young woman came forward. The women – Pentecostal and non-Pentecostal – curandeiros and pastors I spoke with all emphasised that there was no physical person involved but that women experience real sexual intercourse and that this is visible and can be proved, for example by marks on the body or the presence of seminal fluid the next day. The pastor went on, ‘There is also a spirit that makes you women masturbate, that is also the husband of the night.’ Again a woman came forward, and the pastor started praying. One of the three women fell over, her body started trembling and a strange voice came from her saying that he had obstructed her attempts to marry. The pastor told her to remain silent and resumed praying, describing a huge demon that was pursuing someone. ‘Who feels all the time pursued on the streets?’ The second of the three women at the front fell on the ground. We all had to come closer and direct our hands towards the women and scream queima, queima, queima (‘burn, burn, burn’) to drive the demons away forever. The second young woman who came forward and fell down was Yvon (aged 23). She was attending classes at a school for higher vocational education and had just returned to the father of her child, but he had sent her back to her family’s home as he had a new woman he wanted to live with.20 Yvon had turned to the Universal Church, but as this had had no effect, she had changed to the God is Love Church. Yvon gave me examples of how the spirit spouse had intruded in her life. Besides nightly visits from her spiritual husband, which was the reason why her partner had separated from her as he had witnessed his wife behaving as if she was having sexual intercourse with the spirit, she once also had intercourse with her spirit husband when she was on public transport (chapa). The men sitting close to her in the overcrowded chapa and the way men looked at her on the streets provoked her spiritual husband. She decided to stay at home for 20 I talked to Yvon several times in May 2007.

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some time afterwards because she was embarrassed that people had seen the movements of her body. How women felt and were perceived when they walked in the city appeared to be related to the actions of the spirit spouse. Since Yvon had started participating in the God is Love Church, the spirit had calmed down but had not completely left her. She had to train her body into a new mode by learning to stay filled with the Holy Spirit, who would accompany her in the chapa and on the city streets. For this reason, she consulted one of the pastor’s female assistants. Mariza (aged 38), had also suffered from a spirit spouse herself and counselled women like Yvon, advising her not to sleep naked so that the spirit spouse would not feel invited to visit her. According to Mariza, the majority of the women in Maputo suffer from a spirit spouse, and as they were ignorant about the spirit, she told them about her own experiences.21 While Yvon and Julia are examples of urban women who have not consciously grown up with spirits and have learned about them through Brazilian Pentecostalism, Mariza demonstrates the trajectory of a woman who grew up with the spirit spouse but started to experience the spirit in new ways when she migrated to Maputo. Since childhood, Mariza had known that she was married to a spirit. Her mother had tried to free her by going to curandeiros and prophets at AICs,22 but without success. Mariza married, but she had no children and then got divorced. Initially, she refused the marriage proposal of her current husband, as she knew the spirit would act, but she finally relented. Her husband got a job in Maputo where Mariza’s spirit spouse began to operate fervently: she often fell over in the middle of the street, and when her husband received his salary at the end of the month, she became so ill that they had to spend all the money on doctors and healers. One day she heard about the God is Love Church on the radio, and started to go to its services in the Charlot Cinema, where a ‘tall black person, a Brazilian pastor, exorcised the spirit’. It took a year or two before the spirit really left her but she slowly started to change her life. Mariza said: I prayed a lot and threw my make-up and trousers away. It was difficult as the spirit said that it liked me in trousers. My husband told me that it would be better to throw them all away than to remain ill.

Finally, after much praying, the spirit left her. One night I saw the Devil in my dream, he looked very ugly, and said that he would go away because he was tired of God. God had burned him too often. 21 I interviewed Mariza on 21 November 2006 and 9 March 2007. 22 Zionist

prophets are also critical about harmonising relations with vengeance spirits (Honwana 2002: 145–66).

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When Mariza began to organise her civil marriage, the Devil/spirit spouse returned to tell her that she would not marry. Right up until the day of her wedding it was uncertain whether she and her husband would get married or not. But Mariza knew that this was part of a spiritual battle: she was being tested. With her ‘spiritual armour’ (see below), she would triumph. On her wedding day, the documents were missing at the civil registration, and she related that as the pastor prayed, he saw the Devil with the papers. In the end, the documents were found and the marriage proceeded. Her family was not present since they could not believe that it would be possible for Mariza to get married. They were afraid that something terrible would happen, but Mariza is still married and is fervently praying, fasting and sacrificing money in order to conceive. Brazilian Pentecostal churches slightly differ from each other in their approach to the spirit spouse. For example, both the God is Love Church and the Universal Church recognise that spirit spouses claim women’s bodies and obstruct sexuality, marriage and procreation. In the God is Love Church, women are seen as making themselves vulnerable to the spirit spouse if they use lipstick and wear trousers but, according to the leaders of the Universal Church, these can strengthen women’s self-realisation as long as they ‘stay in the Holy Spirit’. Being trained to live with the Holy Spirit, Pentecostal women have different options within Pentecostal parameters and power structures to participate in and shape social changes.23 Spirit spouse relations as communication After she mentioned the spirit spouse in our conversations, I asked Julia for more information about the spirit. She started to tell me about her last partner, who she had lived with for several years. He got a job in Beira, one thousand kilometres north of Maputo. Julia’s friends told her that she would lose him if she did not move with him, but she was not afraid because they had a good relationship. Their plan was that her partner would move first and she would follow later. But then, their contact decreased, and Julia found out that he had another wife. Julia left for Beira where her relationship ended. She looked at me intensely and continued: Never give yourself totally to a man. Keep a part of yourself so that you don’t completely lose your self-worth. To prevent myself from becoming depressed, I went to the Universal Church. … It was witchcraft. His new wife had taken something from 23 In

this chapter I do not focus on the sexual education given by pastors and their assistants in discourses on masturbation and not sleeping naked. See Chapter Five for more details.

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me and had thrown it into the sea to send me away out of the life of that man. So my partner became bewitched. Take care; these women from Beira are dangerous.24

Looking back, she recounted how a spiritual dream had been a warning sign. However, since she was not converted when she had the dream, she had failed to recognise its spiritual dimensions when she had sexual intercourse with a woman.25 ‘At that time I had no idea that the woman from Beira was asking to possess my man. Such a dream means that your relationship is over,’ Julia said. Some women spoke about dreams they had as part of their relationship with a spirit spouse, but these dreams were real to the extent that the intercourse they had with spirits was experienced physically.26 At first, I concluded that Julia’s intertwined narratives about the reasons for her difficulties with men, namely the failure of her parents’ lobolo, witchcraft and spirit spouses,27 and the role of the dream showed an embodied spiritual communication on sensitive issues, such as (lesbian) sexuality, marriage and kinship relations. In line with the meaning-centred approaches of spirit involvement in anthropology, focusing on the symbolic, embodied and aesthetic dimensions of spirit possession (e.g. Boddy 1989; Csordas 1987; Lambek 1981; Masquelier 2001), the lived-in experiences of spirits can be approached as complex cultural statements that express everyday life and enable multiple interpretations of reality (for Mozambique, see Honwana 2002, 2003; Igreja et al. 2008; Schuetze 2010). Lambek (2003) addresses the ‘art of living with spirits’ as a system of communication because possession transmits messages between people involved in a specific cultural setting. Lambek introduces a person who is not directly possessed but in whom a spirit comes to act, which is similar to what is happening to

24

Mozambique’s second city Beira is connected with Renamo and the Ndau, and is often negatively viewed by southerners who used to support Frelimo and disapprove of Ndau spirits that take revenge, such as the spirit spouse (see also Honwana 2002: 145–66). 25 This was one of the few times I encountered someone referring to a female spirit spouse. Julia informed her partner about the dream, but he was not happy about its lesbian connotations (see also Bagnol 2006). 26 Igreja and Dias-Lambranca (2006: 135) describe women in central Mozambique who reported nightmares about sexual intercourse with men that appeared to be related to experiences of rape during the civil war. This may signify that a male spirit wants to marry the woman ‘or to demand justice for a past wrongdoing not done by the dreamer herself, but by her already deceased relatives’. In addition, it could be a calling to become a healer. 27 The different reasons Julia mentioned for her problems with men correspond with the three reasons curandeiros specified for reproductive problems: i) the mother has not been ‘lobolated’; ii) an ancestral spirit wants to say something; and/or iii) a foreign/war spirit is manifesting itself.

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Mozambican women.28 The encounter with the spirit was ‘immediate, painful, and deeply embodied’, but was also ‘distanced and objectified sufficiently to be available to the person and others in the form of a narrative’ (ibid.: 54), through which the directions of that person’s life and related social concerns could be discussed. It is possible to see the involvement with spirit spouses as part of a communication process about acceptable and unacceptable gender roles and forms of marriage and sexuality in Maputo. In this respect, Boddy (1989), in her study of women’s possession by alien Zār spirits in northern Sudan, considered the role of involvement with spirits in creating awareness and feminist consciousness. She contested Lewis’s (1971) conclusions that their possession demonstrated that women could not help themselves and needed spirits to resolve their problems. In northern Somalia, young married women, who according to Lewis (1971: 31) were deprived and isolated, were possessed by Zār spirits that afflicted them with illness in a ‘sex war’. Women could only be cured through expensive ceremonies paid for by their husbands (ibid.: 75–9), so men could not afford a second marriage. Thus poor, married women indirectly influenced their husband’s actions while the responsibility lay not with them but with the spirits. Boddy (1989) presented a different perspective on the sex war. Women were not escaping a weak position or were blameless but actively resisted aspects of their society. Through possession by alien spirits, women effected a degree of detachment from dominant gender constructs and became conscious of possibilities for negotiating their subordination. The accommodation of the spirit spouse in the South–South transnational Pentecostal framework equally allows women to consciously reflect on their position and adapt to new ones. Initially, Mariza, who had migrated to Maputo, seemed to be a victim in an urban environment that was new to her, a position she compensated for by claiming her husband’s income. Every time he received his salary, she became ill and the money had to be spent on her (see Lewis 1971: 75–9). However, following Boddy (1989), the Brazilian pastors’ perception of the alien spirit offered Mariza the chance to have a different understanding of herself and her society, and to resist her situation. Brazilian Pentecostal pastors 28 Some curandeiros said that women were involved with the spirit spouse but not possessed

by it. The term possession was used for healers whose bodies were used by spirits with healing powers. In principle, women with a spirit spouse would not go into a trance or perform the bodily movements of possessed healers. Some spirit spouses also had healing powers, and some women married to a spirit could go into a trance while others did not.

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provide women with a particular understanding and sensation of the spirits at work, as well as with techniques to break with paralysing powers by becoming possessed by or involved with the Holy Spirit. Pentecostal leaders counsel women in how to know, feel and prevent the spirit spouse – and indirectly other negative powers such as kin and a failing government – from overwhelming them and taking their responsibility and independence away from them. Praying while walking down the street, wearing pyjamas at night, distancing oneself from relatives and being alert to the dangers of spirits are some of the Brazilian Pentecostal options that can be used to organise one’s life, relationships and emotions. Involvement with spirits has been seen by some anthropologists as a ‘natural’ cultural model in feeling and experiencing reality (Behrend and Luig 1999; Lambek 2003; Moore and Sanders 2001). Especially in discussions on African modernity, spirit manifestations are seen as offering alternative but normal ways of viewing the world (Comaroff and Comaroff 1999; Meyer and Pels 2003; Moore and Sanders 2001). In these studies, the modernist assumption of secular rationality is contested. Spirit possession and involvement appear to be at the very heart of social transformations, and spirits respond to modernism by incorporating or rejecting its logic and accommodating forms of modernism. These studies present local religions, such as rituals of spirit possession, in the broader framework of the modern globalising world. Local dynamics are being understood in a context of global economic structures, and patterns of communication and travel that impinge on local societies as they respond to such influences through multifaceted forms of spirit possession. Along these lines, Honwana (2003) argues how spirits of vengeance in Mozambique, such as the spirit spouse, cannot be identified as traditional in a modernist discourse, but should be seen as a flexible and dynamic phenomenon that is part and parcel of the politics of national culture and of the modern context of a market economy, democracy and globalisation. An important question in this line of thought is whether the Brazilian Pentecostal version of the spirit spouse can be approached as the latest accommodation of the spiritual with current urban culture. Disconnecting the relational body On a Wednesday afternoon in November 2006, I drove from central Maputo to the bairro Patrice Lumumba, to pick up Ana, Vitória and Madalena (Chapter Three). We met at Vitória’s house to go together to the Universal Church service in their neighbourhood at 6 p.m. Vitória was taking a shower when I arrived, and Ana and Madalena were putting on make-up. They were wearing the so-called

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tchuna-babes or tight jeans that were being hotly debated in relation to women’s growing sexual assertiveness.29 While I was waiting for them to get ready, I watched the last scene of a Brazilian telenovela the friends were viewing about a betrayed woman. We drove to church, and when we arrived an obreira asked me if I was accompanying the three friends. Ana quickly said: ‘we are friends’. She took me to the first row of seats from the stage and whispered in my ear that I should not reveal too much about myself, ‘that is private’. A pastor walked onto the stage and said: ‘close your eyes, put your hands on your hearts’. He launched into a strong prayer, demanding God to change our lives, and for some minutes we could do our own prayers by saying what we wanted from God. I heard Ana fervently screaming and crying for a good and faithful partner. The prayers were concluded by expelling evil from our lives, going with our hands over our body, and pulling our hands away from it, screaming, ‘Go away, go away, go away (sai, sai, sai) [evil spirit]’. The keyboard player started a song, and after some fifteen minutes of singing – the same song was repeated several times – the pastor began his sermon: ‘Look at me. I ask you my dear madam, my dear sir, the person who has a problem is s/he happy?’ The audience had to respond their ‘no’ three times, louder and louder. Most problems, according to the pastor, were a result of alliances with the Devil that people inherited. Therefore, everyone needed to sacrifice oneself as the people the Bible wrote about had: Abraham, David and Jesus. One way of sacrificing is ‘to give your best to God’, the pastor continued, and he asked who had the courage to come forward to offer US$100. Ana stepped forward, even if, as I knew, she had no regular income. She received a special prayer, and then other people stepped up, offering smaller amounts and receiving prayers. At the end of the service, all women were called forward and received a small piece of paper with a special invitation:30

29 The expression tchuna is part of Maputo dialect and means to impress or to call for atten-

tion. Babes seems to be Portuguese-English and derives from the word babies. According to Serra (2006) tchuna-babes could be translated as beautiful girls (meninas bonitas). During my fieldwork this expression was also used to refer to the very popular tight jeans that were sold in shops with fashion from Brazil. 30 Punctuation marks as in the original. Translated by author from Portuguese: ‘Atenção !!! Mulheres Neste Sábado às 17hs:00, venha participar da grande guerra contra as maldições Tais como: esterilidade, casamento destruído, Não consegue casar, e visitada pelo marido da Noite, aborto, marido impotente, esfriamento na vida conjugal, marido de espanca, não dá filho, Marido te trai, todo homem que aparece te larga, seu marido te olha como sua irmã.’

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Attention!!! Women This Saturday at 17 hours, come to participate in the BIG WAR AGAINST MALEDICTIONS Such as: sterility, destroyed marriage, Not succeeding marrying, and visited by the husband of the Night, abortion, impotent husband, cooling off in conjugal life, beating husband, childless, Husband cheats on you, every man that turns up leaves you, your husband views you as his sister

Ana said that she started having sexual intercourse with ‘the husband of the night’ at the age of 13. She informed her mother, who thought she was making it up. ‘It was only in the Universal Church that I learned who this spirit is,’ Ana told me, ‘because the spirit manifests himself in church and tells who he is.’ She explained to me that parents or grandparents offer their children to spirits to become rich. She knew that the spirit interfered negatively in her relationships with men, and therefore she frequented the Universal Church to get rid of the spirit. Her latest sacrifice was a new attempt to end her bad luck in relations with men. She told me that her mother does not like her involvement in church, and they quarrelled about the money Ana offered in church. ‘The Devil is testing me,’ Ana said, and ‘I do not talk to anyone about my spiritual issues, this is something between me and God.’ In the following weeks, she baked as many cakes as possible and tried to sell them to bring the US$100 together, showing she is a ‘fighter women’, as the pastors called women who proved their faith and investment in a better life. Church services were places where converts learned to scrutinise their bodies in relation to the spiritual. At the start of the Brazilian Pentecostal services I attended, everyone had to close their eyes, put their hands on their hearts and start praying so as to allow the Holy Spirit to reveal the evil in their bodies, as in the case above. Under the guidance of the pastor, who is filled with the power of the Holy Spirit, the evil that is found in one’s body is thrown out. Sometimes everyone has to put their hands on the places where evil is manifesting itself, for example the stomach of those women who have not conceived, and they order the Devil to leave it in the name of Jesus. This is accompanied by cries and yells. Pastors also instruct people to stamp their feet to banish demons. Regularly, women who have not married or cannot conceive are called forward, and are all called to burn the evil spirits in their bodies in the name of Jesus by yelling ‘burn, burn, burn’. As demons could be hiding in their houses, they have to direct their

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hands in the direction of their neighbourhood too and shout: ‘Sai, sai, sai e não volta nunca mais’ (‘leave, leave, leave and never return’). The body of the convert becomes the medium and also an index of the power of God (Meyer 2008). Sometimes I tried to keep my eyes open as I wanted to observe other people, but the assistants who walked around during services told me to close them. Converts explained that this was essential to disconnect from everything and everybody, and to connect to God and inspect one’s own body. Importantly and even though they were in a group of people, converts should also not share their experiences with others. Pastors stressed that converts should keep their spiritual battle to themselves. At the first services I attended, I tried to make contact with the people around me, but they responded with caution. Normally, Mozambican churches are meeting places, but participating in a Brazilian Pentecostal church was a person’s private business. Crucially, converts should not inform others about the details of their spiritual struggles, and only success stories were shared in public testimonies (see also van Wyk 2014). What is central is one’s relationship with God, and the pastor is the only mediator. Others – friends, colleagues, kin, local healers and even converts – do not have the right spiritual capacities of scrutiny, and might even have bad intentions and try to counter the conversion process.31 Pentecostals have to learn not to listen to others but to the Holy Spirit, who will guide them in reading their bodies. Before or after the services, converts and visitors could have a quick counselling session with a pastor or an assistant but these tended to be very short, seemed superficial and followed a clearly defined pattern. After a service in a Universal Church I spoke briefly with a pastor:32 Pastor: How is madam doing? Linda: Fine. Pastor: Are you experiencing any problems? Linda: Last week, I was ill. Pastor: Be careful madam, evil spirits are everywhere, ready to attack. I will pray for madam. It is important to come to church every day. [He said a short prayer and turned to the next person.]

I regularly had such sessions with pastors that were similar to what other converts told me and what I was able to witness. Spiritual encounters such as Ana and Julia had had as other occurrences were not analysed, as it was clear that the Devil used them to interfere. In my view, the transnational power of scrutiny, healing and action depends on a short but in-depth understanding of a person’s 31 I was a foreigner, and many converts told me I could do no harm since I was not African

and did not know about ‘black magic’.

32 16 February 2005.

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problem, and this happened in a strict, ritual order: first the nature of the affliction is depicted – a particular demon – and an action plan of attending services, praying, fasting and offering money is drawn up. Once, I said to the pastor that I had no problems. I immediately realised that my answer did not fit in the standard pattern of pastors’ counselling methods. In their standard conversation techniques, there was no script for my answer because the spiritual battle always implies that people are experiencing hardships. Longer-term visitors and converts can discuss more specific details with pastors, and it was said that in some cases pastors visit converts’ homes to cast away demons there, but none of my interlocutors ever received a pastor at home. It is important that no familiar relations are established. Pastors rarely stay at one church for longer than six months to a year and frequently move to another neighbourhood, city or country. No long-term relationships can or should develop. Moreover, I learned from the pastors in the Universal Church that they hardly ever had time to themselves and they were controlled strictly (see also van Wyk 2014: 59–87). The only day they had some free time was on Saturdays when there were fewer services, but they then had to meet other pastors and play sports together or listen to instructions from the bishop. It seemed that every effort was made to prevent pastors from becoming or staying embedded locally. The necessary transnational distance from local culture in order to give way to the global power of the Holy Spirit was enacted in the superficial relations between pastors and converts and by keeping pastors disconnected from local settings. In relation to the individualised and culturally disconnected setting, it was fascinating to hear from two curandeiros that they were developing new healing techniques because clients were increasingly coming on their own without any relatives. However, a lack of knowledge about their ancestors made it difficult for curandeiros to perform their work. Illness is normally perceived as a consequence of a problem in one’s social relations, and the healing process consists of untangling the web of relations the afflicted person is embedded in, most importantly with kin. Healers also said that they regularly had consultations with women who were sure that they had a spirit spouse but their symptoms did not prove this. According to some of them, this happened under the influence of Brazilian Pentecostal churches. Curandeiros were faced with a new situation. Whereas in the past they were THE spiritual experts, some of them felt a bit confused about the stories women told them and they could not really help these new type of clients. This seems to show a broader situation in which nothing looked very clear to anyone, leading to increasing rumours and suspicions about spiritual involvement and witchcraft (see also Israel 2009), especially with regard to older single women. Brazilian Pentecostal pastors connected to and reinforced the rumours and people’s disengagement with local healing systems and ways of living with spirits.

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7  Prayer session, Maná Church, Maputo. Photo: Rufus de Vries.

The desire for more private healing settings can be realised in the transnational Pentecostal setting. Upwardly mobile women find it attractive to judge their situation privately, without depending on their kin. There were also instances where they had no choice but to act independently because their kin would not confer with healers and religious leaders. Yvon and Ana learned from pastors that they had become related to a spirit spouse because their parents and grandparents had offered them to the Devil. When I was talking to Yvon about her spirit spouse, she asked me anxiously whether I thought that her grandmother or her father would have indeed done such a thing. I suggested talking to her parents about these issues, but she shook her head. This was not an option as her father was against spiritual practices and would be angry. And it was not the Pentecostal way to consult kin. The Brazilian Pentecostal ‘art of living with spirits’ (Lambek 2003) does not allow for a communication process with others, except for short ones with pastors and God. The important role of kin and social relations in finding out about the wishes of spirits, to discover a way to live with them and as such to transmit a variety of messages is unimportant and even destructive in the Brazilian Pentecostal realm. Converts are left to their own resources and self-consultations, primarily

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8  Casting out demons by pulling one’s hands away from one’s head and screaming, ‘go away, go away, go away evil spirit and never return’, Universal Church, Maputo. Photo: Rufus de Vries.

based on bodily revelations by the Holy Spirit and on what pastors say.33 The self-analysis and self-help that the transnational Pentecostal setting allows for, and where only the Holy Spirit and the pastor are needed, is exactly the attraction of this form of Pentecostalism in Maputo. Upwardly mobile women are either disembodied from local spiritual communication structures and/or are happy to act independently of powers in the national and local domains. At the same time, however, converts become isolated and could feel depressed. I saw how Yvon found it difficult to be suspicious of her (grand)parents, but could not talk to them about the subject and felt lonely. Mariza’s kin decided to keep their distance, and Julia’s and Ana’s parents complained about their lack of (financial) cooperation as a result of their financial offerings in church. 33 Taking

the self-help mentality further, there were also a few converts who would go to different churches and to other healers to compare diagnoses, forms of healing and costs. One example is Patricia (Chapter Two), who did not trust the healing session with the curandeiro that her kin had taken her to because nobody wanted to explain why she had to take certain medicines. At one point, she participated in the Assembly of God Church and in healing sessions with her relatives, and she considered my research focus group in which she participated as another platform for getting information that could help her find out the reason for her problems.

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Armed bodies As a proof of her dedication to the spiritual war, the pastors increasingly demanded more tithes and extra offerings form Julia. ‘It became too much,’ she said. The additional costs of her house and studies left hardly any money to buy food and clothes, and her daughter complained too. For example, she worked out when her mother would receive her salary, so she could ask for new shoes at the right time. In the end, Julia could not keep up this demanding lifestyle and endure the escalating tensions at home. In addition, her sister, who had converted as well, suddenly became very ill and almost bled to death. According to the pastors, her sister had not dedicated herself sufficiently to the project of conversion, and when a pastor became angry with her poor results, Julia left the Universal Church. Yet, she felt that spirits had started to intervene again in her life. Studies on women and possession have largely stressed issues of subordination and resistance (Boddy 1989; Lewis 1971; Masquelier 2001). More generally, going back to Gluckman’s ‘rituals of rebellion’ (1970), scholars have suggested that not only armed struggles mean resistance but also that rituals, dreams and possession show techniques for resisting one’s predicament and have political influence (e.g. Comaroff 1985; Fields 1985; Ranger 1977; van Binsbergen 1981). These studies have examined the creative ways religious mediums and participants dealt with the multiple challenges of colonisation, capitalism, wars and new forms of religious proselytism. In this sense, Boddy has shown how possession by Zār spirits enables Sudanese women to exercise implicit power and leave the appearance of power to men. Masquelier (2001) underscores how spiritual possession in Niger may illuminate how women make sense of global economic forces, such as capitalist labour and consumer culture, in their engagement with the spirit of Maria, the prostitute who indulges in sweet luxuries and causes infertility in women. ‘The imagery of consumption and reproduction provides a subtle and meaningful discourse’ that address ‘the challenges and contradictions of contemporary life’ (ibid.: 229). It is certainly true that the Pentecostal unmasking of demanding spirits as demons that are keen on money and sexual pleasure also addresses the challenges of contemporary urban life in Maputo, and offers women techniques to regain or establish control. However, the language of resistance does not fully capture the fact that entering the South–South transnational Pentecostal realm is highly demanding, as converts must tomar posse (take ownership). Success has to be lived as victory is the reality in which converts live. There seem to be links here with Mahmood’s work (2005: 118–88) on Muslim women in Egypt, where the pious individual is constituted by doing and acting (see also Marshall 2009). According to Mahmood, embodied actions, such as veiling and praying, are neither forms of subordination nor of resistance to gender roles but they realise

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women’s desires to be pious Muslims. Similarly, Julia, Mariza, Yvon and Ana are praying, fasting and resisting bad powers to live as born-again Christians. They want to be dedicated to the Pentecostal project and, to that end, they dress in the spiritual armour of God. Since the battles that converts face are spiritual in nature, they must fight with spiritual weapons that will protect them and make it possible to act. Believers must put on the armour of God, such as ‘the belt of truth around the waist’, ‘the breast plate of righteousness’ and ‘the word of God as the sword which the Spirit gives’, as described in the Bible, Ephesians, chapter six, that pastors regularly referred to. Now and then, pastors distributed swords and little wooden soldiers that stand for these appropriate spiritual moods of action. Pentecostal Christians are engaged in violent spiritual warfare between the Devil and God. The spiritual armour, provided by the Holy Spirit, is critical to their participation in this war. According to Poewe (1989), Charismatic Christianity is a religion of ‘metonymic signs’ that manifest and make the power of the Holy Spirit palpable. It thus differs from religions of metaphors, such as Orthodox Christianity. The metaphor, for example icons, represents holy power but metonyms do something (see also Mahmood 2005: 161–7; Meyer 2009: 6–11). Spiritual armour can be regarded as such a metonym: it does not only symbolise or imagine the spiritual battle but makes the battle happen. However, while Poewe says that the experience of doing and happening becomes real in the imagination, Julia, Ana, Mariza and others had to make things happen in reality. The spiritual battle is physically tough. By incorporating the Pentecostal arms, Julia was pushed and encouraged to find a better job, study, buy a house and marry the right man. With spiritual weapons, she would not be held back, and, dressed in the spiritual armour, she would be victorious. In fact as a devout Pentecostal she must be sure about her victory and only needed to collect the fruits of it. For Mariza, spiritual dress materialised by changing from trousers to a long skirt, so the Devil would not persecute her any more. Her marriage preparations were a continuous battle, and she felt that every step towards officialising her relationship was being obstructed. She had to practise her faith. Ana suffered to bring the US$100 together to show her faith in God and bring about miraculous results in her life. Wherever they were and went in Maputo, converts always had to use their faith ‘to extinguish the burning arrows shot by the Evil One’. In their houses, converts stamped their feet on the floor to crush any demons that might be present. For Poewe, the shift from symbol (metaphor) to sign (metonym) speaks of the presence of uncertainty in Southern Africa where new political projects are failing. The metonymic mode of being transforms mundane experiences into religious ones, meaning that Pentecostalism deconstructs the existing order and offers a reconstruction with a novel order. The metonymic imagination

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‘restores at once a sense of wholeness and dignity: a new life’ (Poewe 1989: 67). Metonymic events ‘replace former despair; a sense of wholeness replaces the former sense of conflict; peace and victory replace dread and fear’ (ibid.: 82). However, considering the fact that converts have to produce a new life, it is important to realise that this life may not necessarily be peaceful. The struggle continues. There is hardly any opportunity to find calm and peace as new conflicts replace older ones. Pentecostal women who attempt to break with the spirit spouse through ‘the burning power of the Holy Spirit’ enter a dangerous realm where a powerful spirit and those related to it are willing to do anything to protect their position. Women’s attempts to control their own lives and the effects of spiritual armour can start a war of spirits, as Marzia’s account shows. Converts dare to take this risk because the universal power of the Holy Spirit is considered to be stronger than local spirits. Lengthy, detailed and regular testimonies, for example about the Devil walking away with important wedding papers, are proof of converts’ dedication to the spiritual war and to achieve a new life. Furthermore, signs of their progress should materialise in a wedding at the civil registry, tithes and financial offerings, an independent attitude to relatives and conscious and controlled behaviour on the city’s streets. Sometimes the spiritual war can become a matter of life or death. The ill health of Julia’s sister became life-threatening when she started a month-long programme of fasting as part of the Fogueira Santa, a challenging spiritual and financial campaign organised by the Universal Church twice a year (see further Chapter Six). Seeing her ill health as a spiritual issue – she felt haunted by the spirit spouse for years, and her partner had just left her – Julia’s sister wanted to defeat the demon in her life by fasting, praying at night and bringing a large sum of money together, despite medical prescriptions to take a break. She hardly survived this spiritual fight.34 The sister of Dona Isabel (Chapter Three), in a similar situation, passed away during the Fogueira in which I participated. I attended the burial, which, in contrast to local burials that can take several days, was very short and only lasted about one hour.35 The Brazilian Pentecostal pastor said a few words without a lot of ceremony because, as the pastors regularly said, ‘leave the dead to bury their own dead’36 to fulminate against traditional ceremonies that were important to accompany the spirit of the deceased person towards its new position as ancestral spirit. While Julia decided to leave the Church for some time – she returned a few years later – because she found the pastors too demanding and she became afraid of the powers at work, Dona Isabel used the typical Brazilian Pentecostal saying ‘ta amarrado’ more often than before, to 34 Conversations, 12 September 2005 and 26 July 2011. 35 14 October 2005.

36 Based on remarks made by Jesus, in Matthew (8: 21–2).

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express how the Devil is restrained and will be pinned down. She participated with even more fervor in the Pentecostal battle against evil. I do not know all the details of the illnesses of my interlocutors’ Pentecostal sisters. In any case, Julia and Dona Isabel understood these to be part of a spiritual battle about life and death. Conclusion: violent transformation While the highly demanding practices of Pentecostalism and its violent implications have hardly been described in the literature, comparable dynamics have been described for spirit possession. The demands of spirits who use healers as their mediums can be exhausting. Moreover, the Pentecostal wish to eliminate local structures of power can also be found in possession cults. For example, van Velzen and van Wetering (2004) examine how witchcraft accusations in a Surinam Maroon society destroyed whole communities as well as people in dominant positions. In his work on sorcery in northern Mozambique, Israel (2009) describes how people lynch sorcerers who are suspected of magically fabricating lions that attack people. In line with the studies that focus on magic and the occult as an intrinsic part of African modernity (Comaroff and Comaroff 1999; Meyer and Pels 2003; Moore and Sanders 2001), Israel sees that the lion sorcerers can be perceived metaphorically in a situation of moral and socio-economic crisis that he encountered in northern Mozambique. Yet, he underscores that this type of analysis tends to underplay ‘the contestations and violence surrounding occult discourses, and does not account for the experiences of those who lost or risked their lives in the midst of events’ (Israel 2009: 173). I would like to argue the same for people’s involvement in Brazilian Pentecostalism. Indeed, Julia, Ana, Mariza, Yvon and other women participate in Brazilian Pentecostalism because many things in their society and daily life are unclear, especially with regard to kinship relations, marriage, sexuality and spiritual affiliations. Brazilian Pentecostalism offers clear answers and routes in a situation of uncertainty and spiritual insecurity (see also Ashforth 2001). However, the Pentecostal battle does not only give meaning to changes in society and upwardly mobile women’s (sexual) experiences, but its practices also have certain effects that can be violent, and therefore, others, such as Julia’s and Ana’s kin, understand Pentecostal practices as counter-sorcery. As I will describe further in Chapter Six, their kin feel that they are being ‘eaten’ by their Pentecostal children. The spirit spouse has a violent history spanning almost two centuries, starting in the Mfecane period and running through the recent civil war to the struggles in the new socio-economic era. The high level of suspicions about women’s possible relationships with spirit spouses demonstrates the crisis in relationships between people and between people and spirits. Locally, the well-being of one’s

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body – and one’s life – depends on being linked to the overall social and cosmological make-up of one’s community. It is important to be well related, especially to kin and ancestors, to be healthy and prosperous. The relational body is important for the continuation of families and communities, but this body seems to be in crisis. During the civil war in particular, bodies turned into disrupted entities, which affected the regeneration of life and resulted in the revenge of the bodies’ spirits. More recently, the neo-liberal socio-economic order appears to be ‘eating’ bodies. Upwardly mobile women are experiencing these processes through ‘rapes’ by spirit spouses who are not being appeased. The inherent tensions of social transformations, such as the inability or unwillingness to recreate traditional forms of affiliation and belonging, are resulting in possessive forms of sexual relations (see also Bähre 2002; Niehaus 2002). Consequently, many women (and men) are failing to relate, marry and conceive. In this situation, conversion to Brazilian Pentecostalism does not necessarily offer help in the form of reconciliation or harmony. On the contrary, new violent experiences are emerging because Pentecostals are using techniques to further break away from traditional practices of relating, such as integrating foreign spirits into the kinship structure. In her book on the sexualities and love lives of young, middle-class professionals in Nairobi, Spronk (2012) shows how these young professionals’ intimate experiences are part and parcel of the changing social and economic environment of Kenya and the building of a ‘modern identity’ that is in harmony with an ‘African heritage’. As in Maputo, conflicts about new forms of sexual assertiveness and displays of love appear to evolve in periods of social change when established gender roles are challenged (see also Cole 2010). As discussed in Chapter One, women’s new positions in the public spaces of Maputo, through their informal businesses, increased levels of education, better professional careers and home ownership, are provoking discussions on and uncertainties about men’s and women’s positions and behaviours. Can these women take sufficient care of their homes and husbands? How should a Mozambican man behave? Should the traditional image of the polygamist King Ngungunyane, which seems to be increasingly central in Frelimo’s narration and policing of the nation (Bertelsen 2010), serve as a norm? How should women dress – as Europeans, Brazilians or Africans? In 2006, there was talk about a proposed law that would prohibit women from dressing in short skirts because such outfits were thought to provoke sexual harassment in public spaces.37 During my fieldwork period, the tchuna babes were frequently discussed as part of a growing 37 My

interlocutors told me that wearing short skirts was more popular because of the famous Brazilian soaps (telenovelas) that have been increasingly shown on Mozambican television since the 1990s.

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public concern about young women’s sexuality and their relationships with rich men (see also Groes-Green 2011). According to some, sexual abuse was the fault of women themselves. If a woman dressed like a virtuous woman – or like a ‘real African woman’ as was sometimes added – she would not be harassed by men (see also Sheldon 2002: 209–10). These matters were related to the overall insecurity in Mozambican society. What did it mean to be Mozambican or African in today’s neo-liberal order after colonialism, socialism and a civil war? The new positions that women have been adopting seem to make these questions more pertinent, drawing on the colonial and post-colonial concerns that polarised ‘the traditional and uneducated women versus the civilized and well mannered woman [sic]’ (Groes-Green 2011: 303). Debates on proper gender behaviour have focused on the body as a representation of ‘the’ national culture (Yuval-Davis 1997). As the future of Mozambican culture seems precarious and the control of women’s sexuality and fertility through lobolo always secured the reproduction of Mozambican society, the position of women is a sensitive issue. The spirit spouse demonstrates that the conflicts about the appropriate role of women are also spiritual and embodied. The various accounts of the spirit spouse, confusion about its character and origins, and its central position in Brazilian Pentecostal churches are intrinsically related to the gendered social transformations that have been taking place in urban Mozambique. The spirit spouse is acting and is being acted upon in the post-war and neo-liberal economic era, and is impinging on the growing number of single and financially independent women, female-headed households and gender roles in general, and is creating tense relations between kin and couples. To Pentecostal women, exploring the Brazilian Pentecostal approach of the spirit spouse allows the imagination and development of new forms of relationships, family and sexuality in the urban sphere. At the same time, upwardly mobile pioneering women want to act in the urban domain and, as Pentecostals, are taking high risks by doing so. Although the impact of the civil war, spirit spouses and dependence on relatives can be decreased by converting, the South–South transnational Pentecostal transformation of the spirit spouse is leading to conversion in a new war with its own violent characteristics, increasing rather than diminishing suspicions about women’s involvement with ‘evil spirits’. Pentecostal women become part of the socio-cultural frontier where the battle of social change is being fought. While women’s bodies used to serve as gifts of reconciliation, Pentecostal women are now deliberately converting them into soldiers in today’s spiritual war. I argue for an understanding of women’s Pentecostal conversion in Maputo as embodying spiritual warfare. Conversion is experienced as an ongoing process of fighting the impact of negative powers on women’s lives and as a challenge to create a new body that is able to move forward in life. In the formation of

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the born-again subject, which entails an ever-increasing fullness with the Holy Spirit through ritual practices, performances and bodily techniques, Pentecostal women learn to interpret and frame bodily experiences and to use their bodies in novel ways. Their bodies become the centre of a battle between the spirit spouse and the Holy Spirit. In doing so, converts detach their bodies from their social environments, such as local frames of healing and spirit involvement. This means that converts have to act on their environments from ‘individualised’ positions. Their struggles against the spirit spouse leads to adopting their own bodies as a frontier, dressed in the ‘spiritual armour’, as they come to incorporate the conflicts in their society in the process of conversion. Converts are thus left with their own bodies as sites of power. De Boeck noted that post-colonial subjects in Congo seem to be cut off from biomedical texts and divinatory ritual, which leaves people ‘with their own bodies as locales of culture (re)production and (political) power, and as sites of remembering and generating meaning’ (de Boeck and Plissart 2004: 117). Similarly, struggles in Mozambican society and conflicts between people become embodied as conflicts within converts. At times, this new Pentecostal bodily mode is rewarding and promising for upwardly mobile women, but it can also increase stress and hardship.

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CHAPTER 5

Terapia do Amor : Confrontational Public Love Every Saturday evening, the Universal Church organises terapia do amor (Therapy of Love, known as terapia or therapy) sessions in several of its buildings. The therapy is a public meeting that resembles a church service but is dedicated to the subjects of marriage, love and sexuality. Thousands of people participate every week, and most of them are young (aged 15 to 35) and female. The heart of the therapy lies in learning how to express love in public. An illustration of this is when the pastor asks couples to come forward and stand in front of the podium. The pastor then says to them, ‘Now apologise to each other for the mistakes you have committed towards each other.’ Romantic music plays and the pastor and his wife stand on the stage as he continues, ‘Embrace each other, kiss your partner and say: “I love you.”’ The pastor and his wife do the same and start praying for the couples in front of them.1 In the centre of Maputo, as in other African cities (see Spronk 2002 for Kenya), it is unusual and often considered shocking to openly express affection to your partner in the presence of others and to talk about sexuality in a public forum (Manuel 2011). Using force, Pentecostals are undoing any ‘secrecy’ about sexuality and are introducing particular concepts and practices of love. This chapter examines this public training of the body in ways of love, such as embracing and kissing, during Brazilian Pentecostal counselling sessions on love and sexuality that demonstrate the confrontational techniques that form a part of Pentecostal conversion. The terapia do amor serves as a key example.2 The role of religion in education about the family, marriage and sexuality in Africa is not new. There is a large body of literature on colonial Christian 1 Women

are not generally admitted as pastors, but there are occasions such as during the Therapy of Love and special women’s services when the wives of the pastors act as pastors. 2 In the churches, love is principally discussed in relation to sexuality, courtship and marriage. I too use the word love in relation to these subjects. Moreover, the idea of love that is portrayed is part of a globalising discourse on ‘romantic love’ (see further below).

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missions and the shaping of new identities in relation to work, health, family, sexuality and marriage (Comaroff and Comaroff 1991, 1997; Ranger 1992). Nonetheless, the era of AIDS prevention and treatment programmes has created a re-christianisation of the public discourse and the debate on sexuality and marriage, reflecting the increasing influence of faith-based organisations (FBOs) in AIDS programmes (Prince et al. 2009). This has stimulated renewed scholarly attention for religion and counselling on sexuality and marriage in Africa (Becker and Geissler 2009; Burchardt 2011; Moyer et al. 2013; Prince et al. 2009; van Dijk et al. 2014).3 As already discussed, the growth of neo-Pentecostal churches in certain areas in Africa coincided with cultural, social and economic changes that altered the meaning of sexuality, marriage and love among younger generations (Bochow 2010; Cole 2010; Frahm-Arp 2010; Geissler and Prince 2007a, 2007b). With the absence of appropriate role models amid changing interpretations of love and relating – my interlocutors found the views of their kin and other authorities about these topics outdated – the modern teachings of the neo-Pentecostal pastors on these issues have been taken as examplary. Neo-Pentecostals are known for their open therapeutic discourse on sexuality and relationships and, according to pastors, people need to talk about these subjects as a prerequisite to resolving their problems (van Dijk 2015). Taboos about sexuality, love, marital relations, infidelity and domestic violence should no longer exist. Hence, premarriage counselling sessions, workshops on courtship and group meetings for married couples are being organised to reflect on love, sexuality and marriage. In the literature, I have not come across religious counselling practices that involve such explicit bodily lessons about love as those in the terapia do amor, which seems to be a special feature of Brazilian Pentecostalism. More generally, the Brazilian sensual orientation to the world (Parker 2009) appears to be helping to constitute the changing meaning of love in urban Mozambique. The popular Brazilian telenovelas shown on Mozambican television have become particularly important models of identification through the soap stars’ behaviour and, as such, they are playing an vital role in the development of a new culture of love and sexuality in Mozambique, as my interlocutors said and showed. With an increased Brazilian presence and the liberalisation of the mass media in the 1990s, there is now a prominent Brazilian presence in the Mozambican media (Power 2004: 278), most notably due to the popularity of telenovelas.4 3 There

is, of course, a much larger literature on therapeutic traditions in Africa, see e.g. Schumaker et al. (2007). 4 Brazilian media producers and the government/producers in Mozambique worked together in the making and distribution of documentaries, films and television programmes in the late colonial and early post-colonial period back in the 1980s and this

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Their increasing influence coincided with and was reinforced by the arrival of Brazilian missionaries who introduced counselling practices concerning love, marriage and sexuality. Although the telenovelas and the Brazilian Pentecostal counselling practices do not necessarily share the same views and methods, many of the Mozambican Pentecostals I spoke to found that the openness about intimate matters and the bodily gestures portrayed by soap stars and Brazilian pastors were comparable. Both the Brazilian pastors and the telenovelas stars inform the ideals of romantic love in Mozambique in specific ways. This chapter explores aspects of ‘Brazilian love’ that are influencing transnational Pentecostal counselling practices in Maputo. The main reasons for Mozambican women to attend Brazilian counselling practices on love, sexuality and marriage are their desire for a romantic marriage and their failure to establish lasting bonds with men. The previous chapter showed how the activities of the spirit world are a major preoccupation when it comes to matters of sexuality and marital ties. Disrupted family lives, broken marriages and unsuccessful relationships are often attributed to demons. Consequently, the casting out of satanic influences is central in counselling practices. As was demonstrated with the spiritual armour in the previous chapter, converts need to alter their lives and demonstrate change. Against this background, this chapter describes how the Brazilian Pentecostal therapy aims to modify the body such that couples are imbuing Maputo with new public norms of love. It is this connection between love, public space and spiritual armour that forms the focus of this chapter, and presents a new example of the violence of conversion. I show that the necessary public embodiment and demonstrations of love that are confronted with local ways of ‘hiding’ expressions of love not only involve the production of novel modes of love but also invoke the opposite, namely forms of distrust and hate. The appropriation of particular modes of love as a ‘technology of the self ’ (Foucault 1988) introduces mechanisms of control and a pressure to produce successful relations that display the ambiguities and negative experiences of pleasurable and passionate love. In this sense, there is a difference between counselling as a reflective and consultative practice and the Therapy of Love as a method of disciplinary intervention that can lead to violent feelings and relationships among converts.5

has intensified in recent years (Arenas 2010; Marcus 2004). My older interlocutors told me how they watched telenovelas on national state television in places such as central city squares. 5 This chapter builds on van de Kamp 2012b and 2013b.

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Love, sexuality and marriage in Maputo A lot of the available literature on sexuality and marriage in Mozambique is recent and came out after the AIDS epidemic started to be felt in the 1990s.6 As more women are infected with HIV than men – about 60 per cent of all HIV-positive adults are female, particularly in the 15–24 age group (CNCS/ UNAIDS 2014: 22) – most of the studies are about women, gender and youth. Feminist-oriented works predominantly demonstrate how, owing to patriarchal structures, men control women’s sexuality (e.g. Cruz e Silva et al. 2007; Osório 1997). As men engage in multiple relationships and polygamous marriages, women run a higher risk of contracting HIV because using a condom in marriage or in a steady relationship is considered problematic: the condom signals distrust (Gune 2008). Women’s socialisation in sexuality, both at home and at school, occurs with reference to marriage and reproduction. Girls are warned against getting pregnant outside marriage, and within marriage sexuality is about becoming pregnant and having children. Boys and men have more freedom to experiment with sexuality, and have the right to demand sex from women and experience the pleasures of it. The studies conclude that sexuality is marked by inequality between women and men. Women have little say on sexual issues and exercise limited power over their bodies and sexual desires (see also Macia et al. 2011). As part of an emerging field of love and sexuality studies in Africa that focuses on the social and cultural meanings, practices and structures of sexuality (Arnfred 2006; Cole and Thomas 2009; Spronk 2012), a new generation of scholars working on sexuality in Maputo has demonstrated that while there are relations of power between men and women, youth are actively involved in developing new sexual practices and relations. These scholars describe how young women are also challenging patriarchal rules and redefining their roles in relation to men (see also Loforte 2003: 201−23). For example, women are developing new social and sexual identities by engaging in multiple occasional sexual partnerships and using them to improve their socio-economic position (Groes-Green 2013, 2014; Hawkins et al. 2005; see also Cole 2010; Thornton 2009). These studies found that women conceptualise transactional sexual relationships as a strategy and are reversing the existing balance of gender and power relations. Hawkins et al. (2005: iv) write that young women are deliberately engaging in so-called transactional sexual relationships because through the power of their sexuality, they are able to ‘extract financial resources from 6 Recent figures on the prevalence of HIV/AIDS estimate that about 16 per cent of sexu-

ally active adults aged between 15 and 49 are HIV-positive (CNCS/UNAIDS 2014: 19–22).

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men in order to access the material goods and lifestyle that symbolise modernity and success’. Groes-Green (2014) argues that women also invest in longer-term transactional partnerships, not only ensuring their own well-being but also that of their families. Manuel (2008) has described how Maputo youth distinguish several types of sexual relationships, the main ones being: the steady relationship (namoro/ courtship) in which sexuality involves love; the occasional relationship (sacacena or a one-night stand, and pita/o or having a regular male or female sex partner) where love is not an issue; and the ficar (to stay) relationship that is somewhere between a steady and occasional relationship. In occasional relationships, which may last years or just one night and vary from an exchange of kisses to having sex, there is no bond between the partners. In the words of one of Manuel’s young male research participants, ‘We do not take her home’, ‘There is no intimacy’ and ‘I do not value her like I value a namorada [girlfriend]’ (Manuel 2008: 42). A young woman described a pito as ‘the one with who you cheat on your namorado [boyfriend]’ (ibid.). The namoro on the other hand is about respect, affection and a bond. This is a serious relationship. In the case of namoro, parents and a wider circle of kin are involved to a greater or lesser degree. In this type of relationship it is common to hear talk about love (amor). For Elena (a 25-year-old university student), love meant that she and her boyfriend were often together, shared future dreams and supported each other. For Marta (a 22-year-old university student) love was similar to trust and no secrets should exist. There are several rules attached to a namoro. For example, namorados are expected to go out together, though this applies more to the woman than to the man. Often, the namoro relationship is consolidated with ‘real sex’; sex demonstrates love and trust. By having real sex there is intimate contact with the partner because ‘blood’ is exchanged. Here, blood is a symbol for what partners give each other in the exchange of bodily fluids, which proves love. The people I met who frequented the terapia do amor were all, in various ways, concerned with the namoro. They were often not able to establish a namoro. They could be in a ficar relationship. Ficar means ‘to stay’, and its meaning in the context of an amorous relationship has been adopted from Brazilian telenovelas. This relationship is more than occasional but is not steady. It may potentially develop into a serious relationship, but women felt that it was difficult to change the ficar situation into a serious liaison. If they showed their wish for a steadier relationship, they risked their boyfriend leaving or suddenly disappearing. In the case of an evolving namoro it could happen that the men might disappear as soon as the girlfriend’s family became involved. Women also complained that they felt obliged to have sex with their boyfriends: they had to show that they were serious about the relationship, but they were not sure whether the boyfriend

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was as serious as they were. The man said he wanted to namorar but in fact wanted to have sex, with the social discourse about occasional sex being mostly negative. Some women were afraid that their namorado had a pita or saca-cena. In addition, they visited the counselling sessions of Brazilian Pentecostal pastors because they wanted a different kind of namoro. Sometimes they and their boyfriends differed in their opinions about the meaning of love. To some men, a namoro meant that they should control their girlfriend as that was proof of their love. But the girl would experience the control as a form of her partner’s distrust of her. Men spoke about similar experiences and referred to estar engarrafado (being bottled). This is related to the expression of ‘to put a man in the bottle’ (por um homem na garrafa) – suggesting that their girlfriends are controlling them and they do everything their girlfriend wants (see e.g. Groes-Green 2013). This is also related to the bottles curandeiros use to keep their magical substances in. Bottles are known to hold energetic powers, like spiritual forces. Women in particular visited curandeiros to get medicines that would bring a man into their power, but often a man that already had a namorada or had pitas. Another frequent problem is the role of kin in relationships. Traditionally, sexuality is regarded as part of the transition from childhood to adulthood, in which kin play a central role (Loforte 2003: 201–23). The transition was always carefully guarded by counselling sexuality through initiation rites organised by kin and/or respected elders. Sexuality was closely linked to adulthood: completing initiation, marrying and having children. In this setting, sexuality was strongly controlled by kin and was prohibited before initiation and marriage, as it mainly served for procreational purposes, even though some experimentation was allowed as long as the woman would not get pregnant. Yet, as part of the social transformations that have been described in previous chapters – including disappearing initiation rites and the greater independence of the upwardly mobile generation from kin arising from education and jobs – sexuality and marriage are no longer necessarily connected to procreation only. As part of these processes, young people, including young converts, want to control sexuality individually and without interference from kin. Manuel (2008: 38) describes how young people define adulthood as independence from parents, which they express through their own control of their sexual encounters and thus of their bodies. Yet while namorados find that they are adults and responsible for their own deeds, this is not always an opinion shared by their kin, who intervene in the relationship and try to influence the namoro and any marriage arrangements. This results in conflicts because interventions by parents or kin come too late or make no sense to the namorados (Karlyn 2004; Paulo 2005). Part of the problem is related to the fact that, according to local customs, parents do not talk about sexuality and marriage with their children as this used to be the task of other kin (Cruz e Silva et al. 2007: 93, 120−2; Loforte 2003: 211; Paulo

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2005). For example, Elena told me that topics related to courtship are taboo and not a subject of conversation at home. She had never talked with her mother about it, ‘and now I am 25’.7 Some Pentecostal women told me how their senior female kin presented them with some tips and tricks on relating to men, such as the art of ‘putting men into a bottle’, but they often did not like these. Most of my interlocutors stated that they felt a lack of sexual education, sometimes because they hardly met with other kin who were living far away or they did not find the education appropriate. At the same time, the rites that used to serve to educate youth sexually are disappearing, particularly in southern Mozambique, where the influence of colonialism, missionaries and socialism was strongest (Cruz e Silva et al. 2007). Moreover, several people, including curandeiros, said that destroyed kinship structures, often due to the war, impeded the transfer of knowledge from one generation to the next. Many of my older interlocutors said that youth are finding out about sexuality from friends, at school and from television, while custom prescribes that kin are in control of sex education. Elena said, ‘We learn with friends, we learn about it [sexuality] outside.’ 8 All these particular dynamics of the levels of interaction in the field of sexuality and relating were important reasons for frequenting Brazilian Pentecostal counselling sessions. Women who participated in these meetings were uncertain if they wanted to get married because of all the risks involved, such as domestic violence, infidelity and HIV/AIDS. Staying single and/or engaging in occasional relationships gave them more freedom and power. However, if they were to be respected women, they were expected to marry and become mothers. Thus their engagement with Brazilian counselling practices was shaped by a mix of ambiguous feelings and experiences as well as by the chance to shape a new reproductive lifestyle. These two dimensions – paradoxes of love and new forms of love – were portrayed in the Brazilian media (telenovelas) and in Brazilian Pentecostal churches. Romantic love, telenovelas and Brazilian pastors The growing literature on the anthropology of romantic love (Cole and Thomas 2009; Hirsch and Wardlow 2006; Spronk 2012) demonstrates that young people around the world are talking about the importance of emotional intimacy in the creation of affective bonds and marital ties. Emotional experiences, such as passion and pleasure, have become fundamental to modern love. What is striking in this respect is that courtship and conjugal relationships have become demonstrations of modern individuality rather than relationships that create 7 Interview, 28 June 2006. 8 Ibid.

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obligations between kin groups as well as between individuals (Giddens 1992; Illouz 1997). A shift has occurred from ‘arranged marriages’ to ‘marriages of love’. Love has come to serve as an ultimate expression of a progressive relationship. The apparent ‘global ideological shift in marital ideas’ (Hirsch and Wardlow 2006: 2) is related to transformations of socio-economic structures as well as to cultural globalisation (Lindholm 2006). Marriage alliances in many societies, including Mozambique, used to be essential to economic and political survival. Marital relations were negotiated by powerful elders who secured the advance of their family and community (Chapter One). In these circumstances, marriage was a necessity and a duty, and romantic attraction was a potential threat to the stability of extended families (Lindholm 2006: 11). However, the changing organisation of production and consumption has brought more powerful positions for young people and the formation of nuclear families, a trend that is influencing marital relations and ideas (Illouz 1997). At the same time, Groes-Green (2013, 2014) and Cole (2010) demonstrate that many young women, in Maputo and in Tamatave, Madagascar, respectively, who try to court rich (white) men, use older and newer forms of relating as a strategy to survive economically and to gain respect from kin, despite the tensions that emerge as well, which can go together with romance and adventure. The increase in mass media across the globe (Appadurai 1996) has rapidly spread new images of and narratives about love, marriage and sexuality (Hirsch et al. 2006; Spronk 2012; Verheijen 2006). Even though these mass media have similarities, they are also different. Larkin (1997), for example, emphasises that Hausa viewers find Indian films about romantic relations more attractive than Western and Nigerian ones. Vink (1988: 11) stated that the telenovelas are truly Latin American soap operas in the way they are made. In the Brazilian case, they are produced locally and portray issues of Brazilian society, such as the differences between social classes, race, religion and love. Moreover, studies about the reception of mass media stress the influence of local contexts on the perception of media messages and images (McCarthy 2001). For the Mozambican women I spoke to there was something uniquely Brazilian in the ideal of romantic love. In our conversations about romance, love and marriage, Brazilian telenovelas were important sources of comparison and inspiration. These women always highlighted particular issues they found striking in the Brazilian telenovelas that were related to their own situation. I distinguish five central themes that returned in the Brazilian Pentecostal counselling sessions. The first concerns infidelity. When I visited people at home the television was often on. For example, when I went to see Ana and her friends (Chapter Three), they were watching a telenovela and discussing how the negative behaviour of the soap stars reminded them of their own experiences with boyfriends who had left them for other girls or had other girlfriends at the same time as they were dating

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them. When Patricia (aged 29) stressed this point, she explained that the telenovelas show that those who are honest will be rewarded.9 As long as she behaved correctly, a faithful man would appear in her life. A second theme relates to what the Mozambican viewers I met depicted as independent behaviour. They were amazed at the ways in which young people in the telenovelas spoke to their elders. They noted that children discussed issues of love with their parents and would even openly take a different view from them. A third matter involved the issue of communication in a relationship. Women were struck by the fact that a man would ask his wife for forgiveness after a conflict. They saw that it was possible for men and women to discuss their feelings and exchange opinions, and wanted a similar relationship with a man. Marta also emphasised that, like the characters in the telenovelas, she would disagree with her future husband.10 Women commented on the fact that they had to endure the nocturnal escapades of their men. If the man arrived home in the middle of the night, they were expected to be ready to prepare him a meal or a bath. According to Marta, this was ridiculous behaviour, and the telenovelas reconfirmed her opinion. The fourth issue was about showing love openly. The women I met found it an exciting but embarrassing idea that their boyfriends or husbands would kiss them on the street or walk arm in arm with them. Nevertheless, they found it appealing that such intimacy could be displayed in public. There are a few places in Maputo, such as the Jardim dos Namorados (the Garden of Lovers),11 where this happens in addition to some discos and bars (Groes-Green 2009). Generally however, affection is not demonstrated openly. The fifth issue is the influence of spiritual forces on romantic relationships. In some telenovelas, supernatural powers are visible. In the Porto de Milagres (Port of Miracles) telenovela, for example, which takes place in the Brazil’s most AfroBrazilian region of Bahia Province, the sea goddess Iemanjá frequently appears and images related to Afro-Brazilian religions are used. Miracles happen, such as someone suddenly transforming into another being (see also Vink 1988: 171). Some interlocutors commented that the open display of religious aspects in the telenovelas played a role in opening up debates on this subject in Maputo, where the role of spirits had been silenced for a long time. Of particular importance here is the link converts established between the telenovelas and Brazilian missionaries. My interview with Elena offers an example. 9 Conversation, 27 July 2006.

10 Conversation, 20 January 2007.

11 The Garden is a park with a few restaurants offering a view over Maputo’s bay. It is very

popular on weekends, and with families. It is also a popular place for bridal couples to have pictures taken.

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After she told me that most women go to the Universal Church because of ‘sentimental problems’ (problemas sentimentais), I asked her why there were so many of these problems. She replied:12 The Brazilian pastors say that Mozambican men are cold. In Brazil you hold hands with your wife, like you see in the telenovelas, he kisses her in the streets, men show affection. But, here, no, that isn’t possible. If it occurs, it will only happen in the bedroom.

The Brazilian pastors and the soap stars are both becoming icons of identification in the development of new conceptions of what courtship and marriage should be.13 Through multiple levels of movement and framing between Mozambicans, media like telenovelas and pastors, information related to notions of love, sexuality and intimacy is materialising. Pastors and soap stars encourage reflecting on society and people’s expectations, desires and experiences. People are starting to analyse their own situations with reference to these role models. Another example of how converts have perceived a kind of shared Brazilian approach to love is by the manifestation of supernatural powers in amorous relations. Brazilian pastors used the telenovelas in church services and in the terapia do amor. These telenovelas are either transmitted by the Universal Church’s channel TV Record, which operates in Mozambique under the name of Miramar, or by public and private channels on Mozambican television. Even though Miramar transmits both secular and religious programmes converts consider the whole channel to be religiously oriented. One Saturday evening,14 I walked into the Templo da Fé (Temple of Faith) on the Avenida 24 de Julho in the centre of Maputo to attend the therapy together with about 1,500 other people. At the entrance, an obreira (female assistant of the pastor) with a red scarf around her neck put oil on my fingers, as did an obreiro (male assistant) with a red tie for the men as they arrived.15 As a woman I was sent to the bathroom to spread the oil on one of my left ribs. I immediately brought to mind the Bible story of Eve who was made out of Adam’s rib (Genesis 2). I asked two young women who were with me in the toilets what this was all about. They explained that the special oil would help us to find our alma gemêa (twin soul). It was no coincidence that a telenovela with the same title was being shown on television around that same 12 Interview, 28 June 2006. 13 The

HIV/AIDS prevention campaigns and the promotion of condom use have also introduced a new language about sexuality and relationships (Cruz e Silva et al. 2007). 14 13 January 2007. 15 The colour red was often used at the therapies as it symbolises the colour of a loving heart. At the same time, red is a symbol of Jesus’ blood that has the power to transform. This is compatible with the local meaning of red representing a transitory state (see also Jacobson-Widding 1989: 35).

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time. This telenovela was very popular and much talked about because people recognised their own experiences in it. The plot involved a man and a woman falling in love because they are each other’s twin soul. Evil forces and persons frustrate the relationship but finally pure love survives. During this particular terapia, the pastor called forward all the single women who were looking for an alma gêmea. They had to lift up their hands to receive the Holy Spirit and the single men in the audience had to lay their hands on their hearts because God would show them whether one of the women present could become their soul mate. In line with Oosterbaan’s (2009) conclusions on mass media and Pente­ costalism in Brazil, I suggest that telenovelas allow viewers to imagine and feel how the spiritual works. For Pentecostals in Brazil, telenovelas principally seem to mediate the Devil because they are perceived as diabolical programmes. However, in the Mozambican case, the ideological battle that takes place between media empires in Brazil, one representing Catholic and Afro-Brazilian religions (Globo) and the other Pentecostalism (TV Record), is largely absent. Even though Globo broadcasts on Mozambican television, it does not carry the cultural baggage it has in Brazil. But in Mozambique too, telenovelas show the work of the Devil, and these dangerous aspects of television should be watched with caution.16 Telenovelas visualise the spiritual battle between devilish and heavenly powers and, as such, can strengthen the meaning of Pentecostal conversion. The television shows what is often hidden in daily life. To Pentecostals, the telenovela Alma Gêmea demonstrates how the Devil could frustrate love, but also that to those with the right attitude and behaviour, which to Pentecostals is inspired by the Holy Spirit, it is most fruitful. In this respect, pastors appropriate the ambiguities played out in telenovelas about right and wrong for their Pentecostal worldview and rituals. The roles of spirit mediums, communication with the dead, sister souls, angels and deities in the telenovelas in particular resonate with traditional religion, Afro-Brazilian religions and Pentecostal discourses (Oosterbaan 2009). The pastor’s raising of awareness about macumba has extra impact through its appearance on the telenovelas. This medium produces a specific sense of the transcendental as part of the interaction in the South–South transnational Pentecostal space. From the commentaries of converts, such as that of Elena above, it would appear that converts engage with what they perceive as a Brazilian way of being and doing. This is linked to a specific kind of openness about love and sexuality, including explicit sensuality. Whereas the Pentecostal format of bodily love has 16 Paula

(Chapter Three) was outspokenly critical of some telenovelas because Mozambican girls would copy the Brazilians who seduce married men. Referring to her husband, Paula said that girls persist in following unwilling men until they finally give in.

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exclusive dimensions, the pastors carry their upbringing in Brazil with them in the type of sensuality they display, and Mozambican pastors have incorporated a Brazilian bodily style in their gestures and speech. During one of the focus group discussions,17 we spoke about the differences between Brazilians and Mozambicans. One participant felt Brazilians were more ‘passionate, dynamic and open’ when compared to Mozambicans, which was confirmed by the other participants. In Bodies, Pleasures and Passions, Parker (2009) writes about a perception of sexuality and sensuality that is tied to the self-interpretation of Brazilian society: It is impossible, I think, for anyone who spends any real amount of time in Brazil, or with Brazilians, to ignore the extent to which a notion of sexuality, or perhaps better, sensuality, plays a role in their own understanding of themselves (see Wagley 1971, pp.  255–6). … Brazilians view themselves as sensual beings not simply in terms of their individuality (though this is too important), but at a social or cultural level – as sensual individuals, at least in part, by virtue of their shared brasilidade, or ‘Brazilianness’.

Parker (2009) continues by elaborating on the fundamental ambiguities of the sensual or sexual nature of Brazilian life that figure in the ‘myths of origin’ of Brazil as well as in the cultural performances of carnaval (Carnival) (see also DaMatta 1991 [1979]). The myths developed on the basis of reflections of European explorers who saw Brazilians as uniquely sexual people, a reputation that Brazilians have further shaped through the theory of Lusotropicalism, which legitimises processes of sexual interaction and racial mix, considering them positive in nature (see Chapter Two). This idea has become the most influential interpretation of ‘Brazilian civilisation’ that is on show during Carnival. Carnaval has become the truest expression of ‘Brazilianness’ (Parker 2009; DaMatta 1991). It is about ‘Brazil’s peculiarly seductive charms, its exotic sensuality, its tropical pleasures, its erotic diversity and openness’ (Parker 2009: 183), which is ‘elaborately presented, not only by Brazilians to themselves, but by Brazilians to the outside world’ (ibid.: 185). An ambivalence that lies beneath this celebration of sensuality is connected to the diverse logics that have come to structure the heterogeneous sexual universe in Brazil. Different ideologies and practices – the medical, the Christian, the erotic, the patriarchal, the (post-) colonial – have all shaped multiple and contradictory ethics. The ambiguity of conflicting ethics of sexuality define Brazilian identity as an outcome of the miscegenation of heterogeneity that has long been the defining metaphor of the Brazilian nation and is celebrated, for example, in Carnaval (DaMatta 1991). 17 9 October 2006.

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Ambiguity is also present in Brazilian Pentecostal counselling sessions in Mozambique where its own forms emerged, combining open sensuality and sexual restrictions. For example, a Pentecostal woman told me how her colleague felt challenged by the pastor’s sensual behaviour and thus came to the therapy in a very short skirt. However, the assistants (obreiras) covered her colleague’s legs with a capulana (the cotton cloth women locally use as dresses) ‘because the Brazilians in church already have someone [a partner]’.18 These types of ambiguities in the South–South transnational Pentecostal domain are considered below. Brazilian Pentecostal counselling Elena said that she and her friends learned about love and sexuality ‘outside’. Such outside and public spaces include Brazilian churches. In general, Mozambican churches do not openly organise special teachings on issues of sexuality, love, courtship and marriage, particularly not for young, unmarried people. Most churches, such as the AICs, the Catholic Church and older Protestant churches, have women’s groups where coisas do lar (things related to the home and marriage) are discussed (e.g. Igreja and Lambranca 2009: 278−9 for central Mozambique; see also Soothill 2007: 104−8 for Ghana), but only married women are allowed to participate. Love and sexuality are not topics to be discussed openly with unmarried persons, and should take place during specific occasions, such as initiation rites or Christian marriage courses. Married women first asked me whether I was married (and whether I thus knew about sexuality and marriage) before they would talk about it with me. On the contrary, most of the Pentecostal pastors are open about these topics towards youth in the Brazilian churches or churches with Brazilian links (e.g. the Assemblies of God), which was an important reason for women to attend these churches. For example, Ana said: ‘I went to the Universal Church because there they talk about our problems [such as unfaithful men]. There they talk about courtship.’19 While pastors may preach about love, sexuality and marriage during services, this would normally happen at special meetings, such as youth groups and special workshops. 20 These meetings often had the character of a discussion group 18 Interview,

24 June 2007. I was frequently told about a former pastor in the therapy – there were special pastors appointed for this ministry – who had had affairs with Mozambican women and had been fired. 19 Conversation, 8 November 2006. 20 Subjects such as fertility and parenthood were relatively less prominent, but the topic of (in)fertility was discussed in the groups of married people and at church services focusing on health and the family. It was taken for granted that a Christian couple would raise children and that infertility was caused by the Devil (see also Asamoah-Gyadu 2007).

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with the aim of counselling Mozambicans about love. Counselling is a form of behavioural change and offers practical advice. One receives advice and guidance from a knowledgeable person to reflect on and learn about, in this case, how to love (see e.g. Moyer et al. 2013). In Pentecostal booklets, articles and columns with advice are published on how to change partners and how to stay happily married. In the weekly journal of the Universal Church, the Folha Universal, a special page is dedicated to women: Folha Mulher. This page deals with issues of love, marriage and motherhood as well as with fashion and recipes. Examples of the titles of the articles are, ‘Who is your boyfriend?’, ‘Is it possible to stay happily married for ever?’, ‘The relationship of the married couple’, ‘Changing your husband’, ‘Love and passion’, ‘The dressing of a virtuous woman’.21 The wife of Maná’s Apostle Tadeu, Cristel Tadeu, broadcast messages about love, marriage and women’s issues on the international television channel Maná Sat.22 They all involve a particular therapeutic discourse on affective relationships (Illouz 1997: 198) that demonstrates a mixture of social psychology and Christian moralities (van Dijk 2015). The counselling practices are generally performed in public and only the pre-marriage counselling session takes place in private. It consists of one or two meetings between the couple and the pastor and his wife who teach about marriage. However, counselling practices generally are very open. Precisely because sexuality has always been related to private domains and, according to Pentecostals is silenced, the focus is on more openness. Taboos about love, sexuality and marriage need to be broken, and Mozambicans have to learn to talk about these subjects as a prerequisite to resolving their problems. Workshops, discussions and group meetings are thus organised. In the Brazilian Renewed Baptist Church, debating sessions for youth were set up on namorar (courting). At the first meeting in the series, the opening questions posed by the organisers to the audience were, ‘What is namorar? Is it ficar? Or is it something else?’ Only the men present responded, agreeing that namoro should be preparation for marriage. One man added that ‘in practice we look at someone’s socio-economic position. Does (s)he have money?’ Another question was when someone is ready to namorar. One girl said that it was important to have studied first. For an hour, opinions were shared among those who dared to talk, accompanied by the giggles of the others. Youth from Maná met with church leaders every Saturday. One Saturday, the subject was lobolo. The chair, who came from another Portuguese-speaking African country, presented a negative view of lobolo because ancestral spirits were involved. Some 21 See

also http://blogs.universal.org/cristianecardoso/ and http://sites.universal.org/ terapiadoamor/. 22 http://www.espacomulher.eu/home/.

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participants reacted by saying that it was possible to do lobolo without consulting ancestral spirits (see also van de Kamp and van Dijk 2010: 132–3). A discussion followed between those who were positive about the combination of lobolo and Pentecostalism, and those who vehemently opposed it because they had experienced the bad side of ‘tradition’ and felt it should be contested. A debate followed about the need to obey one’s elders. The leader and most of the youth felt that they should follow Jesus, thus going against the elders. Yet they presented other dilemmas by doing so. One predicament, for example, concerned the difficulty that parents would not support a marriage in the absence of lobolo or consent to the choice of partner. In one of the Assembly of God churches, a group for married women aged between 18 and 34 was set up in 2001. The current Mozambican leader of the women’s group described how she got married in 1996 but only learned how to be a wife thanks to this group.23 I and others, we knew nothing. At that time people did not have an open relationship with their parents, it depended on kin and the church whether we talked about courtship and marriage. We had a lot of questions about sexuality. Women said that they disliked having sex with their husbands or that he did anything he wanted with them. We could only react by disapproving of our husbands.

A counselling group was thus planned, with the assistance of Brazilians. The leader explained: We had questions about why our men were always going out, why they didn’t stay at home and why they were not touching us. We discussed how the home environment was of importance. Was it clean or chaotic at home? We also learned the importance of dressing nicely at home. At home we always look unattractive. But when we go shopping we dress beautifully, we use make-up and perfume. You need to make yourself lovely for your husband too; he should find you attractive. So we did. ... Do you know what happened? [she laughed] My husband asked where I had been. He could not understand that I had not been out as I was all dressed up. … We women also learned to take the initiative in sex. We should not be passive.

She explained how their husbands started to distrust them and ask where they had learned these kinds of things. In the end, men were invited to a session to receive clarification, and later a men’s group was set up as well. The leader said that the current generation has to deal with different questions: They know about sex. We didn’t. Today’s women know. Their questions are about how to combine their professional careers with their household, a marriage and 23 Interview, 11 May 2007.

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children. ... Yes, it is really a difference, there is more openness. Youth watch everything on television. When I was young, few households had a television. But the bad thing is, the purity has gone, it is not important anymore to be virgin.

The activities described above were discussed in a conversational setting. Though the leaders generally made it clear what kind of sexual and marital lives converts should live – abstaining from sex before marriage, fidelity, caring for one’s partner, enjoying sexuality within marriage and keeping a critical distance from tradition – there was room for debate, doubts, questions and opposing views. In contrast, the terapia do amor at the Universal Church is a much more fixed and controlled ‘treatment’ and route to success. Romantic love is created through prescribed formats, and there is no place for doubt and uncertainty. Moreover, the relationship of confidence that usually exists between counsellors and clients, and which could be seen in the discussion groups, was impossible to recreate because hundreds of persons gathered during the terapia do amor sessions.

9  Folha Mulher, the page for women in the weekly paper of the Universal Church. Photo: Rufus de Vries.

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Terapia do amor The Universal Church held its terapia do amor in the Templo da Fé and a few other central buildings in Maputo every Saturday evening. Between one and two thousand people from all over the city, most of them youngsters, came to the Templo every week from all over the city. Usually the therapy started with the pastor telling people to put their hands on their hearts, as happens in almost every church service as well. Gospel music was then played to uplift people and invoke the Holy Spirit. This was followed by prayers, when people lift up their hands to God in surrender and talk to Him. They cried or shouted out their personal sentimental problems (problemas sentimentais). There was always a sermon on a topic such as how to find a good partner; how to trust each other; whether anal sex is allowed; what love is; or what marriage should feel like. Participation was important, and the pastors ensured the audience was active and interacted with them. Everyone had to look up Bible passages, repeat words or complete phrases, give answers to the pastor and look the pastor in the eye. The pastors were lively, enacted sketches and called assistants forward to play roles, using variations in their voices, making jokes and creating fear in relation to demons. Particular groups – for example, single women – were called to come forward to receive a special message or undergo ‘treatment’, such as being appointed one’s twin soul, as described above. At the end, financial gifts to ensure ‘true love’ were collected. Special performances also took place. On one occasion, a huge heart stood in the front of the church, and we had to walk under it while the pastor and his assistants kept praying for us so that God would provide us with luck in our love lives. We had to form a row of women and a row of men, and were paired up to walk through the heart together. Two women made up the last pairs as they outnumbered the men. The performance was accompanied by music and sound effects. It was clear that one should engage fully in the therapy to achieve a result. The denouncing of destructive powers is an important component of the therapy. For example, at the start of one therapy, the pastor explained why jealousy and infidelity characterise so many relationships. Sometimes family members engage in witchcraft because they dislike their daughter-in-law, the pastor explained. Or a woman consults a curandeiro to receive herbs that will make a man who already belongs to another woman change his mind and stay with her. He referred to this as meter o homem na garrafa (see above). To break with evil powers that keep persons entangled in depressing relationships of jealousy and hate, the participants had to walk through a bath of salt water in bare feet to neutralise any evil powers. And to strengthen the emotional and bodily experiences of transformation, dramatic sound effects accompanied them as they walked. The tricks of the Devil were also shown in a joking way. Speaking to the group of women he had called to come forward, the pastor talked about a man who

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had borrowed a car and drove to where the woman he wanted to impress lived. All the women started laughing, while the pastor playfully said to the men in the audience that their situation would be considered later on. Women should be careful about the kind of man they are involved with. Is the man who he says he is? Does he really own a car or did he borrow it? The pastor ended his talk by calling women who felt that they were losing their partners to step forward. One woman presented her case. She had a picture of herself and her partner that she felt had been used by her in-laws in a witchcraft ritual to separate her from him. When the pastor started to pray with her, she became wild and started screaming as an evil spirit manifested itself. The pastor asked the spirit who he was. The spirit declared the woman was in his possession and that the relationship between her and her husband was therefore miserable. The audience were shaking their heads in disapproval. The pastor asked them who had more power, God or the Devil? Everybody had to point towards the woman and scream, queima, queima, queima! (burn, burn, burn!) to exorcise the demon. Sermons often deal with the meaning of marriage, which is regarded as a relationship between two individuals who serve God. The pastors highlight that, through marriage, a couple are starting a nuclear family by leaving their extended families to live their own lives. Practical tools are given: the couple should live as far away from their kin as possible and, contrary to local custom, the wife should not follow the advice of her mother-in-law but that of her husband. The husband should care of his wife and make her happy, and the two should spend time together, go to the cinema or on holiday. Women are advised to take note of the culinary tips in Folha Universal. The pastors criticise local marriages for the dependence they create between the couple and the extended family, which, in their view, hinders the healthy establishment of a Christian family. The pastors expresses their particular disapproval of the important role of the ancestral spirits who have to approve of the marriage during lobolo ceremonies. In addition, pastors underscored the importance of the role of sexuality in marriage and stress its pleasure. Sexuality in marriage not only has reproductive goals but should be something both the man and the woman enjoy. Women are encouraged to play an active role during sex. In the teachings, the presence of love in a relationship is promoted and love means that both parties should try to understand each other and make each other happy. The pastors gave examples from their own lives in Brazil. A pastor started a therapy session devoted to trust by saying that Mozambican men were very shy. ‘You have to step up to a woman when you like her. Make contact and talk to each other.’ He and his wife had been together for eleven years, and the pastor told the audience:

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I started going to church and learned that it is necessary to take action to become happy. I saw my [future] wife and chatted with her. I did so several times and told her that I liked her. In the end, she responded positively. I had already approached several women but love must be a two-way affair.

He explained how he himself went to see her parents, which contrasted with local custom in Mozambique where the men’s kin do this. Her father asked him what he could offer his daughter. His response was, ‘Everything she needs.’ The message was not to give up as you can and will be fortunate. Then recently married couples gave testimonies about God’s presence in their marriage. At another session, the pastor interviewed couples about how they had met each other. The therapies offer space to openly acknowledge abuse. For example, the pastor asked his assistants for a pillow. ‘Imagine,’ he said, ‘that this pillow went out and talked about what you women need to undergo at night [the women had been called forward]. What would the pillow say?’ The women started laughing and someone responded: ‘A lot of things.’ ‘But,’ said the pastor, ‘a lot of good or bad things?’ ‘Bad.’ Pastor: ‘Do you see? [Está vendo?]’ The pastor finally said that God was crying with the women. Later he added that women should take action as they are clearly not (only) positioned as victims but have the power to change a situation. They should show their agency by participating in a corrente, a chain of connected weekly therapies. In the course of the therapy, the pastor asks the audience for a financial contribution. Special ‘therapy-of-love envelopes’ are distributed to collect special tithes for romantic happiness. These envelopes are linked with a pledge (propósito). Every month a new envelope can be filled for a specific goal (for example, finding a namorado) for which four or more connected therapies (correntes) have to be attended. A person’s dedication and seriousness have to be proved, and the specific requirements of this ‘treatment’ need to be carefully executed. In addition, the pastor sets up a particular programme of fasting, praying and tithing with participants to fight for success in love. Converts have to pray at specific moments, try to talk to a potential partner and keep the envelope under their pillow. The corrente ends with a special financial donation, which has to be given in front, near or at the church’s altar on the date specified. Transnational Pentecostal therapeutic reflections and actions The counselling sessions aim to create transformations in the field of love, sexuality and marriage by pushing people to cross cultural and spiritual barriers. Chapter Two presented the Brazilian Pentecostal churches as transnational spaces of conquest, and counselling sessions, particularly the Therapy of Love, are a key example of the Pentecostal way of confronting local practices, even

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if these are stereotypes. In this framework, the Therapy of Love functions as a shock therapy: its openness on intimate matters discloses a contestation of local ideas and practices of love, sexuality and marriage as a necessary condition for change. People have to learn to think and speak openly about sexuality and relationships. The crucial role of kin in marriage is criticised; lobolo is attacked; and jealousy, distrust and divorce result from witchcraft – local accusations of witchcraft are considered offensive. Abuse is not disclosed in a family setting but on the church’s platform. Couples are made to apologise to each other and not to involve kin in the settlement of disputes, and money to prepare for a marriage is not exchanged with kin but presented in church. Using a passionately provocative style, pastors aim to reverse what they consider to be a sphere of taboo surrounding intimate matters in the Mozambican context. Pastors link their power to break through the ‘silence’ surrounding sexuality, love and marriage with the spiritual domain. When persons want to develop an independent attitude towards their kin, they not only have to overcome cultural but also spiritual boundaries. The process of therapeutic counselling thus involves the transcendence of spiritual boundaries, for instance by speaking up about witchcraft and exorcising spirits. The use of examples from Brazil enhances the power of the therapy. The pastors have succeeded in overcoming evil spiritual powers there, and now they are doing so in Mozambique too. The examples from Brazil are stimulations for developing new practices of love. Pastors explain, from a Brazilian setting, how they met their wives, overcame difficult and challenging situations, and why and how it went wrong/right. This South–South transnational Pentecostal space offers converts a place to reflect, talk and develop new attitudes. Marta, who helped her boyfriend save money for their wedding (Chapter Three), was impressed with remarks during the pastor’s sermon on how a husband and wife should look for a place to live that is far away from kin. She compared it with my situation. My husband and I were living alone in Mozambique, without our families, and she concluded that we were learning to be independent and responsible for our own lives. She immediately discussed the issue with her boyfriend as they were in the process of buying land on which to build a house. Women find the teachings about husband–wife relations instructive, especially regarding personal development. Lila (a 32-year-old saleswoman) said,24 ‘I have learned to be independent. It is good for women to study and work. We are not slaves [escravas] like women are according to Mozambican traditions. … Most women, as everyone expects, are caseira [stay-at-home wives] and they look like it. They soon turn old.’ Lila had realised that she could influence processes if she thought through her actions and made plans instead of acting 24 Interview, 19 February 2007.

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without a purpose, as many people do, according to her. She had two children and claimed she would like to have another, but she first wanted to live her own life. Every three months she has a hormone injection to prevent pregnancy. ‘The men here, they don’t like this idea, but women can do it without their husbands knowing about it.’ Lila often clashes with her in-laws. For example, she wanted to spend New Year’s Eve with her husband, but he gave in to the wishes of his extended family and spent the night with them while Lila went to church. In the construction of womanhood in contemporary urban society, the value of women’s personal development in Brazilian Pentecostalism is important. There is the idea that Evangelical Christianity stresses female domesticity and submission in matters of gender (Mate 2002; cf. Soothill 2007: 35ff). Even though a woman’s caring role in the family is underscored as well as her obedience to her husband, a woman’s individual success is a crucial element of her conversion, as is the transgression of local gender categories. A woman’s role in the family is part of her personal success and that of her nuclear family, but it does not go as far as including the extended family. Even though men and women have different positions, they are spiritually equal. Therefore women have the right to ‘gain victory’ (ganhar a vitória) and to be ‘winners’ (ganhadores) at home as well as in public life. And since women are perceived as being more open to the spiritual world than men, they can gain more power because of the spiritual influence they are able to exercise over men. Their victory will be public. On the other hand, there are tensions between individual, social and spiritual concerns. I encountered several Pentecostal women who tolerated forms of domestic violence because they were sure that by staying faithful to their husband God would change the situation.25 In other cases, women’s assertiveness in ‘victory’ implied that they had demonised their husbands if their men’s non-Pentecostal behaviour remained unchanged. Another way in which the Pentecostal behaviour could challenge the local environment concerns abstinence from sexual intercourse until marriage. Felizmina (a 23-year-old university student) said:26 I am a virgin, and my friends and colleagues find it very odd, but not only that, I am also parva [silly/stupid] according to them. I think it is fine like this, my boyfriend is also a virgin [he is also Pentecostal but from a different church]. … In the first place, this follows the Bible, it is something God wants. In second place, sexuality is not the most important aspect of a relationship. And with all the illnesses we have [the

25 Arthur

and Mejia (2006: 68–72) have transcribed an interview in which a woman claims that her husband changed his violent and unfaithful behaviour after attending services at the Universal Church, but also that he later fell back into his old ways. 26 Conversation, 7 February 2007.

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AIDS pandemic], so much is bad today. I am not afraid, like my friends are, that my boyfriend will betray me, he is also a Christian and I trust him.

The most attractive and exciting aspect of the transnational Pentecostal domain remains the practice of openly learning, showing and realising love. When talking about these aspects, women giggled, laughed and blushed. How did they engage with the strong bodily aspects of the therapy? Why were these women eager to put their love lives on display in front of the church audience? How did they explore the public character of the therapy? Realising love, disciplining the body The first time I was going to meet Célia (a 27-year-old receptionist)27 she asked me to come to Ronil – named after the car dealer and petrol station Ronil – in the centre of Maputo, where many chapas arrive and leave. She was waiting for an enconmenda, a parcel her family sent her by the long-distance bus: a dead goat arriving from the province of Tete where she came from. Goat meat from Tete is very popular in Mozambique for its good taste, and Célia was going to sell the meat in Maputo. While she was asking me if I liked goat meat, her phone rang. After the greetings I heard her saying in an unbelieving manner, ‘Yes, I touched the wedding dress […] I am determined to get married. Ta amarrado.’ It appeared that she had participated in the terapia do amor the night before, as she had been doing for some weeks now as a follower of the Universal Church. During the therapy, single women could show their determination to marry by making it ‘real’ – even in the absence of a partner until that very moment – by touching the wedding dress and participating in a chain of therapies, prayers and offering of a special sum of money at the end of the period. During therapies and services believers often had to say ‘I determine that this and that will happen’, so as to make it real. Neo-Pentecostal churches follow the ‘Word of Faith’ Theology by attributing spiritual power to spoken words (Anderson 2004: 157–8). After we had placed the dead goat in the back of my car, Célia and I drove to the Jardim dos Namorados where we had a drink together. She told me that she also touched the wedding dress because she needed to change the attitude of her heart, otherwise she would not succeed in marrying. She had recently migrated to Maputo from Tete, and found the urban lifestyle attractive and challenging but also tempting. She lived alone in a single room, which is quite unusual for women to do despite the growing number of solitary women (Manuel 2011). She felt how the other persons living in the neighbouring rooms controlled her movements, such as who visited her, and she felt that she could not take male 27 24 June 2007.

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friends home. She wanted to date men, but at the same time, she was afraid of losing her dignity and the interest of a serious partner to marry her. She said, ‘Friday there was a party after work, I wanted to drink beer and to smoke, but I really can’t do this, that is how the Devil tempts you.’ She emphasised how she really needed to control her behaviour, and when during the therapy the pastor asked who wanted a new heart, she stepped forward. By walking under a heart or touching a wedding dress, she received and created a new heart, which would change her behaviour and her chances of finding the right partner. What is striking about women’s participation in the terapia is how the bodily practices they perform affect their love lives. It would appear that open demonstrations of love generate forces that make love happen. Love comes into existence by using one’s body and senses. Célia explicitly participated in the realisation of romantic love by touching the dress, and as such attached herself to the project of love that would materialise in a happy marriage. She assured me – and herself – that she was ‘living in her victory’, a popular neo-Pentecostal saying, and that the ideal husband was waiting for her: she only needed to finish her studies and participate in the therapy. I soon learned not to ask about the realisation of all these plans. My questions were interpreted as a sign of disbelief. I should also walk in a victorious mood, converts told me. It is faith in miracles happening through the enactment of particular therapeutic forms that confirms that it will occur. Bodily involvement in the therapy is a promise and evidence that love is in the air. However, one has to train one’s body and become sensitive to a new culture of love, which develops by participating in specific disciplinary Pentecostal formats. In his history of sexuality, Foucault (1998 [1976]) described how a particular discourse on sexuality emerged at the start of the modern epoch in Europe. In need of defining and controlling proper and improper sexuality, various authorities, such as doctors and religious leaders, started a process of questioning and classifying that framed the knowledge about sexuality. Sexuality became the object of ‘a judicial action, a medical intervention, a careful clinical examination, and an entire theoretical elaboration’ (Foucault 1998: 31). Rather than hiding sex it had to be discussed, albeit in particular ways. Policing sexuality – including birth rates and disease – required ‘the wide dispersion of devices that were invented for speaking about it, for having it be spoken about, for inducing it to speak for itself, for listening, recording, transcribing, and redistributing what is said about it’ (ibid.: 34). According to Foucault, the knowledge that emerged about sexuality defined people’s experiences of it. The discourse on sexuality was imposed on people’s bodies. In this view, it could be said that the Therapy of Love is an example of a policing device that generates a specific discourse of love, sexuality and marriage that involves the whole body. It is not only what is being said, as is stressed in this

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work by Foucault, that produces a particular sexuality or love, but it is a process of embodiment that involves the different senses. Following Csordas (1990: 5), who sees the body as ‘the existential ground of culture’, it is important to focus on the experiential processes persons are involved in, by looking at the perceptual and habitual processes persons engage in. People are not only constituted by perceptions about love but also by their ongoing romantic experiences and feelings. What is interesting about the therapy is that feelings have to be created in relation to love. The articulation of love depends on the performance of different formats, for example putting one’s hands on one’s heart or oil on one’s rib, walking under a heart, showing oneself to a possible partner, and embracing and kissing. By doing so, converts can be filled with the Holy Spirit, which will make them feel and realise love. As several scholars have demonstrated in studies of religion and embodiment (Hirschkind 2001; Mahmood 2005; Meyer 2009), it is by instigating specific bodily and sensory disciplines that particular religious feelings and responses are raised.28 Meyer (2008) speaks of ‘sensational forms’, which are authorised modes for invoking and organising access to the divine or transcendental that shape religious content and norms. These forms involve religious practitioners in special practices of worship and patterns of feeling. For example, the use of music in the therapy and services mediates the personal experience of the Holy Spirit. The physical quality of sound, such as the beat, helps one to feel the Spirit (Marks 1999, in de Witte 2008a: 141). Moreover, the body itself manifests the presence of the Holy Spirit – or evil powers – when people fall over, scream, cry and speak in tongues. Bodily performances happen according to certain scripts: the arrangement of activities and bodily behaviour are fixed and regulated (see also de Witte 2008a: 125–71). The pastor indicates when one prays, sings, walks forward and so on. It is clear which people are experienced and know the ways in which the Spirit is speaking to them. The first time I did most things wrong: I kept my eyes open when they had to be closed, I sat when I had to stand, I forgot to lift my hands and so on. As with other newcomers, the assistants lifted up my hand when necessary or my more skilled neighbours helped me. In the end, my body was better trained and I could experience what others said they felt, such as the 28 Recent

anthropological work on religion, the body and the senses has focused on the explicit strategies through which a religious ‘habitus’ is acquired (e.g. de Witte 2008a; Mahmood 2005; Klaver 2011). With the notion of habitus or embodied culture, Bourdieu (1977) described how ‘objective social structures’ are inscribed in people’s bodies and generate subjective experiences of social class. However, Bourdieu stressed the unconscious power of habitus and not the explicit training of experiences that happens within religious movements (Mahmood 2005: 138–9).

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urge to cry (see also Knibbe and Versteeg 2008). Particular bodily formats mark spiritual power, but one needs to learn how to experience spiritual power and adjust to it.29 In the framework of the therapy, the power of the Holy Spirit becomes visible in a loving body. The capacity to create a romantic lifestyle depends on inhabiting certain formats, such as a ‘new heart’. Célia explained that she needed to change the attitude of her heart, otherwise she would not succeed in marrying: ‘God is preparing a husband for me. One day I will get married. My heart is my problem, the Devil is there, I need to take care, I need to combat my old ways of doing.’ She does things she does not want to. By going forward, walking under a heart or touching a heart, she receives and creates a new heart that will change her behaviour. Moreover, by following a bodily format, love becomes authorised. When single women stood on the platform and had to seek the Holy Spirit with a hand on their hearts, a particular gaze, revelation or happening could be an indication from the Spirit that they stood face-to-face with their future spouse. Pressure is brought to bear on people to have a partner. Elena (the 25-yearold university student mentioned earlier) reflected on the fact that she wanted to act in faith and thus quickly became involved in a relationship with a young man who, she later realised, was not the man she wanted to marry. Felizmina (the 23-year-old university student who stressed her virginity) told me about her sister who had been actively engaged in the therapy. Her sister was an obreira and soon married an obreiro who became a pastor. She hardly knew the man but since the Holy Spirit showed her that the obreiro would be her husband and they kissed each other before the altar, true love was guaranteed. Converts told me how pastors pointed out who they should marry, which particularly happened with obreiros/as. One pastor told me that to become a pastor, he needed to be married, and the bishop showed him an obreira who would be the perfect partner for him (see also van Wyk 2014: 83). Elena and Felizmina elaborated on these cases by pointing to the tension between the manifestation of the Holy Spirit and the responsibility of each Pentecostal believer to enact Holy power and love. In this respect, Elena explained the concept of ‘intelligent faith’ (fé inteligente): ‘In church they stress that it is necessary to have faith. Thus I only thought about faith. With faith everything would be all right. But I learned that wisdom is important as well.’ She had chosen a boyfriend from the church as a result of her faith. However, ‘in everything we were each other’s opposite’, Elena said when we were having a drink at Mimmos’ restautant at the Avenida 24 de Julho.30 Her mother and 29 De Witte (2011) and Klaver (2011) describe the tensions between the purely spontane-

ous and unruly manifestation of the Holy Spirit and fixed scripts of behaviour.

30 28 June 2006.

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others, including a pastor, disapproved of their relationship. ‘But, we had faith. God had brought us together and we made plans about marrying and the future.’ She was strong and self-assured and had opinions about everything, but not so her partner. She started dominating him and they quarrelled a lot. ‘Then I realised we should not go on. It is not only faith, you have to use your brains as well.’ At the time, Elena was also an obreira and observed that many people in church got married but were unhappy. ‘They go on because they have faith.’ She affirmed that the church’s leadership recognised the problem and started preaching about intelligent faith. Head Bishop Macedo introduced this concept to stress the necessity of knowing how to use faith because many people had faith but with no results (Macedo 2004a: 81–3): Only faith of quality can produce a life of quality. … Certainly this is the biggest problem among the majority of Christians. They know the Scriptures; pray; fast; read the Bible; believe in the Lord Jesus; believe in God; and, in a certain way they exercise faith, but by not having this faith of quality, their efforts are virtually useless. (ibid.: 83)

At a church service I attended, a special message on intelligent faith from Bishop Macedo, who resides in Brazil, was screened.31 We were called to have faith of trust (fé de confiança) and faith of intelligence (fé inteligente). The aspect of self-responsibility in Elena’s account of intelligent faith struck me. In the first instance, it seems that, by a repeated performance of bodily gestures that demonstrates a convert’s faith, specific results will be achieved. However, as Elena as well as the bishop showed, there is the need to scrutinise whether one’s performance of faith comprises all the formats – trust and rationality – and whether these have truly taken root in one’s whole body, including the mind (see also de Witte 2011). The articulation of performativity depends on different formats, not only kissing or walking under a heart but also training and use of one’s brain through, for example, sermons. One performance builds on another (Mahmood 2005: 161–7). If one fails to have a happy marriage, or to marry at all, it marks one’s inability to form a converted body, and one has to rectify the situation by entering a new cycle of performances, a new corrente of therapies. In other words, not only the sign of the Holy Spirit’s presence in one’s bodily performance develops into love but an entire manner of being and acting is also required (see also Campos and Gusmão 2008). Taking all this together, the Brazilian Pentecostal bodily formats to love demonstrate a particular relationship between disciplinary structures and agency. It seems that the agency of the converts is involved in how they embody authorised Pentecostal formats. Foucault’s analysis of subject formation is useful in 31 16 November 2005. Similar messages also appeared on TV Record/Miramar.

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understanding the embodiment of divine power. According to his (1988) elaboration of ‘technologies of the self ’, disciplining power cannot be understood solely on the model of domination with a singular intentionality, for example of the pastors, that is enforced upon others, namely converts. Technologies of the self are the forms of knowledge and strategies that ‘permit individuals to effect by their own means or with the help of others a certain number of operations on their own bodies and souls, thoughts, conduct, and way of being, so as to transform themselves’ (ibid.: 18). In other words, disciplining powers allow agents to define their self. The person is produced by the relationships they are involved in that simultaneously facilitate the person to form him/herself. Foucault’s insights are taken up by Mahmood (2005) in her study of women in mosques in Egypt. Mahmood’s work is a reaction to the kind of feminist analyses where women’s agency would foremost be an act of resistance to male authority. Elaborating on Butler (1997), who in her post-structuralist feminist thought draws on insights by Foucault, Mahmood (2005: 18) argues that agency is not simply a synonym for resistance to relations of domination but a ‘capacity for action that specific relations of subordination create and enable’. Adopting this insight for converts in Mozambique, I suggest that they actively incorporate Brazilian Pentecostal movements of the body to bring the potentiality of their love life into being. They realise their self not by letting authoritative models be imposed on them but by performing authorised Pentecostal formats. According to some of the women I worked with, this included a development whereby the pastors also have to learn to perform correctly. In the words of Felizmina, ‘The church also has to learn. I think it is unwise that the pastors match obreiras and obreiros who have to marry each other. It should be more than that [a match is not sufficient to enact the Holy Spirit], but the church is learning lessons too.’32 The clearer focus in sermons on intelligent faith is one of the examples in which the church indeed shows itself to be learning lessons. However, intelligent faith stresses that it is also a person’s own fault, as much for pastors as for converts, whether they do something wrong and are not able to rectify it and play a role in the realisation of love and thus of God’s plan for them. At the same time, intelligent faith stands for the ability to control one’s emotions. By appropriating this faith, women can obtain a whole new position in the urban domain. Generally, women were considered to be more emotional than men and to suffer more. Incorporating a rational intelligence is another weapon in the spiritual struggle to position oneself in a highly challenging environment. More generally, the bodily involvement of the therapy happens in interaction with the surrounding urban space (see Csordas 1990). I argue that the particular 32 Conversation, 7 February 2007.

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use of the body during the therapy is productive in shaping love because of the role of women’s bodies in their pioneering ambitions in the urban domain. Because of the growing visibility of women in the public sphere in Maputo has been accompanied with a concern about the female body, as described in the previous chapters, women’s bodies are contested. Young girls’ tight jeans would encourage infidelity as their bodies attract married men. Marta wanted to earn her own money to buy her own clothes because her boyfriend disliked the fashions she wore as they exposed too much of her body. Women living on their own, like Célia, who touched the wedding dress, were approached with suspicion, as were women like Julia (Chapter Four) who owned a house. Women continuously struggle with how they are and want to be perceived, and how they should position themselves. Since educated women become more self-confident in their public role, they want this to be answered by men who do not look at them as beings to be possessed and domesticated but as partners to walk hand-in-hand with along the street. Women want to break love out of the private sphere and place it in the public space where they are increasingly visible. But since this has not been women’s ‘habitus’ (Bourdieu 1977) in the city, they feel uncertain about it, as do men. The therapy trains them in developing these public skills: it may feel uncomfortable but couples embrace and kiss each other publicly during the therapy to train their bodies in new modes of love. By offering money openly, giving public testimony or presenting a case of witchcraft, women demonstrate that they are capable of dealing with the new demands being placed on them. They show their commitment to a new cultural project of love and can prove their competences in this regard. They are taking the lead in their lives and playing a full part in the urban domain by using their faith, and doing so intelligently. Writing about the so-called Bling scandal in Maputo – a highly erotic concert performance in Maputo in 2007 by the popular singer Dama Do Bling that raised considerable debate about issues of femininity and sexuality in Mozambique – Groes-Green (2011: 292) suggests that, sex and erotic expressions have historically been confined to specific locales of intimacy while being banned from public places and institutions such as the city centre, schools and the media. Rooted in colonial and post-colonial power structures, an ideological, moral and spatial differentiation between poor and marginal parts of the city and the modern part has taken place which has invariably defined the restrictions and opportunities for young women.

In this respect, it is interesting to note that the therapies were organised in the central buildings of the Universal Church located at central markets and main roads. However, these building were not only located in Maputo centre but also

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in the bairros, yet they were always close to asphalted roads, public transport stops or a central market with shops selling mobile phones and jeans. I suggest that women who attend the Therapy of Love, be they from the centre or the bairros, all incorporate Brazilian Pentecostal ‘love techniques’ to position themselves in a new way in the urban domain by developing a sense of spiritual control and power over men. Similar to the curtidoras in Groes-Green’s study who mostly come from poorer families, Pentecostal women with poorer backgrounds, such as the friends Ana, Vitória and Madalena as well as Célia, were looking for ways to control men in the sense of not losing their own agency. Curtidoras tried this by mainly using their sexual powers (Groes-Green 2011: 304); and, as I indicate, the Pentecostal women attempt this by using the power of the Holy Spirit combined with a specific ambiguous Brazilian Pentecostal sexual power of openness and concealment (Parker 2009), seeming to combine traditional and progressive values of love, sexuality and marriage. For the Pentecostal women who came from a more middle-class background, such as Elena and Julia, the therapy was especially important in establishing an equal relationship with men. These women were not necessarily looking for a rich man since they were financially independent, but because of their independence, they wanted relationships with men who respected their careers, financial positions and marital ideals (see also Manuel 2011). The violence of downplaying senses The majority of the participants in the therapy are single women. They prefer a Pentecostal partner because they would be trained to be faithful and caring towards their wives. Since there are more women at church than men, women complain that there are insufficient men to engage with. Consequently, their involvement in the therapy does not often result in a loving relationship. Even though being married is not the only ideal of women who attend the church, as professional success is equally important (see also Gilbert 2015), the underlying idea behind most counselling sessions is that being married is better than being single, and for most women marriage is an ultimate ideal. However, this is an area that is far less controllable than education and work, thus engagement with their faith is even more crucial as finding a perfect partner requires a miracle of sorts (see also Frahm-Arp 2012). The effects of involvement in the therapy are that women feel uncomfortable if they remain single. When they spoke in terms of ‘God gives me the victory’ or ‘God gives me a miracle’, they implicitly said they would have a partner. But, when we became closer friends, it became obvious that the boyfriend never materialised. Célia spoke about her boyfriend but was vague about their current relationship, and he seemed to be a fictitious being. The only thing she said was

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that they had not much time to meet as she needed to study and was working full-time. She was sure that God was preparing her marriage, so in that sense she was victorious. In many cases, women were in relationships with non-Pentecostals. It depended on converts’ performance of faith whether the constraints of a single life and a non-Pentecostal marriage evolved into a fruitful element in the process of conversion. Elena and Felizmina, for example, gave the impression of being able to master these dilemmas in their reflections on conversion as a way of learning from difficulties and mistakes. However, I met converts whose position had become very precarious. Luisa is one example. The first time I met the 27-year-old receptionist, in October 2006, she had just moved to a very small room with no access to water or electricity. She felt very lonely and she could not trust her family, especially her mother, as they suspected each other of witchcraft because the mother was connected to curandeiros and Luisa to pastors. In addition, Luisa had no husband. She prayed and fasted a lot and, for the last three years, had participated in the Therapy of Love. ‘It is difficult to find an honest man,’ Luisa sighed, ‘a man related to God.’ On the other hand, she felt it was much better to fight for a long time to reach her goal instead of just starting a relationship with any man. She had had various boyfriends, but every time she presented them to her mother they left her. As part of the correntes of therapies she followed, Luisa prepared a huge financial offering, and this special sacrifice was expected to help her overcome her situation. However, as her salary was not being paid and she could not afford her rent any more and her problems with her relatives increased, she became a less attractive partner for men. Luisa’s case is an example of the opposite effect of commitment to the project of conversion and love. The investment in love and a better life can instead produce increased loneliness, distrust and loss. This violent effect of the therapy and conversion can be visible in different ways in converts’ lives. When Felizmina’s sister married the pastor she hardly knew, her father refused to attend the wedding. Laura felt lonely because contact with her family decreased and, at the age of 19, she had to quit her studies because she had to (and also wanted to) work in the church as the pastor’s wife. Felizmina said, ‘It is not an easy life. Your whole live takes places in church. If you want to go out for a day, you have to ask permission. My sister hadn’t realised all of that.’ Felizmina is soon going to graduate, and ‘Now my sister recognises what she has lost, the kind of freedom I have.’ A little later she concluded, ‘I learned from my sister’s mistakes.’ A Mozambican pastor at the Universal Church told me how he had been selected to become an assistant pastor to a Brazilian pastor on condition that he was married.33 In a few months, he married the sister of a good friend who also was an obreira. It did not 33 Interview, 2 May 2007.

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work out, but he could not be separated from her if he wanted to continue working as a pastor. He commented, ‘When we marry, we think that the relationship will become good [i.e. love materialises after performing correctly], that we will grow towards each other. I married too hastily, it was a wrong decision.’ Preoccupation with the activities of either the Holy Spirit or evil spirits in converts’ lives can further disrupt marriages and relationships. According to the same pastor, his wife had a demon. When she started beating him in church, the other pastors also came to the conclusion that she had a bad spirit. The tensions in their relationship intensified as his wife’s attitude did not change. Converts experience conflicts between their attempts to inhabit the prescribed formats of affection and romance, and the control of their behaviour by spiritual forces. As much as the Holy Spirit can imbue their body, demons may also do so. Despite the emphasis on people’s responsibility to work on the transformation of their body, the pastors also stress that converts cannot blame their partners because their adversary is the Devil (see also Soothill 2007: 209–18). Jealousy, domestic violence and infidelity are caused by evil spirits. To ensure a successful marriage, women are thus encouraged to become violent: they have to be God’s soldiers, confronting the Devil for his control over their husband’s behaviour. In this respect, it is instructive that the leader of Maná, Jorge Tadeu, calls love the ‘armour of war’ (Amor, arma de Guerra). Tadeu (2006) writes about God’s love and how people have to stand and practise ways of confronting Satan. As a result, some women enter into quite an ambivalent relationship with their husbands, who they see as being imbued with an evil spirit, as the pastor came to regard his wife, and apparently the wife also came to see her husband, and thus beat him. Subsequently, they found it difficult to be intimate, and the pastor said that he and his wife were no longer having sexual intercourse. Paula, who had never wanted to marry but changed her mind after hearing the pastor’s sermons about marriage, was suddenly confronted with a husband who went out often at night. Paula decided not to talk any more to her husband about his nightly escapades and to only speak about it in prayer. Pastors normally advised not talking about demons with partners who were not Pentecostal because it would worsen the situation. Instead, born-again women take responsibility and use spiritual powers and their brain to convert their partners. As they pray and perform their warrior duties, they demonstrate how to be a winner, which will then materialise in their partners. Another ambiguous aspect of the therapy that may result in violence is the silence surrounding HIV/AIDS. Even though the therapy and other counselling practices force openness about sexuality, HIV/AIDS was hardly ever discussed. Over recent years, huge projects have been introduced in African countries to disseminate information, change practices, reduce stigma and provide care for those who are HIV-positive and their relatives. Initially, many religious

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institutions, and particularly Pentecostals, were reluctant to engage with HIV/ AIDS (Prince et al. 2009: vii–viii). Nevertheless, the start of PEPFAR34 became a stimulus for faith-based organisations to participate in AIDS programmes because much of the funding was channelled through them (Epstein 2007; Gusman 2009). Pentecostal and mainstream churches have become more involved in AIDS projects, education, counselling and care for AIDS patients, and have also influenced the way people manage their health, family, sexuality and marriage (Becker and Geissler 2009; Prince et al. 2009). While churches in Mozambique are progressively engaging with AIDS programmes (Agadjanian and Menjívar 2011; Pfeiffer 2011), the Pentecostal churches at the time seemed to be in a state of denial, while at the same time realising that they should be dealing more explicitly with the subject.35 AIDS has not been as openly discussed as sexuality. Sometimes AIDS is brought up in sermons but stigma surrounding the issue still predominates. Whenever I heard AIDS mentioned in sermons, it was in the context of a cure. With faith, a miracle would happen – but it was always added that one should seek treatment at a hospital. Nevertheless, as part of pre-marriage counselling, partners have to undergo an HIV test. Towards each other, they have to be open about the subject but in my conversations and interviews, people rarely mentioned HIV/ AIDS. Converts seemed to be much more concerned about (economic) success, gender roles and new forms of affective relationships, as Thornton (2009) observed for South Africa. On the other hand, as HIV/AIDS plays a role in converts’ lives, which people show in more indirect ways, it influences their relationships. Especially because of unfaithful partners, women were afraid of contracting HIV. Paula, who did not talk to her husband about his nightly escapades, said: ‘Of course I’m afraid of getting HIV.’ She said that the only thing she could do was to continue going to church and to fight for her marriage. Their relationship became very tense and Paula became depressed. But leaving her husband was not an option, as this would mean she had failed as a (Pentecostal) woman and her salary was not enough to cover her daily living expenses. However, she made every effort not to become too financially dependent on her husband. To sum up these tensions in other words, the creation of specific sensory and bodily perceptions in the Therapy of Love means that converts and pastors downplay other senses or ‘anaesthetise’ them (Verrips 2006; see also van Dijk 2009). The transformation of converts’ sensory modes makes them indifferent to other socio-cultural practices. The Brazilian Pentecostal techniques of 34 The US Presidential Emergency Fund for AIDS Relief. 35 In

more personal settings, pastors from the Assembly of God churches said that converts were indeed being affected by HIV/AIDS, as were pastors. They felt that they should change their attitudes but were still thinking about how to do so.

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confrontation that are part of the public display and realisation of love impede the sensitivity to (religious) forms of dialogue and consensus. To realise love, converts change into soldiers, demonise their partners and silence problems such as HIV/AIDS. By doing so, they remain out of touch with the reality of their partners and kin and become far removed from the ‘romantic love’ propagated by Pentecostal pastors. Conclusion: a therapy of hate? Mozambican women and youth are actively involved in developing new sexual and marital practices and relations. Pioneering urban women are seeking possibilities to openly discuss courtship, marriage and sexuality, and to appropriate ways of loving and relating that are compatible with their new positions in the city’s public domain. In a society where affection is generally expressed in rather hidden ways, particularly so in the city centre, viewing images of people showing explicit affection in the telenovelas and in Brazilian churches has made a powerful impression on them. A particular Brazilian type of sensual love portrayed in the telenovelas has gained a specific spiritual format in the transnational space of Pentecostalism. By kissing and embracing in public in the therapy and embodying the power of the Holy Spirit, converts are confronting local forms of love, sexuality and marriage, and hope to find romance, happiness and fidelity. Activating a specific bodily and sensory discipline during the therapy raises feelings towards potential partners and effectuates marriages. This shows how religion, in this case transnational Brazilian Pentecostalism, is not necessarily a response to transformations in the reproductive domain but actively invests in effectuating change. While Pentecostal Christians adhere to what could be considered strict teachings about sexuality, such as abstinence before marriage and faithfulness, Pentecostal women found these ideals, together with the propagation of romance and gender equality, quite progressive. In this sense, looking at the issues of female agency and romance in particular, both Pentecostal women and curtidoras could understand each other very well – even if they could be choosing different options in their search for upward mobility and female respectability (Cole 2010; Groes-Green 2011) – to the point that some curtidoras also frequented the therapies.36 Yet the confrontational aspect of the public performance of love, as part of the spiritual war, carries violent mechanisms. The ambiguities that open, sensual and passionate bodies carry in the sexual landscape of Brazil (DaMatta 1978; Parker 2009) have their own dimensions in the interaction between 36 I met two curtidoras who frequented the therapy and, as Cole (2010) found in Madagas-

car, I also met former curtidoras in the Brazilian Pentecostal churches.

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Brazilian Pentecostal pastors and Mozambican converts, and can become violent. Realising love through the performance of Pentecostal technologies of the self (Foucault 1998) by means of mastering a balance between emotional and rational choices of faith is frustrated by demons who can still control the bodies of converts and those of their partners and kin. The subsequent spiritual battle clearly affects relationships. Techniques to confront the Devil who impeded amorous relations downplay the sensitivity to alternative forms of creating love. Living with demonised partners creates relational distance instead of passion. As a result, the Therapy of Love could become a therapy of hate because partners are increasingly hurting each other.

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CHAPTER 6

‘Holy Bonfires’ and Campaigns Biannually, the Universal Church organises a huge campaign called the Fogueira Santa de Israel (Holy Bonfire of Israel or Fogueira for short), during which members sacrifice (sacrificar) large sums of money in order to reach a specific goal. As a ‘test of faith’, participants are urged to ‘give their best’, i.e. as much as they can and even more. During the Fogueira in which I participated in November and December 2005, a sanctuary was built on the podium of every branch of the Church in the city. It resembled the holiest place in the Jewish temple, as described in the Bible’s Old Testament. Only priests were allowed to go there under special conditions to sacrifice an animal as an offering for redemption. A ladder to heaven was placed in the sanctuary, similar to the Old Testament’s story in the book of Genesis about the ladder in Jacob’s dream, which reached from earth to heaven. While angels ascended and descended the ladder, God promised Jacob that through his seed all the families on earth would be blessed. In the preceding weeks, the Fogueira had already been promoted during services as a life-changing event. All men of God in the Old Testament had been presented several times: Abraham became a father at 100 years of age, Moses performed extraordinary miracles, David defeated the giant Goliath and Jacob became incredibly prosperous. Similarly, God’s faithful followers today would be big business women, overseers of large companies, owners of luxurious houses and happily married couples. ‘What is the secret?’ the pastor asked at the launch of the Fogueira in one of Maputo’s church branches.1 ‘These men of God were serious, determined and acted! They did holocaustos [burnt offerings]. Abraham sacrificed his only son. He gave his best.’ At the end of his talk, the pastor asked who wanted to ‘overcome’ poverty and ‘revolt’ against it. ‘Lift up your hand.’ Everyone present did so. The only way, the pastor continued, is ‘to give your best to God. Who is going to sacrifice US$20,000?’ I did not think anybody would come forward, as this was an incredible amount of money even for the most prosperous business people in the audience. But one woman accepted. The pastor exchanged a few words with her, probably to be sure of her determination and willingness to participate (see also van Wyk 2014: 187). The 1 25 October 2006.

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pastor seemed to be pleased, took up his microphone again, said ‘Amen, Amen’ and gave the woman a red scarf with the text: ‘My faith will materialise’ (Minha fé vai materializar). Then, the pastor asked who would sacrifice US$15,000, and a few others came forward. When he reached the amount of US$5,000, a larger group stepped up. To be part of this blessing and to reach heaven on earth, participants who actively participated in the two-month-long campaign also had to engage in daily and nightly prayers in church and at home, had to fast and demonstrate their progress in saving money for their special sacrifice during special meetings with a pastor. At the final day of the Fogueira,2 they would be allowed to enter the holy place on the podium to present their sacrifice to God by placing it on the ladder: a specially designed Campaign envelope filled with the very large amount of money. Afterwards, the bishops in Brazil and some of the pastors at the Universal Church in Mozambique, and from other countries too, would travel to Israel to present God with the participants’ wishes on Mount Sinai, where Moses had prayed in the past. The Fogueira is called ‘the materialisation of faith for the conquest of the impossible’, and is truly perceived as a fight. In a country where it is hard to own a house and a car and feed and clothe everyone in one’s household, giving up everything one has is indeed a challenge, a fight. Some sell their televisions, cars and sometimes even their houses to sacrifice money in church. Non-Pentecostal relatives and friends do not understand why the converts do this, but the pastors assure their congregations that this ‘is the way to conquer all the evil’ in their lives. This would finally open up the road to prosperity, although it may be long, as it was for Abraham. Neo-Pentecostalism is known for its ‘Prosperity Theology’ or ‘Health and Wealth Gospel’ (Gifford 2004). This underlines how militant and courageous faith brings happiness, health and prosperity in all areas of life. A central way of demonstrating faith is by paying tithes and presenting additional financial offerings to ensure a more prosperous life. Tithing involves donating ten per cent of one’s income to the church on a monthly basis, but offerings are extra donations that people are encouraged to make during church services. The Universal Church is known internationally for its extravagant practices and, in addition to tithes and offerings, pastors organise huge pledges and campaigns, such as the Fogueira and correntes (chains of weekly services that end with an offering). Leaders, including those in Mozambique, have often been accused of becoming rich at the expense of the poor, of running a money-making machine, a lottery 2 This

time, the Fogueira would end in mid-December, before Christmas. According to the participants I spoke with this was on purpose as they would not be allowed to spend money on Christmas presents for their kin and friends.

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and a business instead of a church (for an overview, see Giumbelli 2001: 87–120; Mariano 2003: 51–5; Mariz 1995: 37–52).3 Similar pledges and correntes take place in the God is Love Church and, to a lesser extent, in the World Church of the Power of God and the Maná Church. Many converts seem immune to the accusations of money-grabbing by pastors, and some members of other churches even temporarily frequent the Universal Church in order to participate in the Fogueira as they conceive this event to be powerful and life-changing. In line with anthropological notions of the gift generating different forms of reciprocity (Mauss 1969 [1924]), studies of Pentecostal financial practices mention gifts that realise particular reciprocal relations among the community of believers and with God (Coleman 2004). In the African context, the Pentecostal gift is also said to free converts from the constraints of exchange between kin (Gifford 2004: 105ff; Maxwell 1998; Meyer 1998a; van Dijk 2002). The money that has been offered in church can no longer be shared with relatives. However, hardly any attention has been paid to the consequences of the Pentecostal financial offerings that destroy local forms of reciprocity. Gifts of about US$20,000, which is not unusual, are out of all proportion and are destructive, as will be shown below.4 Why do people participate in such Pentecostal campaigns? To understand the enormous financial Brazilian Pentecostal campaigns and sacrifices in Mozambique, it is important to connect these practices to converts’ involvement in the bigger spiritual war, as described in the previous chapters. It is remarkable that converts often spoke of holocaustos rather than gifts. This is a ‘burnt offering’, a type of Old Testament offering in which the animal to be sacrificed is consumed by fire. The Pentecostal holocausto, which substitutes biblical animals with considerable sums of money, is part of the discourse and practice of the spiritual war aimed at the liberation and the erasure of evil. While the money itself is not literally burnt but used for the church’s expenses, the sacrifice of so much money aims to destroy ‘evil’, including exchange relations with kin and partners, and hampers the development of a community of believers, as I will show. The excessive amounts of money sacrificed express the desire to annihilate reciprocal relations with kin and, at the same time, are meant to demonstrate the donor’s pioneering abilities. 3 Over

the years, critical articles have been published in Mozambican journals, for example: ‘Multinacional, Comerciante da Fé, Parasite de Deus ou Profeta de Espírito?’ (Savana, 7 October 1994); ‘Acção da IURD em Moçambique’ (Notícias, 8 April 1997); and ‘Desactivada Rede Criminosa na Igreja Universal’ (Magazine, 9 May 2007). The bishop of the Universal Church, Edir Macedo, and some of its other leaders were accused of fraud and taken to court. 4 An earlier version of this chapter was published in Bompani and Frahm-Arp (2010) under the title ‘Burying Life: Pentecostal Religion and Development in Urban Mozambique’ (van de Kamp 2010).

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This chapter explores the third violent technique and effect of conversion, namely the Brazilian Pentecostal technique of destroying.5 The violence of Pentecostal conversion is revealed in the role money plays in the urban domain in sexuality, marriage and kinship. I first recapitulate how, locally, money and gifts are central to maintaining kin relations and guaranteeing the reproduction of life (i.e. development). Yet in Maputo, the role of money in relations, as the basis for social development, has evolved in particular and often problematic ways for the upwardly mobile. They experience reciprocal kin relations as a burden because of the obligation to share money. The new economic roles of women in the urban domain introduce complications in intimate and kin relations. It will be shown how women’s involvement in the financial practices of transnational Brazilian Pentecostal churches is an attempt to change a socio-economic order that is experienced as a burden by destroying and burying its fundamental structures. Even though the goal is to be born again as a Pentecostal, converts’ old lives, including exchange relations, have to die by means of a sacrifice. In addition, by paying large sums of money, Pentecostal women can practise and prove their pioneering skills. The effect is increasing uncertainty and risky, yet converts deliberately engage in this endeavour. Burying life In December 2006 a news item was broadcast on STV, then the most popular and critical television channel in Mozambique, about a demonstration against the Universal Church in Maxaquene, one of Maputo’s neighbourhoods. One of those present at the demonstration told me what happened.6 People saw coffins and open graves on the site of the Universal Church. Neighbours were shocked, and started to throw stones at the church building and the pastor. The police arrived and took the pastor away for his own protection. The interviewee said: ‘It is very un-African what was happening at this Church.’ The neighbours were afraid that people were being buried, which was inappropriate – it was not a burial ground – and would cause harm because the place could become polluted by the angry spirits of the dead. Some thought that these persons had been murdered by church members. The neighbours understood this as a witchcraft ritual, an illegal action that would reduce or accumulate wealth by means of supernatural

5 The Introduction explained how the violence in Brazilian Pentecostalism is specific both

in terms of the techniques used to convert and in the effects of conversion. Converts need to appropriate the Pentecostal techniques of breaking (Chapter Four), confronting (Chapter Five) and destroying. 6 Interview, 15 February 2007.

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evil forces.7 The interviewee said that older people in the neighbourhood shared a long-held opinion that the Universal Church should be prohibited. He said, ‘These older people still live like in the rural areas. Here in the city there are many other influences, people are losing their culture. The Universal Church is behaving in ways that go against the principles of people from here.’ A couple of times I witnessed the use of a coffin in services at the Universal Church. The following is an extract from my fieldwork notes about a Mondayevening service8 on the theme of success in business: At the entrance to the church building assistants distributed small papers on which to write down our financial problems. The pastor summoned people to throw their papers in the coffin that was in the church hall. Later on, he would bury it and our problems. … The pastor read Psalms 112: 3: ‘His family will be wealthy and rich, and he will be prosperous for ever.’ … During the sermon everyone who was present, about thousand people, had to say out loud: ‘Belonging to God brings prosperity.’ Then, we had to fix our eyes on the coffin. The coffin was then closed and wrapped in a red cloth. The pastor said that many people were the victims of witchcraft and that if we had financial problems and/or our business was not prospering then someone had sent us evil. He ordered all evil spirits to leave us. Some people started to cry and fall over and spirits were expelled from their bodies. Everybody with problems was called to take the red cloth9 in their hands and, while looking the pastor in the eyes, he drove the evil spirit away. After that, all those remaining could come forward and touch the red cloth. First, those who gave US$500, then those who gave US$300 and then US$100 etc. The red cloth was finally put in the coffin [so no people were buried as the neighbours in Maxaquene thought].

The Universal Church was regarded in many respects as anti-social by critics and older people like those mentioned by the interviewee above (see also Maxwell 1998: 366–9). The bishops had big houses and expensive cars but did not share their wealth with others, while stories circulated of family members who had lost everything because of a relative making offerings to the Church and selling their television, computer and/or car. Suspicions increased because church members had to act in secrecy and pastors forced converts to keep matters 7 In 2005, Zambia’s government banned the Universal Church after allegations that it was

involved in satanic rituals (BBC, 30 November 2005). Demonstrations were held in the capital Lusaka because two men had been supposedly kidnapped as part of the Church’s rituals. Similar allegations occurred in Senegal in 2010, where a temple of the Universal Church was destroyed. 8 14 February 2005. 9 As mentioned in Chapter Five, the colour red is a symbol of Jesus’ blood that has the power to transform. At the same time, this is compatible with the local meaning of red as representing a transitory state ( Jacobson-Widding 1989: 35).

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between themselves and God. No one should talk about how much money s/ he would sacrifice. And suspicious rituals were being performed, such as the one involving the coffins. What is fundamental here is the Brazilian Pentecostal provocation of local notions of development, in which social relations and prosperity are entangled. Lundin (2007) describes how social networks based on kinship in Maputo, which can be extended to ‘fictive kin’ such as neighbours, colleagues and friends, are essential for all socio-economic classes to guarantee their livelihoods in the urban setting (Costa 2007). Access to goods and services is mediated by one’s social position in a network of relations that is often based on kinship. Kinship has long been an essential social institution in regulating the exchange relations necessary for the reproduction of biological, economic and socio-cultural life (Chapter One). Lobolo is an example of the relatedness of economic gift-giving and kinship, and it is through a gift, nowadays in the form of money, that families and the ancestors of the bride and bridegroom become interrelated and secure reproduction. Exchange between two families ensures social order as it guarantees the continuation of those families, and thus of society, through their offspring. In line with the approach taken by Bloch and Parry (1989), death, birth, marriage, sexuality and money are all bound up in one sphere. All are important and dependent on each other for the smooth running of social life. In addition to the lobolo, another example is that the first month’s salary in a new job is often given to kin, and is partly used to offer presents to the ancestral spirits as a form of respect and gratitude that will guarantee their continuous protection (see also Archambault 2015: 135). The activities of the Brazilian Pentecostal churches go against these principles of ordering society and developing well-being because the first salary payment has to be offered to the church. As said, researchers of African Pentecostalism (Gifford 2004: 105ff; Maxwell 1998; Meyer 1998a; van Dijk 2002) have shown that by converting and spending money in Pentecostal churches, members cannot maintain their reciprocal relations with kin and ancestral spirits. Giving their first salary cheque to the church is a break with expressing gratitude and dependence for one’s prosperity to relatives and ancestors. And what has been given in church obviously cannot be used to meet family obligations. In this way, the upwardly mobile can escape the financial burdens placed on them by family members, who constantly request money and hamper them in their aspirations, such as building a house, paying for their studies and saving money for the future. By offering money to the church, they also break away from the spiritual powers of ancestral spirits that are considered evil in the Pentecostal context. It is now God, and not family spirits, that influences their well-being. However, few studies have explored how this discontinuity with the prominent worldview not only shapes new possibilities and meanings but is also problematic (see also de Bruijn and van Dijk

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2009). Based on the case of Brazilian Pentecostal sacrifices in Mozambique, it is important to note the antagonistic and vulnerable situations being created and why converts deliberately choose to face breakdown, conflict and uncertainty as a result of sacrifícios. Locally, the use of the coffin is a strong image of destruction that the neighbours of the Universal Church understood very well but reacted to with equally strong feelings. In addition to giving away excessive amounts of money, neighbours and relatives of church members see these practices as violating the reproduction of life. Yet for the converts, this is precisely the reason why they joined the Church. In my view, converts are demonstrating their need to destroy their old ways of life prior to starting something new. Before illustrating this point, I will elaborate on the clash between the defenders of ‘Mozambican culture’ and Pentecostals, and assess the role of money in reproducing life and defining the path of development to which converts and non-converts constantly allude. Money and changing dependencies Chapter One argued that the integration of groups of people in the capitalist economy, as wage workers or entrepreneurs, has had a serious impact on social relations since the end of the nineteenth century. I explored how these developments were gendered and had particular implications in Maputo. Since the earliest days of Lourenço Marques, women’s economic, legal and social space in the urban context had been a profoundly contested one as they enjoyed far less access to wage-paying jobs and were dependent on their connections with (wealthier) men. But women have gradually found more opportunities for work. The differentiation in gender roles that has come into being in Maputo is causing tensions within families and generating conflicts. My female interlocutors commented that on the one hand, they are forced or encouraged to study and work but are blamed when they then cannot take care of the household. Along the same lines, the prevailing ideas about men show that they are expected to have a job and support the household financially but, in reality, many cannot live up to this ideal since they are unemployed and their wives are succeeding in earning more money than they can (Tvedten et al. 2013: 3). Women complain about their husbands failing to offer financial support, and men say that it is difficult to find a wife if they have no car or house. Domestic violence is increasing amid these frustrations, even more so in cases where women have an income while their husbands are unemployed (see e.g. da Silva and Andrade 2000: 64–5). Another source of friction is the extent to which a couple’s income should be shared with their respective families. The demands of extended families on relatively wealthy urban couples are deepening conflicts within marriages, and these demands are being experienced as a burden. Distrust about unfair sharing

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between relatives and couples is becoming evident. People complain about the problems of setting up businesses and advancing because they need to take care of poorer relatives. As soon as the breadwinners are earning money, their relatives claim to need financial support. Problematic access to money and distrust in (affective) relationships figured in the witchcraft stories circulating in Maputo, such as the stories about women who were sacrificed to a spirit by their family to generate wealth (Chapter Four). Such witchcraft allegations are considered grave accusations and illustrate how structures of sharing wealth are under enormous pressure. As more and more people are becoming rich and others poorer, and as fewer and fewer ‘normal’ households can be found, persons feel that patterns of exchange are no longer healthy. A deep sense of (spiritual) insecurity involving danger, doubt and fear plagues many Mozambicans. Strikingly, people particularly feel danger in relation to those who are closest to them, such as kin, partners and neighbours (see also Cavallo 2013: 155; Nielsen 2010). Acts of witchcraft can mostly be expected from those within intimate networks who share or want to share one’s wealth (see also Ashforth 2001: 215–17). I also had to learn, as did my friends and interlocutors, to be constantly vigilant and to presume malice in contacts with them and others regardless of appearances. The fact that I was robbed several times and assaulted in my own house was a clear manifestation of evil powers that threatened me, according to converts and pastors, and also non-Pentecostals. They advised me to dismiss my housekeeper, to suspect my neighbours, and to be careful when establishing contacts and inviting people into my apartment. It is in this reality that the financial offerings and the related practices of Brazilian Pentecostal churches are taking place. The incident with the coffins touched a raw nerve regarding the regeneration of life, which is embedded in historical socio-economic transformations. The Brazilian Pentecostal churches’ answer was not to call for a revitalisation of faded kin relations and sharing money to sustain the regeneration of life and development. On the contrary, pastors are calling for a definitive break with patterns of dependency through demanding holocaustos. Converts have to bury and burn traditional ways of living by destroying local wealth relations and pay excessive amounts of money to the church. In the Brazilian Pentecostal context, people have to distance themselves from relations that are generally considered as the source of well-being, such as kinship. This appears to be especially appealing to the upwardly mobile women who participate in the financial campaigns.

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Tithes, offerings and campaigns According to neo-Pentecostal leaders, tithes and offerings are vital tools for the dissemination of the Gospel (Macedo 2004b: 60–8; Tadeu undated A). It was clear and logical to converts that their money was being used to pay the salaries of pastors, the church rent and to broadcast their message. Moreover, by giving tithes and offerings, converts became blessed, and they had the right to collect their blessings (o direito de cobrar) according to Malachi 3: 10, a Bible verse that was often used in services: ‘Bring the full amount of your tithes to the Temple, so that there will be plenty of food there. Put me to the test and you will see that I will open the windows of heaven and pour out on you in abundance all kinds of good things’ (Good News Bible 1994). Pastors always used the example of famous people who had shown their respect of God by paying tithes and had been transformed into millionaires, such as Henry Ford and William Colgate (Macedo 2004b: 64). By showing similar faith, according to the pastors, converts would be surprised. Their money would never dry up. On the contrary, it would continue to multiply and they would have everything they had always wanted, such as peace, happiness, health, love and food (Macedo 2004b: 64–5; Tadeu undated A: 83–8). Through the money one gives, God is pressed to offer abundance in return. By demonstrating initiative through sacrificing money, believers have the right to demand their blessings from God. Yet the spirit in which one sacrifices is crucial. In principle, offerings are made by ‘free and spontaneous will’ (Macedo 2004b: 66). And the most important thing is not the amount of money donated but whether one gives his/her best wholeheartedly. The Bible story of the poor widow and rich people was told regularly – many rich people threw large amounts of money into the temple treasury, but a poor widow put in two very small copper coins, worth only a fraction of a penny. And Jesus said, ‘I tell you that this poor widow put more in the offering box than all the others. For the others put in what they had to spare of their riches; but she, poor as she is, put in all she had – she gave all she had to live on’ (Mark 12: 43b−44, Good News Bible 1994). The special campaigns (campanhas) such as the holocaustos and Fogueiras allow people ‘to give their best’ and ‘to test God’ in order to realise a particular dream, such as finding a faithful husband. Old Testament people sacrificed, Jesus gave his life in sacrifice and so converts have to make sacrifices as well: they should concentrate all their energy into one request. When I interviewed Dona Maria (Chapter Three),10 she was participating in the Fogueira Santa and explained how it only works if one is committed and has no doubts about the outcome: 10 13 June 2006.

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The Fogueira is not just something. For a long time, I didn’t understand it, it isn’t something anybody can do. You must really want to do it and not have any doubts, and then big things will happen. This has happened for many people. You give away something of yourself to God, to obtain something better. Suppose that you want to build a house but you have 20 or 30 million Meticais [about US$ 600 to US$ 900 at the time] and that isn’t sufficient. Then you give that amount to God, in the sense of, well, it belongs to Him and he will multiply it. Or if I have an old car but I think I deserve a newer one, then I give away the old car by selling it and offer the money in church. God will provide me with a new car. The first time I participated, oh I was really innocent. I earned a salary of 1 million [about US$ 30] each month, and I gave it with many requests, I didn’t want to drink any more, to smoke, I wanted to study and to succeed. I quit drinking and smoking, yes, I remember that Fogueira very well. The other Fogueiras, I wasn’t strong, I was doubtful, not serious, I was playing. But this year, I started things right. I now participate with a lot of faith. It is necessary to have a lot of faith. I feel that good things are going to happen.

Dona Maria was one of the several converts I met who, with a great deal of effort, had gradually been successful. She managed, as she dearly wished, to get a scholarship to study in Brazil and had started to build a house. The idea of establishing a particular type of reciprocal relationship between believers and God seems obvious: converts give to receive plenty in return. However it appeared that the explanations and practices had adopted a particular dimension in the South–South transnational exchange between converts and pastors. For example, even though the Bible passage pastors often cited said that the amount was not important, the pastors declared that Mozambican coins were worthless and converts should give banknotes or US dollars. Competition over the quantities people gave was encouraged, and this ensured that converts gained a certain respect. The pastors asked for large amounts of money during services, and whoever who came forward received special privileges. Mutual obligations between converts, pastors and God could barely be maintained because of the excessive offerings. At first, and before participating in Fogueira services, I had no idea of the real quantities converts were sacrificing but then started to realise that offerings were out of all proportion when converts repeatedly talked about conflicts with partners and kin, and accusations of ‘eating’ money. To put it briefly, giving everything one has, like the poor widow did, was taking on particular dimensions in the lives of Mozambican converts and their families, and went beyond the possibility of receiving in abundance. I illustrate this with the case of Dona Silmara, who followed a Brazilian Pentecostal ­business course.

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10  Collecting offerings in the God is Love Church, Maputo. Photo: Rufus de Vries.

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Business course When I met Dona Silmara (Chapter Three) she was following a business course at the Universal Church. It consisted of ten weekly lessons given by pastors after the evening services in different branches. I accompanied Dona Silmara to a few of these sessions. The course was meant for converts with a business or plans to start one, and the central message was that course participants should ‘think big’ and that limits only exist in people’s minds. God gave the nations, and thus the world, to his managers – following the Bible texts of Isaiah 54: 2–4 and Psalms 2: 7–9 – i.e. to the course participants.11 So the pastor asked people how they planned to become wealthy, and covered themes such as how to expand one’s business through faith, what a good manager is, how to remain successful and how to overcome obstacles. One lesson was devoted to achieving one’s goals. The pastor said:12 You have to do something. People here [in Mozambique] are afraid of starting a business. Mozambique is lacking many things. There are shops selling fashions, food and home appliances. But in various neighbourhoods there is a shortage of good bakeries and of bread deliveries. In addition, I discussed with the bishop how a lot could be done in the field of tourism. Foreigners are coming to invest in tourism. But you are here already. There are so many possibilities. Rent an office, take pictures all over the country and put them on a website!

The participants on the course, the majority of whom were women, were encouraged if not pushed into becoming local entrepreneurs (see also van Dijk 2010). Converts were challenged to act in the neo-liberal market and benefit from any opportunities it offered, and to take the initiative to set up as many businesses as possible because God detests poverty and wants to bless abundantly. The pastors taught members the rationality of the market based on the Gospel (see also Gifford 2004: 44–82). The Apostle of the Maná Church wrote a booklet about finances (Tadeu undated B) in which he used the parable Jesus told in Mark 4 about how God’s reign is likened to a farmer who sows seeds and then harvests them. Thus believers needed to sow money to harvest prosperity. This parable was used during sermons as well, and Tadeu himself preached about it on one of his visits to Mozambique, as part of the Cruzada de Milagres (Crusade of Miracles) on 20 May 2007. The basis of these ideas is that the responsibility of each believer is crucial for God to realise a prosperous life for the business (wo) 11 The

pastor knew me as a regular visitor but did not treat me as a full ‘manager’. He nevertheless allowed me to attend because converts took me to services and there was a chance that I would become a manager. 12 6 October 2005.

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men. Converts thus had to write business plans, set goals, think about solutions and not about problems, and pray for divine inspiration. Participants of the course at the Universal Church had to present their business plans to the pastors during a private meeting. Dona Silmara was nervous and uncertain about her plan, and afterwards she reported that the pastor had given her negative feedback. She had several small businesses, but they were not expanding, and the pastor made it clear that she had to change her strategies. In one session of the course, participants had to demonstrate their commitment to becoming prosperous managers by throwing grape juice (to symbolise Jesus’s blood) over the pastor and telling him the amount of money they would sacrifice to reach the goal they had set. Dona Silmara signalled for me to remain seated. Afterwards she said it would have been complicated if I had become involved: one has to be a very committed member of the special group selected by God to be the manager of wealth. It was clear to her and me that I was (still) not such a manager. It was only a year later when she talked about several more private meetings with the pastor and the pressure she was under that I realised she had also wanted to protect me, and probably herself, from the ‘truth’. The pastor regularly visited her businesses as part of his counselling practices. To show her progress, she had to submit monthly overviews of the profits she was making to the pastor who then decided how much money she had to sacrifice. It usually correlated to the amount she had earned. However, after making offerings under pressure for several years, she ran into difficulties with her business because she could not invest enough capital in it and could not pay her employees. She finally went bankrupt. She told me13 that some time before she and other fairly successful business people from the Universal Church had been called for a session with the national bishop who organised a special campaign for them. The entrepreneurs present had to have a private gathering with the bishop and they were asked to place their hand on the Bible and say how much they had in their bank accounts. Dona Silmara looked at me and said, ‘Of course, with my hand on the Bible I could not lie,’ and she told them how much was there: US$15,000. The bishop then made it clear that she had to sacrifice everything in her bank account, and the next day she went to the bank to collect the money in cash because the pastors refused to accept cheques and bank transfers. ‘So I cannot prove what happened,’ Dona Silmara added. The bank manager invited her to make an appointment with him as he felt her actions were suspicious but Dona Silmara assured him that she was completely sure about what she was doing – ‘Although, Linda, I felt a lot of pain in my heart,’ she added. Dona Silmara hid all of this from her children, some of whom were also converts. Thus nobody knew about the difficulties she had run 13 Conversation, 9 June 2006.

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into. She was not the only one with problems. For example, Dona Silmara asked me if I had seen the propaganda for the Church’s services and courses on television on Miramar. One woman who testified how she had become a millionaire in church had later fallen into beggary and was living on the streets of Maputo because she had given everything to the Church. Pentecostal aid: help yourself I thought that after sacrificing so much money and going bankrupt, Dona Silmara would be angry with the Church and its pastors. Perhaps surprisingly, she was angry with herself: ‘How could I have been so blind? Why did I give all my money away?’ she asked about a month after she had left the Universal Church. She started frequenting the World Church of the Power of God, ‘where I am learning facts I never knew’. For example, she came to know about the Apostle Peter, who wrote about ‘false teachers who will make a profit out of telling you made-up stories’. ‘In the Universal Church they were selective with Bible texts,’ Dona Silmara stated, while ‘in the World Church there are only tithes and offerings and these you give out of love. There are no holocaustos or pledges. If people want to make them, that’s fine, but it isn’t compulsory.’ This was at the beginning of the World Church’s activities in Maputo. Later on, the pastors there also started organising campaigns and sacrifices. While Dona Silmara was critical about the behaviour of some of the pastors at the Universal Church, she continued to wonder ‘how I could have been so stupid’. She could have read the Bible passages she was learning about in the new church. In line with the idea of ‘intelligent faith’, she had not used her brains but instead ‘I submitted myself to their pressure’, because she was afraid she would not be performing her faith correctly. Thus instead of intelligent faith she had demonstrated emotional faith. During one of my visits to the shop she owned, a Universal Church pastor entered.14 The pastor in question, a Mozambican, had been badly treated by the national bishop because ‘he doesn’t take dollars (ele não tira dolares) [from converts]’, Dona Silmara revealed. This pastor was very suspicious about my presence, since any problem, for example an article I might publish about him, could ruin him, but Dona Silmara assured him that he could trust me. He and Dona Silmara started talking about a programme on tithes broadcast on STV. They discussed a woman’s charge against her husband who had sold their house to be able to offer the proceeds to the Universal Church. The husband had been asked to promise US$1,000. The convert said he did not have that amount, but his pastor pressed him to sell his house. On the day the house was sold, for 90 million Meticais 14 7 March 2007.

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(about US$2,700), the pastor took all the money. The convert’s wife knew nothing about the sale of her house and began legal action. Then, the pastor who was talking to Dona Silmara mentioned her own case and reminded her how she had given all her money. Dona Silmara looked tormented. The pastor continued: ‘At that moment, you fell (a senhora caiu)’ [in the sense of failing]. The insinuation was clear to Dona Silmara and me: a soldier in God’s army should never fall. Dona Silmara had not used her faith intelligently. It was Dona Silmara’s own fault that she had lost all her money. This was further clarified by the reactions of other converts who were Dona Silmara’s friends but had distanced themselves from her when she left the Universal Church. One of them had an idea of what had happened, ‘You must use intelligent faith. I don’t feel obliged to always give what the pastors ask. In the beginning, I did, as many did and do, but it isn’t necessary. You have to give when you want to and are able to. Silmara was too obedient.’15 Intelligent faith also means that converts should be alert to the pastors’ activities. Dona Silmara’s former friend claimed that pastors can make mistakes and also fall (caiem), like the pastor who had committed a grave error by taking the money from the house sale (see above) instead of waiting for the convert to offer it in church. Even pastors can be imbued with evil, and every convert needs to engage in self-responsibility, which is central to the neo-Pentecostal faith. Felizmina, whose sister had married a pastor without her father’s consent, spelled out how, ‘some converts are not strong enough to participate in the Universal Church. A lot of pressure is exerted on you. If you don’t know what your goals and objectives are, it is possible that you will do things you probably don’t want to.’16 To escape the pastor’s orders to pay a huge amount of money at the Fogueira, one woman decided to tell the pastor that she would sacrifice in the Universal Church in South Africa because she would be there on the day that the offering was due.17 Pentecostals might consider her strategy as an act of intelligent faith. Another revealing insight came when Dona Silmara and her former friends explained that the financial practices of the Universal Church in Mozambique are dissimilar to those in Brazil and that Bishop Edir Macedo was unaware of what was happening in Mozambique. One former Mozambican assistant pastor acknowledged that when Brazilian missionaries arrive in Mozambique, they are shocked about the financial excesses that are being demanded.18 According to other Mozambican assistant pastors and obreiros who had left the 15 Conversation, 17 July 2006. 16 Interview, 23 June 2006.

17 Conversation, 9 June 2006. 18 Interview, 1 March 2007.

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Universal Church, the Brazilians were surprised by the ease with which Africans offered money.19 Converts who had been part of the Church since it started in Mozambique, including Dona Silmara, said that sacrifices had become more extreme in recent years. As there seemed to be no limits to the sacrifices converts were prepared to make, amounts had increased. In this sense, the interaction between Mozambican converts and Brazilian pastors has reinforced aspects of the Pentecostal Prosperity Gospel, while adding other interpretations to Macedo’s explanations of certain Bible verses (see also Maxwell 1998). Two interrelated developments would appear to be influencing financial practices in Brazilian Pentecostal churches in Mozambique. First, the tensions, distrust and fear that exist in social relationships and the spiritual insecurity of spirit spouses and witchcraft are shaping desires to make a break with spiritual and social relations by means of holocaustos and Fogueiras. Second, sacrifices are becoming part of the way women are demonstrating their ability to pioneer and be successful in their careers and businesses, their marriage and even in church. They have to show that they are adequately and smartly equipped, or ‘sufficiently strong’, to use the words of convert Felizmina, to gain and set frontiers in the world. To this end, the transnational space of conquest encourages them to go even further than they could have imagined, including in the financial domain. Converts were highly critical of society, particularly the pressure of kin and the role of spirits, and had a deep wish to leave everything behind (Chapter Two). Convert Julia, for example, tried to explain the burden she felt:20 My kin visit a curandeiro to get protection. The healer will drive the evil spirits away. But these evil spirits have to go somewhere, if they leave one person they have to go to another and they go through blood relations. The evil comes into me or into my sister. I am so tired of this vicious circle and want to leave Mozambique. I want to live elsewhere where you are less liable to be affected.

The possibility of distancing oneself from this vicious circle by going elsewhere is found by joining the transnational Pentecostal domain of conquista. It is interesting to note that as part of the Fogueira, pastors and bishops travel to Mount Sinai in Israel, effectuating a double transnational mobility – Brazi–Mozambique–Israel. This would seem to demonstrate the strength converts attribute to Fogueira, to the extent that visitors from other churches are even attracted. The trip to Israel adds to the power of mobility generated by transnational Pentecostalism as additional boundaries and borders are

19 Conversations in May 2007.

20 Conversation, 3 February 2007.

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crossed.21  Inevitably, it enhances the experience of pioneering, similar to the experiences of God’s chosen people who went on a journey to the Promised Land. Having left everything behind in Egypt, they received God’s special blessings on Mount Sinai (Exodus 19, Good News Bible 1994). Mozambican converts travelled a comparable journey by following pastors on trips in the mountains along the border with Swaziland. I participated on such a journey, and the walk to the top, where money was offered, was another battle for inexperienced walkers who panted and groaned to make the transgression of boundaries and limits possible. By doing something extreme, heaven can be brought to earth, as illustrated by the ladder to heaven that stood in the sanctuary during the fogueira campaign that I witnessed. By sacrificing money, Julia broke off her relationship and dependence on kin. Her parents often complained that she left hardly any money to buy food (Chapter Four). To protect herself, tithes or normal offerings would not have had sufficient impact and something bigger had to take place to show her kin and any evil spirits that she was serious and could mobilise more powerful forces, as she explained when she returned to the Universal Church.22 A powerful miracle had to happen to radically change her situation. Knowing that money could make or break relations, she did a holocausto. Instead of her kin destroying her, the opposite would happen and she would triumph by becoming even wealthier. In their classic monograph about sacrifice, Hubert and Mauss (1964) focus on the destruction of the offering, the sacrificial victim, that generates spiritual benefit for the one doing the sacrificing, altering his/her state. In the sacrificial ritual the victim is destroyed, materialising a separation between the victim and the sacrifice, which enables a sacred force to be made manifest. The victims of Brazilian Pentecostal financial sacrifices are those who depend on the money that is offered, and who, in this context, are principally relatives and ‘fictive kin’ (Lundin 2007: 115–16). Converts’ investments in demanding trips, devastating financial sacrifices and ‘coffin rituals’ provoke and strengthen feelings of distrust between them and their kin, partners and neighbours, who cannot share in the wealth of their Pentecostal relative and are afraid of losing their belongings to the church. While church practices are meant to protect one from begging, distrust, jealousy and evil powers, risk and distrust are in fact being fuelled. Pentecostal anti-witchcraft rituals suggest to non-Pentecostals that converts are witches themselves (Marshall 2009; Newell 2007; Smith 2001), and any denial of local social obligations generally triggers witchcraft accusations (Geschiere 1997). 21 Saliently, a convert who worked as a stewardess for the Mozambican airline told me that

the pastors did not travel to Israel but went on holiday to South Africa (conversation, 9 October 2006). This convert left the Church. 22 Conversation, 15 August 2008.

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Converts come to stand alone. Dona Silmara became dependent on the pastors and became deaf or insensitive to other views and Bible passages. When reflecting with Dona Silmara, after her bankruptcy, on why converts give all their money away, she said: ‘It is as if you cannot think any more, you are totally in it.’23 Converts rarely participate in a community of engaged brothers and sisters with checks and balances where trust can be built. In contrast to Englund (2007), who concluded that Pentecostalism in Malawi was an important source for the development of civility and trust, Brazilian Pentecostalism in Mozambique (and the Universal Church in South Africa, van Wyk 2014) enhanced anonymity and distrust. Converts with problems are avoided by fellow converts. Little to no personal information is shared and Pentecostal generally do not establish contact with others in church, in contrast to the AICs and the Assemblies of God churches I frequented. I also observed how attempts to create a group of women to visit the sick or to collect money for weddings were ignored as far as possible. Converts said that they were too busy for these sorts of activities. To them, the possibility of remaining relatively anonymous was an attractive aspect of the Brazilian Pentecostal churches, exactly because of the level of distrust in society. In many families, members visited different churches: one went to Catholic mass, another to the Assembly of God, one to the Zionists and another to the Universal Church. To prosper, they had to operate individually, otherwise power and money had to be shared. Everyone was looking for a powerful spiritual source to protect them against jealousy and harm. Converts do not necessarily perceive themselves as victims of Pentecostal financial practices. They have to act through faith and use their intelligence, so blaming others is senseless. The way in which they participate shows whether they are righteous pioneers. Dona Silmara and other converts did not simply perceive the Brazilian Pentecostal church as a place of support but as a setting ‘that only helps those who are able to help themselves’ (van Dijk 2010: 110). Women of Dona Silmara’s generation are keen to become part of a new socioeconomic and cultural order in which it is possible to study and get a well-paid job. The Brazilian Pentecostal business courses, for example, are perceived by these women as a place where they can gain some basic understanding of the economic market and how to become successful women in the economic as well as in the socio-cultural sphere. They feel that they have to learn to make personal choices and take control of their lives. Upwardly mobile women’s dedication to practices such as burying coffins and sacrificing money affirms their break with the local culture, their new selfunderstanding in life and their progress and success. Young women, such as Marta and Elena, actively participated and offered money during special services 23 Conversation, 9 October 2006.

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that focused on finding a partner and a house. It was a strategy to control their own sexual and marital relationships. Their self-earned money would no longer be a danger in intimate relationships but would contribute to one, and their independence could be converted into ‘affective relationships based on love’, instead of provoking animosity. Sacrifices were a tool and a test for women’s capacities to pioneer the urban space. In this respect, I had the impression that younger converts perceived what was taking place in the churches as quite normal. The uncertainties and risks that were part of their daily lives put the practices of the Brazilian Pentecostal churches in line with ‘normal’ occurrences in society. Compared to the older generation, the younger generation, in particular 15 to 30 year olds, was acquainted with the challenges, uncertainties and conflicts of urban society. They had grown up in a time of war or post-war and during the introduction of a neo-liberal economy, and seemed better equipped to deal with the demands being placed on them than women like Dona Silmara. I found that they more often negotiated with the pastors about their sacrifices, and left the church sooner if they felt their lives were not improving. Even though I witnessed that some of them were not always able to respond adequately to the pressure of the pastors, Felizmina, Elena and others seemed able to do so and, by trial and error and after falling over and picking herself up again, Dona Silmara learned to do so too. A final observation about the Brazilian Pentecostal ‘self-help mentality’ regarding money practices concerns the position of the pastors. Like the converts, the pastors too have to show that they can be victorious, for example by being able to convince people of participating in the fogueira. They operate in a hierarchical church system where the national bishop, probably at the request of the international leadership, tells the head pastor of each church to deliver a certain amount of money every month. Former Mozambican assistant pastors of the Universal Church who now worked for the World Church said that depending on how successful they were, or how much they were able to get from converts, they were given certain privileges, such as a car and a better house.24 The pastor who visited Dona Silmara had to give up the car he had received from the bishop because he refused ‘to take US dollars from the converts’. After the Fogueira in which I participated, one of the Mozambican assistant pastors came to me to say that he had no money to travel to a church branch elsewhere in Maputo, where he had been moved to. Dona Silmara commented on how, after the Fogueira, pastors were always moved on: ‘If the Fogueira does not produce positive results you can complain to the new pastor, but he will say that you or

24 Conversations in May 2007.

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the former pastor probably did not perform it properly or that you didn’t give with your heart, or you didn’t give enough, and so on.’25 So, people should not put their faith in the pastors but see them as persons who like other believers were successful or unsuccessful fighters trying to ‘overthrow’ Satan and build a prosperous life. Yet, pastors had shown their competence in accessing the power of the Holy Spirit in the past, especially the Brazilian pastors who had demonstrated their strength by travelling to ‘evil Africa’ and defeating demons there. They could testify about blessings they had received as spiritual warriors, while they needed to continue fighting the Devil in their lives as well. Conclusion: between failure and success The excessive Brazilian Pentecostal financial campaigns exceed the boundaries of what can be considered a healthy economy of exchange in which religion serves the common good. Admittedly, Brazilian Pentecostal pastors are encouraging Mozambicans to think positively, start businesses and develop socio-economically (Attanasi and Yong 2012; Berger 2009; Martin 2002). But the techniques they are using to produce progress are creating socio-cultural discontinuities, risk and vulnerability. Particularly for upwardly mobile women, Pentecostal techniques of sacrificing money are alluring. Economic liberalism that is generating new opportunities as well as new risks has affected these women’s reciprocal relationships while building upon former ruptures in the reproductive order that used to impact on urban women. Increased access to waged work and changes in gender roles have shaped a relative independence for women who converted to Brazilian Pentecostalism. Simultaneously, these ruptures have introduced uncertainties and vulnerability. Jealousy, insecurity and fragile kin and intimate relationships were usually central in Pentecostal women’s lives, but Brazilian Pentecostal churches are not reacting to this reality by providing a safe shelter, coping strategies, certainty or help in repairing relations. Instead, ruptures are increasing as a result of the destructive financial sacrifices that show the violence of conversion in mechanisms of destroying. Local ideas and practices for achieving prosperity have to disappear. To escape control by others (kin, partners and spirits) and to achieve control over economic and cultural conditions, the important traditional social order has to be destroyed. A very visible case is the burying of coffins in or near a Universal Church building accompanied by promises of offerings that could easily amount to as much as US$15,000. This is about a year’s salary for wealthy converts and an outrageous amount of money for those on a basic income. 25 Conversation, 9 October 2006.

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The act of sacrificing not only shows the need to erase ‘Mozambican culture’ once and for all but also offers the possibility of realising a new life in the current neo-liberal society. The assumption is that churches like the Universal Church brainwash and exploit people, and that the prosperity gospel is wishful thinking. But well-educated converts disagree with this view. They go to the Brazilian Pentecostal churches and participate in Fogueiras exactly because of the pastors’ capacities to overrule local powers and dependencies, and the pastors’ acquaintance with a neo-liberal economy (see also Comaroff 2009; Meyer 2007). While outsiders see the financial activities of Brazilian Pentecostal churches as negative, female converts are attracted by the fact that the churches are not offering help but push them to help themselves, an attitude they aspire to and through which they can learn and demonstrate their capacities to pioneer in the world and establish powerful positions. Sacrificing, fighting and struggling are manifestations of upwardly mobile women and their participation in the urban domain and its economic activities. Following Bataille’s ‘enigma of sacrifice’ (1991), the act of destroying becomes a form of acquiring power. Where Bataille describes situations of rich people gaining status by showing their disregard for their excess, for example during so-called potlatches, Pentecostal believers acquire power by proving the strength of their faith when they sacrifice. This will however only be the case if they do it with intelligent faith – which is why Dona Silmara failed. The subsequent violence of the sacrifices women make, such as losing everything they have, is something that the younger generation in particular appears to take for granted. The different strategies converts have opted for are related to the experiences they have already had in the urban domain. Young people seem more acquainted with the risks and tricks of urban life in which pastors, like everybody else, are pioneering the options that neo-liberalism and democracy in their societies lay bare. Older converts are learning this by doing. Having participated in the Universal Church for about fifteen years, Dona Silmara left it, and has established a much more independent position towards the pastors at the new Brazilian Pentecostal church she now attends. Alternatively, numerous converts deal pragmatically with their relationship with their church. Because the church is not a social institution and trust is not cultivated, they can easily leave (see also van Wyk 2011). Some temporarily participate in sacrifices to find out what they will gain, whereas others stay for years. Many converts hop from church to church, and this practice demonstrates how converts are navigating the field of religion. As the church is essentially part of a risk society, converts behave accordingly. Making sacrifices, which harbours the possibility of failure, becomes important precisely in the way that it is a sign of the believer’s moral entitlement to prosperity in all domains of life. The urge to sacrifice so much money, which goes against local social conventions, has developed as a result of interaction between pastors and converts.

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Mozambican converts have pushed the logic of Pentecostal sacrifices much further than the Brazilian missionaries could initially have imagined possible. With few mechanisms of control, as is characteristic in a pioneer society where everybody is seeking deals and chances, pastors can experiment to see how far converts are prepared to go. In this sense, interaction between Mozambicans and Brazilians has reinforced aspects of the Pentecostal Prosperity Gospel. At the end of my fieldwork period, pastors were becoming upset by the increasing numbers of court cases, although it seemed that people had little chance of winning their cases because of a lack of evidence as payments are always in cash. Increasingly, converts who had been with the Universal Church since the start were leaving it to join the World Church of the Power of God. This reminded them of the time when the Universal Church’s sacrifices were more modest as the Apostle of the new World Church had been the first bishop of the Universal Church in Mozambique. And Mozambican assistant pastors who were feeling they had been abused by the Brazilians were thinking of starting their own churches. The question is whether there might now be a tendency towards a more balanced connection between individual forms of accumulation and longer-term social reproduction (Haynes 2012). So far, the pioneering society of Maputo is still offering pastors who left their former churches the space to start their own practices where they can copy financial campaigns, such as the Fogueira. In the same pioneering spirit, new converts are enthusiastically starting to participate in the correntes and offerings in these new Pentecostal churches. Other converts prefer to stay in the churches where they have already invested so much, as they know that they will only be rewarded in the long term.

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Conclusion: Violent Conversion In a shifting, uncertain but challenging urban environment, like that found in the Mozambican capital Maputo, upwardly mobile women are seeking to direct and control their new socio-economic and cultural positions. Uncertainties about possible new ways of life require critical cultural reflection by women, especially with regard to their dependence on kin and partners. Solutions to the ambiguities and difficulties that women face can be unclear and vague, yet ill-defined spaces provide people with opportunities for exploring and occupying spaces in new ways and even to create new ones (de Boeck and Plissart 2004; Cooper and Pratten 2015). Following Mozambique’s socialist period, in the early post-independence period, when the government attempted to monitor its citizens and bring them under control, the current more liberal era is allowing people to look for new opportunities. Maputo can thus be seen as a pioneering society, where upwardly mobile women are exploring new possibilities to shape their lives. These women are seeking ways to gain new positions in the urban spaces that have been defined by colonial and post-colonial power structures that restricted opportunities for women in relation to professional careers, dependence on kin and sexual expressions. They are challenging the socio-cultural frontiers. Brazilian Pentecostalism seems to connect well with a pioneering spirit. In the urban environment of Maputo, where everyone is busy claiming political, cultural and economic spaces, Pentecostals are conquering these terrains spiritually. By stamping their feet on the floor during church services and by burning demons, the converts drive away ‘evil others’ who might try to claim their life spaces. Pentecostals are busy creating new life spaces by breaking down boundaries, changing local marriage customs, severing relations with kin and ancestors and setting up businesses. Brazilian Pentecostal discourses and practices are persuading followers to move frontiers and take control of their lives and society through the power of the Holy Spirit. The South–South transnational dimension of Brazilian Pentecostalism in Mozambique has turned out to be especially relevant for upwardly mobile women in their exploration of alternative lifestyles and their search for new socio-economic and cultural options. The particular openness of Brazilian pastors on issues such as love, marriage and sexuality, which are at the heart of the

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urban transformations that women experience, adds to the pastors’ spiritual and cross-cultural strengths. This is allowing them to cross sensitive cultural boundaries and is making them important and attractive healers and counsellors. In this respect, women’s local socio-cultural position as cultural mediators (Tripp et al. 2009) connects with the transnational Pentecostal transgression of boundaries. Both find and reinforce each other in their capacities to challenge and move frontiers in the national sphere, particularly regarding issues of family and gender. Upwardly mobile women’s participation in Brazilian Pentecostalism demonstrates how they are conquering (conquistar) new ways of being and doing through the transnational power of the Holy Spirit. In their attempts to tame the ‘evil’ in the city and occupy the urban and national spaces, Brazilian Pentecostal pastors and their followers are, however, using techniques that regularly result in conflicts between believers and nonbelievers or place pressure on followers and their kin. To be able to transform one’s life, Pentecostal ideology stresses that one has to make a break with the past, including one’s ancestral spirits, which are, by definition, considered to be evil. Converts consequently become engaged in a spiritual war against demons, removing evil from their lives, for example by burning the materials that belong to ‘demonised persons’ such as curandeiros. As part of this war, Pentecostal women are coming to see their kin and husbands as being imbued with evil powers and can no longer trust them. In practice, this often leads to converts separating from their partners and (ancestral) kin, which effectively means abandoning their social security network. Moreover, the endless requirements to offer money in the churches means that investments in new businesses, building houses and in education cannot be made, leading to downward mobility. Violent dimensions are, therefore, involved in the practice of pioneering. Upwardly mobile women are opting to be part of such religious movements because of the possibilities to destroy evil forces, to transform their lives through different techniques of prayer, exorcism and tithing, and because the strong focus on self-responsibility and self-help in the Brazilian churches corresponds with their ambitions. The violent character of conversion to Brazilian neo-Pentecostalim in Maputo has implications for our understanding of the role of neo-Pentecostal religion in contemporary society. It could be argued that Brazilian Pentecostalism on the African continent is ‘a contrary case’ (van Wyk 2014). Churches like the Universal Church seem to be different from many other Pentecostal churches because of the extreme focus on money, the lack of community and the unbearable family tensions that emerge. Yet, I think that a relatively extreme case might elucidate what is less obvious in other cases. While local conditions are crucial for understanding how and why conversion can become violent, such as in the case of the spirit spouse in Maputo, other work on neo-Pentecostal churches in Africa show similar ‘extreme’ issues, such as in the cases of Ghanaian churches

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in Botswana (van Dijk 2010) and the Nigerian Redeemed Christian Church of God (Ukah 2008). Even more, in Maputo, it is becoming increasingly apparent that other religious movements, such as several Zionist Churches, are adopting the demonic discourses of Brazilian Pentecostalism and are contributing to feelings of uncertainty and increasing tensions within families (Cavallo 2013). Therefore, in the remainder of this concluding chapter, I reflect and elaborate on the findings of this study and the broader implications for the future study of neo-Pentecostalism. In line with this study, the focus is directed towards the fields of family and gender, uncertainty, and prosperity and development. Pentecostalism, family and gender Leading studies on gender and Pentecostalism in Latin America have argued that tensions in the household decrease after conversion. Such cases are also known in Mozambique (Arthur and Mejia 2006: 68–72). However, in addition to the fact that changes in attitudes may be temporary (ibid.: 74–7), in my view it is the violence of conversion – illustrated by increasing tensions in the household – that is emerging as the most characteristic feature of Brazilian Pentecostalism in Mozambique with regard to the family and gender. One important explanation for this distinctive feature and its impact on family and marriage in Mozambique could be the appropriation of the South– South transnational factor of conquest. It can be concluded that Brazilian pastors’ close yet also distant position to Mozambicans and Mozambican culture boosts the spiritual war that Pentecostalism generally propagates. The results of this study suggest that the Pentecostal emphasis on breaking with ‘evil’ customs and relationships and investing in the spiritual war is enhanced by their presence in a South–South transnational space, especially as converts start to feel that they are strangers in their own society. In addition, the degree to which converts embody the transnational socio-cultural distance appears to correlate with upwardly mobile women’s willingness and ability to explore, occupy and create life domains. To gain more insight into the realities that Mozambican believers shape, I looked into how women embody the transnational Pentecostal formats in their daily life. Even if this works in different ways in the lives of Pentecostal women, the sensory modes shaped in South–South Pentecostalism make them increasingly sensitive to the spiritual war and also indifferent to other (religious) socio-cultural practices and the experiences of their non-Pentecostal kin and partners. Mozambican Pentecostal women like Yvon and Elena lose touch with the reality of their partners and kin, which creates tensions between them or intensifies existing frictions. This raises questions about whether Brazilian Pentecostalism, through its impact on upwardly mobile women, will have a lasting impact on Mozambican

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urban society. In my view, the answer largely depends on the (future) role of men in Brazilian Pentecostalism in the country or their comparative absence when it comes to issues of family, marriage and sexuality. In the Latin American cases where tensions in the households decreased after conversion, Pentecostal women often had husbands who also converted, which provided a sense of a collaborative project among husbands and wives (Brusco 1995). So far, with some exceptions, conversions to Brazilian Pentecostalism appear to have contributed to a growing divide between male and female spaces and between husbands and wives. Pentecostal women are having to conquer male spaces, and this is predominantly taking place without the conversion and integration of men. Men are not converting to Brazilian Pentecostalism easily or in large numbers. The pastors are directing their sermons and activities at women, and are barely addressing men at all where gender issues are involved, leaving the transformation of gendered spaces to women. Often, men become demonised among Pentecostal women, and only in a few cases are they seen as fellow soldiers. This division is leading to mutual incomprehension and conflicts between men and women – such as in the cases of Paula, Marta and Elena – and seems to be expanding further, as the Brazilian Pentecostal discourses are making inroads in other churches (Cavallo 2013). Simultaneously, a process of the re-masculinisation of Mozambican society seems to be taking place (Paraskeva 2009; Tvedten et al. 2013: 2), which might clash with Pentecostal women’s pioneering activities. In my opinion, the role of Pentecostalism in these spaces of confrontation will impact future gender divisions in the city as well as the extent of the feminising influence of Brazilian Pentecostalism more generally. If the conversion of male spaces creates conflicts rather than integrating more men in the conversion project, it is questionable whether Pentecostalism will play an important role in establishing workable gender roles in Maputo, even if Pentecostal women feel empowered by the Brazilian Pentecostal techniques of breaking, destroying and self-help. The Mozambican case shows that studying the ways in which neo-Pentecostal religion materialises in the field of gender and family thus requires moving beyond the search for how people establish stable new identities and relations. Once it is seriously acknowledged that neo-Pentecostalism is playing an important role in the creation of new domains of social interaction, such as in the household, we equally have to take into account the fact that conflicts can emerge at the frontiers of these life domains that appear to become particularly intense in South–South Pentecostal spaces (van de Kamp and van Dijk 2010). As upwardly mobile women in Brazilian Pentecostal spaces in Maputo are breaking with established conventions and pushing out all sorts of boundaries, they are also encountering opposition. Nevertheless, resistance and loneliness are logically integral to fighting an enemy and moving frontiers, which converts

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and pastors illustrated with biblical examples of the lives of Abraham, Moses, Jeremiah and Jesus. Pentecostalism, rupture and (in)security1 The violence of conversion to Brazilian Pentecostalism in Maputo and its generational and personal variety raise questions about the elective affinity between levels of (in)security in Mozambican society and violent conversion. During fieldwork in Maputo, it became apparent that the degree of violence created and experienced in the process of conversion is influenced by the level of people’s encounters with insecurity as much as their abilities to incorporate a pioneering mentality. The Pentecostal risks converts take are related to a particular type of society. Macamo (2005b) has noted that for many African societies, such as those in Lusophone Africa, agents’ risk behaviour is embedded in a history of vulnerability and violence and particular circumstances of social transformation. Considering the history of Mozambique, the discontinuity of conversion to Brazilian Pentecostalism might be seen in continuity with a history of insecurity and rupture in which different forms of violence become a social condition that both disorders and reorders social reproduction (Lubkemann 2008). In a comparative framework, it might be interesting to discern if the extent to which conversion turns into risk behaviour and causes (dis)continuity and (in) security (Engelke 2010) could be related to more general experiences of insecurity and rupture in a society now and in the past and the pioneering possibilities people have. It is interesting to note that an examination of neo-Pentecostalism in comparable urban societies, such as in Caracas (Sánchez 2008) and Durban (van Wyk 2014), led to similar observations about the aggressive activities of neo-Pentecostals. These scholars’ analyses confirm my suggestion that people who appear to be connecting most to the pioneering techniques of neo-Pentecostalism are those who are trying to benefit from the unclear, uncertain and open spaces in their society, be they spiritual or physical, which are being claimed by competing politics, economies, spirits and cultures. These neo-Pentecostal techniques seem to have a greater impact in environments with a strong survivalof-the-fittest mentality. Furthermore, neo-Pentecostal practices are gaining new and specific dimensions in such places, partly depending on the specific transnational connections (van de Kamp and van Dijk 2010). Looking at the interaction between Brazilian pastors and Mozambican converts, the (literal) price of the sacrifices that are demanded, for example, can thus increase.

1 As

said in the Introduction, I use insecurity and uncertainty interchangeably, and see them as ‘structures of feeling’ (Cooper and Pratten 2015: 1).

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There are scholars who believe that people are finding the processes of globalisation uncontrollable, especially in so-called developing countries, and that religious movements serve to construct ‘defensive identities that function as refuge and solidarity, to protect against a hostile outside world’ (Castells 1997: 65). Aside from the fact that globalisation does not necessarily present a danger for upwardly mobile Mozambicans, Pentecostal women in Maputo exemplify the understanding that alongside the uncertainties produced by globalisation are also chances to create new life worlds (Cooper and Pratten 2015; for Mozambique, Archambault 2015). The South–South transnational space of Brazilian Pentecostalism in Mozambique, is even encouraging these women to produce a Pentecostal process of globalisation by transcending the familiar. Upwardly mobile converts are displaying how their decisions and actions include being prepared to step out of well-trodden routines and show a willingness to destabilise the social order (Eriksen 2010). Crossing boundaries is not being experienced as disconcerting or uprooting, and South-South transnational Pentecostalism is becoming important precisely for how it is destabilising the notion of socio-culturally and nationally unified terrains (van de Kamp and van Dijk 2010). At the same time, the efforts to transcend boundaries and transform imply that conversion harbours embodied tensions between security and insecurity. Some converts acknowledged these tensions more openly than others, and reflected on their calculations of risk, such as the extent to which they would take a confrontational position towards kin and partners. In this respect, an important factor to consider is the tension between certainty and uncertainty as produced in the conversion process itself. Pentecostals have to demonstrate faith, and this means that they have to show that they are secure in this faith. Yet, pressure can be counterproductive, leading to ambiguity and violence. In the terapia do amor, converts accept the partner appointed to them by the Holy Spirit, even before a loving relationship has had time to emerge. Unfortunately, some marriages have led to not-so-loving relationships. By promising a pastor that they will give away all their savings, converts want to prove their commitment even though they cannot always foresee the long-term effects of such promises. In his article on religious transformation and uncertainty, based on the work of Crapanzano, Engelke (2005: 785) says that ‘the religious subject can act with certainty and still not understand what that certainty entails’ (see also Nieswand 2010). The act of certainty is uncertain in itself and, as I have shown in this study, potentially violent. Converts know that they are still prone to the Devil and can make mistakes. In this sense, they can never be totally secure about the positive outcome of their behaviour, even though they have converted, since they may become less vigilant and fail in their faith. However, in particular, young and highly educated Pentecostal women demonstrated that their supposedly failing faith was not necessarily a lack of religious

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sincerity but a matter of personal responsibility, such as in the cases where they stressed the importance of ‘intelligent faith’. These youngsters’ Pentecostal faith can at the same time be part of the Brazilian Pentecostal project of transformation and become a vehicle of criticism against it, or the interpretation of it by various Pentecostal pastors, more specifically. It appeared that what many Pentecostal leaders consider to be the right faith is focused on specific performances and attitudes, such as expressing certain bodily formats during the Therapy of Love and refusing to comply with traditional marriage arrangements, such as lobolo. Believers like Marta and Elena, however, were more concerned with developing the right faith by making their faith productive at university and in their relationships, meaning that they could not comply with all the pastors’ demands. In other words, what also counts for these young Pentecostals is balancing their multiple and conflicting responsibilities, and judging how to live their lives truthfully in the face of the various challenges that present themselves (Lambek 2000: 314–15). Believers like Marta and Elena are working on a relationship with God in which the Brazilian Pentecostal discourse matches their aspirations to take responsibility in their lives, and instead of simply accepting Pentecostal obligations to transform these by their actions. They are creating, for example, a Christian form of lobolo (van de Kamp and van Dijk 2010: 132–3). Pentecostalism, development and prosperity The violent character of conversion raises some final questions about the kind of development transnational Brazilian Pentecostalism is bringing about in Mozambique. Firstly, there is the issue of how Brazilian Pentecostalism relates to existing development models and then, secondly, what Brazilian Pentecostal development is like. In relation to existing development models, converts are fervently criticising local frameworks of development. Chapters Four, Five and Six analysed the ways in which converts prefer to detach themselves from local ideas of development that have been reintroduced into the policies of the Mozambican government and numerous NGOs. Converts are disconnecting from or transforming local healing rituals, marriage arrangements and exchange relations. Of particular importance here is the Brazilian Pentecostal preoccupation with raising awareness of the spiritual forces that are behind developmental processes based on ‘Mozambican traditions’. In general, people are worried about the role of spirits in post-war reconstruction activities and the implementation of neo-liberal economic programmes. They are afraid of the negative consequences of vengeful spirits as a result of the war and ‘sorcerers’ searching for wealth. The particular spiritual framework of Brazilian Pentecostals offers a space to address such concerns through confrontation. The secrecy that still surrounds the public presence of spirits due to a history in which they were negated is being

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opened up by the Brazilian transnational power of the Holy Spirit, which aims at eliminating ‘Afro-Brazilian’ spiritual forces. This Brazilian Pentecostal attitude is impacting the processes of finding a national identity. Pentecostals want a Mozambican identity that is free of traditional influences; and, in an attempt to destroy the past, they are burying ‘tradition’ in coffins and sacrificing vast sums of money. Their fellow citizens have understood this and are, in turn, trying to counter this Pentecostal process of forgetting the past and negating the shared responsibility of social and spiritual security with their ‘declarations of dependence’ (Ferguson 2013). Converts want to free themselves of the burden of local forms of development that are built on kinship relations. The risks that they consequently take are often not in tune with the strategies and interests of other members in their household who may be frequenting other churches and healers. The fact that persons in the same home are seeking out different spiritual powers demonstrates the problems surrounding wealth-sharing in Maputo, where growing inequalities between richer and poorer relatives and distrust between kin and partners are ever present. These tensions frequently have gendered dimensions, and are increasing because of the contradicting religious routes followed by members of the same households and the subsequent accusations of witchcraft from both sides (see also Pfeiffer et al. 2007). In the field of conflicting views and trajectories of development, the overtly critical views and, at times, aggressive actions by Pentecostals are leading to an explosion of tensions, as in the case of the stoning of a Universal Church building. Brazilian Pentecostalism is also critical of international donors’ efforts to develop Mozambique. According to Pentecostals, donors have created a mentality of holding up one’s hands, while pastors and converts agree that people have to help themselves and be responsible for their own actions. It is here that Brazilian Pentecostalism seems to be encouraging a form of socio-economic development that could be useful in a market economy (Attanasi and Yong 2012; Freeman 2012). People have to learn to plan their lives, be independent, take initiatives and run risks. Yet, it is important to realise that in environments such as Maputo, Pentecostal leaders are predominantly seizing the opportunities that neo-liberal structures offer rather than helping converts gain the type of skills that they need in a (new) capitalist order (see e.g. van Dijk 2010). The leadership of the churches is paying a high price for air time on television and is pressing people to offer all their savings to help the Pentecostal movement win new converts and open new buildings. Pentecostal practices are not a reaction to neo-liberalism but are enmeshed in it (Comaroff 2009; Meyer 2007; see also Bähre 2011), as these churches are, in many ways, operating as enterprises (Ukah 2008). Additionally, Brazilian Pentecostalism seems to be working to expand the boundaries of the present neo-liberal reality. Converts and pastors

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are seizing the opportunities they see in the new neo-liberal market, where there is little control by outsiders, and are, for example, pushing the limits of the amount of money they demand converts to sacrifice. A particular South–South transnational Pentecostal development model is being demonstrated, which is based on what van Dijk (2010) terms ‘social catapulting’ to describe a process that is contrary to the idea of social capital, whereby believers capitalise on the support that religious groups offer. Brazilian Pentecostal leaders are pressuring converts to engage in opportunities and challenges with minimal support. Employing Max Weber’s general argument that the market can be shaped by religiously inspired ethical codes of production in an environment of competition like Maputo, the Brazilian Pentecostal ethic encourages believers to take a pro-active attitude towards business and their own prosperity. The Brazilian Pentecostal development model that upwardly mobile women are adopting involves opening up fresh spaces and navigating new cultural and economic domains, even if this means going beyond what seems feasible, to realise a heaven on earth. Here, violent conversion serves to create a prosperous life. In this light, it is interesting to note that during recent years, increasing numbers of politicians and government officials have become followers of the Universal Church in particular, and relations between the Mozambican government and the Universal Church have intensified.2 The Brazilian Pentecostal narrative of self-responsibility as a means of becoming prosperous seems to be attractive in a neo-liberal environment where the national revolutionary narrative that Frelimo once propagated, which promised to unite Mozambique’s citizens for the general good, is crumbling (Sumich 2015). Both failure and success in creating a prosperous life are approached as the result of the effort of individuals who are more or less able to prove their competitiveness to God, who is believed to bless abundantly those believers who are determined in their faith. Even if it might seem easy to disqualify the image of a God who provides believers with enormous wealth, the point is that the Brazilian prosperity theology in Maputo powerfully places a high level of personal responsibility on the believer to realise God’s purpose for a successful life. Similar to observations in Durban (van Wyk 2014), Lagos (Ukah 2008) and Rio de Janeiro (Lima 2007), in a time where few citizens in Maputo believe that their government and other institutions such as the extended family will tackle the problems of unemployment, wealth-sharing and domestic violence, the idea that they can help themselves by showing strong faith seems to be the best self-governing technique that enables them to at least 2 Personal

observations in July and August 2011, together with communications with a few of my interlocutors in 2015 and with Lívia Reis, a PhD student at the State University of Rio de Janeiro.

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work on improving their own lives; even if this also enables the state and neoPentecostal Brazilian churches to disengage further from their responsibilities to confront social ills. Yet, it is through these possibilities for practising strong and intelligent faith that Pentecostal women in Maputo are demonstrating that conversion is important precisely in the way it is taking on private initiative and risk as ways forward. Women’s engagement in the South–South transnational Pentecostal spiritual war and its techniques of breaking, confronting and destroying is encouraging the stretching of societal frontiers. It is at the borders of these frontiers that conflicts are emerging as different groups, customs, values and policies clash. However, it is precisely at the frontier that boundaries become more permeable and that women are showing how much their religious practices can influence and shape socio-cultural changes.

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Index Boldfaced page numbers refer to illustrations AIDS (Acquired immune deficiency syndrome)  32, 132, 134, 137, 140 n.13, 152, 161–3 Abraham  84, 118, 165–6, 191 Adogame, Afe  63, 64, 67 adulthood  27, 84, 136 Africa and African  17, 26, 39, 57, 68, 134, 161, 191 Pentecostalism  1, 5–6, 12 n.22, 14, 19–21, 63, 67, 79, 98–9, 131–2, 167, 170, 188–9 heritage  7, 68–9, 72, 128–9 perception of  4, 9, 28, 70–2, 75, 78, 84, 103, 111–2, 117, 127, 168, 184 see also Southern Africa; South Africa African Independent Churches (AICs)  2, 4, 20–1, 28 n.36, 58, 61–2, 62 n.11, 94, 108, 113, 143, 182 see also prophets Afro-Brazilian  15, 68, 72 n.29, 110, 139 religion  1–2, 7, 9, 10, 14, 70–1, 74–5, 111, 141 spiritual battle  2–3, 14, 25, 28, 70, 74, 194 see also Candomblé; Pombagira: spirits; Umbanda amante  35, 89 n.14, 90, 94 Americas  14, 68 Latin America  2, 19, 22, 63, 68, 138, 189–90 US  26, 28, 63, 162 n.34 ancestors, ancestor spirits  18, 27, 29–30, 37, 53, 76, 84, 104–10, 126, 170 and marriage  18, 21, 38, 170 Pentecostal critique of/breaking with  5–6, 21, 24, 26, 30, 62, 65, 75–6, 90–1, 98–9, 110, 144–5, 148, 170, 188 problematic  90–1, 100, 108–10, 180, 193

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see also Afro-Brazilian; elders; spirits; spirit spouse Anderson, Allan  5, 6, 7, 152 Angola  7, 11, 68 Apostle 178 see also names of individual Apostles, Jorge Tadeu, Valdemiro Santiago Arnfred, Signe  41, 45, 47, 48, 86, 134 Asia, Asian  2, 6 n.6, 14, 40 Assembly of God Church  8, 8 n.14, 60 n.8, 83, 123 n.33, 143, 162 n.35, 182 and women  31–2, 82–3, 84 n.8, 145–6 assimilado  40–1, 44, 46, 72–3, 108 assistants (obreiros)  15, 82, 93, 94, 179–80 relationship to and between  52, 155–7, 160–1 during church services  113, 118, 120, 140, 143, 147, 149, 154, 169 Atlantic, transatlantic  9, 16, 67, 70 n.25, 78 Lusophone  56, 68–75, 78 transatlantic slave trade  9, 9 n.16, 68, 70 n.24 Beira  31 n.39, 114–15 churches in  11, 14–15 Berger, Peter L.  2, 3, 22–3, 184 Bible   87, 110, 118, 151, 156, 177, 180–2 study  8 n.12, 31, 32, 147 the use of verses  25, 33, 84, 125, 140, 165, 169, 173–4, 176, 178, 180–2 bishop  15, 121, 155, 166, 169, 176, 177–8, 180, 183, 186 see also Macedo, Bishop Edir body  85, 112, 132 armed 124–27 and Brazilian pastors  7, 132, 141–3

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and church services  56, 112, 118–21, 147, 169, 193 disciplining the  114, 152–9 embodiment   5, 24, 27, 100, 113, 115–30, 153–5, 161, 189 relational  117, 121, 128 and senses  132, 153–4, 159–63, 189 Bourdieu, Pierre  27 n.35, 154 n.28, 158 Brazil churches in  7, 10, 14–16, 32, 166–7, 195 and international relations  68–9 sexuality and romantic love in  132, 138, 140–2, 159, 163 see also Afro-Brazilian; Brazilian Pentecostalism; telenovelas Brazilian Pentecostalism  1–9, 16–18, 23, 24–30, 32–4, 56, 77–8, 85, 92, 188–90 breaking with cultural traditions, kin and (ancestral) spirits  21, 23–4, 84, 90–1, 99–101, 109, 113–4, 120–3, 126–30, 148, 172, 181, 188 and becoming a foreigner/stranger  57, 58, 67, 75, 77–8, 112, 116 and counselling  116–7, 120–3, 133, 143–6, 177 and conflicts with  19, 93, 124, 127, 151, 156, 178, 188 and critique of local cultural forms and relations  53, 64–7, 88, 93–5, 116–7, 131–3, 140, 147–52 numbers and membership  1–2, 4–6, 61–2, 80, 82, 97, 195 and views on family, sexuality and marriage  45, 52, 89, 93–5, 114, 116–7, 131, 140–52, 163 see also separate entries such as church services; pastors; assistants; Prosperity Gospel; rupture; tithes; transnationalism; war, spiritual/ Pentecostal see also names of denominations brideprice, see lobolo Brusco, Elizabeth  19, 190 Buddhism  6 n.6 campaigns  see sacrifices Candomblé  7, 9, 70 n.23, 71–2 see also Afro-Brazilian

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capulana  35, 143 Catholicism  2, 4, 10, 17, 57–62, 63 n.13, 83, 90–1, 162 in relation to Pentecostalism  12, 82, 92, 97, 141, 143, 182 census  46 n.14, 51, 82 n.4 religious affiliation  1, 4, 4 n.3, 11 n.17 Changana  33, 38 n.6, 104 n.3 chapa (public transport)  8 n.13, 35, 112–3, 152 children  42, 50, 61, 80 and kinship  106 and marriage  83, 89, 103, 112, 113, 134, 136, 145–6 relation with parents  45, 53, 83, 86, 91, 109, 136–9 and Pentecostalism  34, 36, 55, 66, 83, 90, 100, 111, 124, 151, 177 and witchcraft  18, 53, 109, 111, 119, 127 Chimoio churches in  11, 61 China, Chinese  5, 69 Chissano, Joaquim  60 Chiziane, Paula  103 Christianity  see Catholicism; Evangelical; Pentecostalism; Protestantism church services  1, 5, 8, 8 n.12–3, 9, 17, 32–3, 35, 55, 110–12, 118–21, 147–9, 156, 165, 169 see also under names of denominations cinema  12, 148 as church building  12, 14, 83, 110, 113 class distinctions  32, 41–4, 52, 95, 96, 97 Cole, Jennifer  18, 80, 97, 99, 101, 128, 132, 134, 137, 138, 163 Coleman, Simon  6, 167 colleagues  24, 27, 30, 55, 77, 120, 143, 151, 170 colonial period  2, 22, 30, 33, 37 n.4, 39, 41–43, 46, 58, 86 n.11, 105 and family, marriage, gender   37, 40–1, 42–3, 52, 54, 81, 85–7, 137, 158 and labour  37, 39–41, 42, 58, 85, 88 and religion  4, 57–9, 90–1, 124 see also labour migration Comaroff, Jean and John Comaroff  2, 20, 23, 57, 58, 61, 98, 117, 124, 127, 132, 185, 194

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Community of Portuguese-Speaking Countries (CPLP)  68 continuity  see rupture conversion  2, 19, 20, 34, 75, 79–81, 82–3, 90, 98–101, 124, 129, 159, 187–93 Council of Christian Churches (CCM)  12 n.24 courtship  93–5, 134–43, 150–3 problematic  30, 93–5, 155–63 see also partners Couto, Mia  68 n.18 Cruz e Silva, Teresa  2, 4, 17, 57–62, 82, 99, 134, 136–7, 140 n.13 Csordas, Thomas J.  62, 115, 154, 157 curandeiro   see traditional healer curtidoras  52, 76, 97, 111, 129, 134–5, 159, 163 David  118, 165 death  38, 104–8, 170 funeral  31, 126 role of churches  124–30, 168–71 democracy  2, 4, 17, 22, 44, 50, 53, 60, 109, 117, 185 demon see Devil Department of Religious Affairs  12 n.24, 14 development  2, 22–4, 53, 63, 170, 171–2, 193–5 see also non-governmental organisations; prosperity Devil, demons  9 n.16, 110–14, 153, 155, 192 and cultural, religious traditions  69, 74–5, 90, 111, 118–9, 122, 124 and relationships  30, 87, 147–8, 155, 161, 164 spiritual war against  1, 3, 24–5, 29, 55, 66, 85, 112–14, 127, 184 Direcção Nacional de Assuntos Religiosos  see Department of Religious Affairs discontinuity  see rupture distrust  53, 106–10, 123, 134–6, 150, 152–3, 160, 172–3, 194 and Pentecostalism  19, 25, 30, 33, 36, 127, 133, 145, 147–8, 160- 3, 168–72, 178, 180–2, 185, 188 divorce  42–3, 62, 86–8, 113 domestic violence  30, 31–2, 45, 53, 62, 86, 86 n.11, 88–9, 132, 137, 151, 161, 171, 195

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dreams, including hope, imagination and visions  20, 26, 52, 59, 63, 73, 97, 113–16, 124–6, 129, 135, 163, 165, 173 Droogers, André  3, 34 Dynamising Groups  46, 60 Economic factors in precolonial, colonial and postcolonial periods  37–47, 50, 57–8 in war  47–8, 50, 86–7 informal economy  16 n.28, 42, 50, 54, 95, 128 and marriage  17, 75, 77, 128, 171–2 and Pentecostalism  22–4, 34, 61, 75, 124, 176–7, 185–6, 193–6 neo-liberal economy  2, 17, 23, 34, 50, 61, 80–1, 95, 183, 193–5 see also development; mobility, socioeconomic; money; neo-liberalism; prosperity education  16 n.28, 31, 44, 45, 57, 59, 66, 81, 82–3, 85–6, 88, 89, 91, 93–5, 112 sexual  45, 86, 131–2, 136–9, 143, 145, 162 literacy  46, 47 elders  21, 24, 32, 33, 38, 39, 45, 79–81, 83 n.7, 84, 94, 121, 139, 145, 169 see also ancestors elections  12 n.23, 51 employment  26, 12 n.28, 36, 42, 44, 47, 53, 61, 81–2, 85, 88, 89, 91–2, 95 unemployment  50, 55, 77, 87, 171, 195 wages and salary  16 n.28, 24, 40, 45, 113, 116, 124, 160, 162, 170–1, 174, 184 empowerment  44–5, 51, 95 and Pentecostalism  2, 19, 79, 124–5, 151, 153–9, 190 Engelke, Matthew  20, 62, 98, 101, 191–2 entrepreneurship  6, 10, 17, 22–7, 55, 61–2, 65, 75–7, 88, 91–3, 128, 165, 169, 172, 176–84, 182, 195 Europe, European  7, 153 and Pentecostalism  14, 63, 67 in colonial period  41, 48, 57–8, 142 in post-colonial period  48, 85, 128 migration to  76 see also Portuguese Evangelical  2, 4, 6, 8–11, 32, 151 see also Pentecostalism

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exorcism  1, 7, 8, 12, 14–15, 24, 29, 35, 74, 83, 104, 110, 112–13, 119–20, 125, 148, 150, 187–8 expats  6, 50, 73, 97, 103, 176 extended families  see family see also kinship family   36 n.2, 37, 50–3, 59, 81–2 and Pentecostalism  15–20, 25–8, 30, 66, 87–8, 90, 114, 147–8, 150–51, 160, 169–70, 188–90 extended family  21, 38–41, 42, 84, 103–10, 138 problematic  24, 45, 48, 52, 58, 73, 79, 86–7, 88, 90–2, 106–10, 160, 172 see also children; elders; father; kin, kinship; mother father  86, 101, 107, 149 grandfather  83, 107 and marriage  83, 90–1, 94–5 relation with children  44, 88, 122, 149, 160 feitiçaria  see witchcraft fertility   18, 23, 38, 80, 113, 119, 124, 129, 143 n.20 film  12, 31, 46 n.16, 69, 74, 132 n.4, 138 see also cinema Foucault, Michel  29 n.37, 133, 153–4, 156–7, 164 Frelimo  12 n.23, 43–53, 59–61, 72, 81, 85–7, 98–100, 109, 128, 195 Freston, Paul  2, 3, 4–6, 9, 10–2, 16, 66, 70, 74, 85 frontier  26–8, 26 n.33, 78, 79, 97, 101, 129–30, 180, 187–8, 190, 196 future  30, 36, 53, 84, 95, 99–101, 156, 189–91 gender  31 n.39, 36 n.2, 49, 52, 76, 79 and generation  45, 81–97, 183, 185 and Pentecostalism  16–20, 52, 77, 116–7, 149–52, 189–91 and social change  2, 9, 17–18, 34, 106–7, 129, 145–6, 171–2 in pre-colonial period  37–9, 52 in colonial period  39–43, 52, 85 in post-colonial period  44–54, 85–97, 134–37, 158 generation  80, 81–97, 183, 185 see also gender; women

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Gifford, Paul  3, 6, 22, 166–7, 170, 176 globalisation  17, 36, 39, 50, 63, 93, 117, 138 and Pentecostalism  2–3, 6, 20, 63, 72, 98, 121, 124, 192 see also transnationalism God is Love Church  7, 14–15, 82–3, 110, 114, 167, 175 church services  9 n.16, 15, 55, 110–14 exorcism  14, 55, 83, 112–14 see also separate entries such as assistants; Devil; Holy Spirit; pastors; Prosperity Gospel gossip see rumour government  24, 27, 45–47, 51, 52, 62, 65, 66, 72, 92 n.18 and relation with churches  12 n.23, 57–62, 195 and democracy  2, 50, 53, 60 officials  32, 65, 67, 72, 73, 195 see also Frelimo Grupos Dinamizadores  see Dynamising Groups Guebuza, Armando Emílio  59, 92 n.18 HIV (human immunodeficiency virus)  32, 134, 137, 161–3 healing  15, 38, 56–7, 66, 94, 108, 121–23 see also exorcism Holy Spirit  2, 5, 141 embodying  36, 78, 113–14, 117, 119–23, 130, 141, 147, 154–59, 163, 192 and spiritual war  6, 20, 24, 83, 85, 125–6, 130, 161 power of  6, 19, 55, 65, 79, 101, 121, 126, 159, 184, 187–8, 194 Honwana, Alcinda  47, 49, 54, 104–8, 113 n.22, 115, 117 housing  31, 84, 97, 103, 150, 158, 166, 174, 178–9 husband  27, 31–2, 42, 50, 93, 128 conflict with  161–64, 178–9, 190 and Pentecostalism  36, 55, 75–7, 84, 89–90, 94, 113–14, 119, 139, 144–5, 148, 150–5, 173, 188, 190 problematic  1, 18, 24, 30, 32, 43, 45, 73, 86–8, 90, 103–4, 107, 113, 116, 160, 171 husband of the night  see spirit spouse

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identity, cultural/national  14, 17–18, 47–8, 52–3, 58–9, 64, 71–2, 80, 82, 94, 128–9, 194 see also tradition Igreja Baptista Renovada  see Renewed Baptist Church Igreja Evangélica Cristã Maná  see Maná Church Igreja Evangelho em Acção  7 Igreja Evangélica Assembleia de Deus  see Assembly of God Church Igreja Internacional da Graça de Deus  see International Church of God’s Grace Igreja Messiânica Mundial  see Messianic World Church Igreja Mundial do Poder de Deus  see the World Church of the Power of God Igreja Pentecostal Deus é Amor  see God is Love Church Igreja Universal do Reino de Deus  see UCKG Igrejas Zione/Mazione  see Zion Churches imagination  see dreams independence  2, 44, 44 n.12, 47, 59, 85–6, 91 inequality  see class distinctions informal economy  see economic factors insecurity  20–2, 30, 34, 47 n.17, 127, 129, 172, 180, 184, 191–2 intelligent faith  93, 155–9, 178–9, 185 International Church of God’s Grace  9 International Monetary Fund (IMF)  50 Internet  31, 50, 64, 93 and Pentecostalism  14, 176 Iris Ministries  7 n.8 Islam  2, 11 n.20, 57, 62, 80 n.3, 124–5 Jacob 165 Jehovah’s Witnesses  59, 97 Jeremiah 191 Jesus  5, 36, 87, 118, 119, 126 n.36, 140 n.15, 145, 156, 173, 176–7, 191 job opportunities  see employment Johrei Centre  see Messianic World Church kin, kinship  9, 23, 27, 37–9, 49–53, 77, 105, 170, 187 breaking with  3, 19, 24–5, 29–30, 67, 75–6, 79, 85–6, 88, 100, 117, 120, 127–8, 122–3,

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148–50, 163–4, 167–8, 170, 172, 174, 181, 184, 187–9, 194 and marriage, sexuality  17–18, 76, 135–8, 145 problematic  18, 23, 53, 55, 73–4, 81, 84, 86–7, 90–1, 94, 100, 106–10, 115, 121–2, 127–9, 137, 171–2, 180, 194 see also ancestors; family King’s Revival International Church  6 n.6 labour migration  37, 39–41, 42, 46, 57, 58, 67, 83, 114 to Maputo  113, 116, 152 Lambek, Michael  115, 117, 122, 193 Latin America  see Americas Lighthouse Chapel  6 literacy  see education lobolo  21, 38–9, 44, 86–7, 87 n.12, 90–1, 103, 104–10, 115, 129, 144–5, 148, 150, 170, 193 Loforte, Ana Maria  18, 38, 43–4, 80, 82, 97, 107, 134, 136 Lourenço Marques  see Maputo love  95, 103–4, 134–7 and Pentecostalism  3, 7, 30, 67, 89, 92, 131 n.2, 132–3, 143–52, 161 see also Therapy of Love (terapia do amor) Lusophone  7, 70, 142, 191 see also Atlantic Macamo, Elísio S.  21, 39 n.8, 40–1, 57, 62, 69 n.22, 82, 97, 99, 191 Macedo, Bishop Edir  1, 9 n.15, 10–11, 24, 70, 75, 156, 167 n.3, 173, 179–80 Machel, Samora  43, 59, 60, 86 macumba  69–71, 74–5, 78, 83, 100, 111, 141 Magaia, Lina  59 Mahmood, Saba  124–5, 154–7 Maná Church  7, 8, 8 n.13, 16, 25, 93, 122, 144–5, 161, 167, 176 see also Bible study; Tadeu, Apostle Jorge; Maputo  1, 31, 36, 51, 82, 91, 95, 109, 139 and gender  9, 18, 50–54, 62, 78, 108, 112–13, 116–17, 126, 128, 131, 134–7, 152, 157–9, 171–2 churches in  1–2, 4–15, 11, 60, 61 n.10, 78, 87, 123, 168–9, 189 Lourenço Margues  40 n.9, 41–3, 58–9, 108

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reed/cement  41–4, 52, 95–7, 117, 158–9 social/economic  9, 50–3, 76, 82, 83, 88, 170–2 streets  35–6, 49, 50, 112, 125, 178 uncertainty/insecurity  17, 30, 52, 95, 128, 158, 183, 187, 191 marido espiritual  see spirit spouse Mariz, Cecília Loreto  19, 66, 72, 167 marriage  17–18, 38–41, 131–7, 170 and adulthood  27, 136, 138 ceremony  75, 103 in fieldwork  31–2 and Pentecostalism  3, 17, 21, 55, 75–7, 87, 89, 93, 100–1, 111–16, 125, 127, 140, 143–53, 156, 159–64, 180, 187, 189–93 problematic  1, 18, 45, 51–3, 58, 79–81, 83–97, 103, 109, 114, 160–1, 171–2 spiritual  see spirit spouse see also divorce; lobolo; polygamy; domestic violence Marshall, Ruth  3, 20–1, 63, 98, 124, 181 Martin, Bernice  17, 19 Martin, David  2, 3, 6, 15, 22–3, 184 matrilineal  37, 48 Maxwell, David  2, 6, 8 n.14, 20, 98, 167, 169–70, 180 men  32, 38–41, 42–3, 47, 48, 58–9, 89, 97, 128–9 and Pentecostalism  16–7, 19, 95, 147–9, 151, 158–60, 190 and relations with women  19, 45, 50–2, 61–2, 76–7, 81, 84, 90, 94, 103–8, 112, 119, 124, 134–7, 157, 171–2 see also courtship; gender; husband; marriage; sexuality Messianic World Church  6 n.6 Meyer, Birgit  2, 3, 6, 12 n.22, 20–3, 62 n.11, 63–4, 67, 74, 98–9, 117, 120, 125, 127, 154, 167, 170, 185, 194 Mfecane  39–40, 54, 105, 127 middle-class status  21, 23, 66 n.16, 72, 128 and women  2, 16 n.28, 50, 85–6, 91, 159 see also mobility, upward Middle East  6 n.6 miracles  see healing mission/missionaries  3, 7, 29 n.38, 37 n.4, 51, 52, 56, 61, 63, 67, 83 n.7

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historic  56–62, 82, 84 n.8, 88, 90–1, 99–101, 137 see also Brazilian Pentecostalism; pastors mobile phone  35 mobility  56–7, 64, 66–7, 75 downward  23, 30, 88, 160, 176–8, 188 social, cultural  26, 31, 65, 150, 180–1 socio-economic  22–4, 50 upward  2, 3, 15, 16–8, 22–7, 34, 35–7, 53, 56, 61–2, 77, 80, 122–3, 129, 163, 187–8, 192 see also transnationalism modernisation  20, 45, 48–9, 52, 62 n.11, 63, 86 modernity  34, 61, 63, 74, 103, 117, 127, 128 and Pentecostalism  3, 21, 99 Mondlane, Eduardo  59 University 90 money  23, 38–9, 45, 52–3, 65, 83, 84, 86, 91, 106, 116, 158, 167–8, 171–2 and Pentecostalism  5- 6, 23, 25, 30, 34, 76–78, 88, 92, 93, 98, 111–14, 119, 121, 124–6, 144, 150, 152, 165–71, 173–85, 188, 194–5 see also economic factors; prosperity; sacrifices; tithes Moses  165–6, 191 mothers  26, 34, 36, 43, 80–95, 103, 107, 113, 119, 122, 124, 137, 144, 155–6, 160 grandmother  83–4, 90, 122 in-law  93, 107, 148 music 69 and Pentecostalism  1, 24, 56, 92, 147, 154 Nampula churches in  11, 11 n.20 nation-state  37, 37 n.3, 40, 43, 44, 48, 53, 58–9, 62–7, 99, 108, 129 see also government Ndau  105, 107 n.12, 115 n.24 neighbours  24–5, 154, 168–71, 172, 181 neo-liberalism  4, 17–18, 37, 53–4, 61, 81, 109, 129, 185, 187, 193–5 see also economic factors newspapers  11, 12, 50, 167 n.3 Ngungunyane  39, 105, 128 Nguni  39, 105

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non-governmental organisations (NGOs)  17, 31, 50–1, 91, 97, 162, 193–4 occult  see witchraft Oceania 14 Organização da Mulher Moçambicana (OMM) 45 parents  18, 33, 36, 38, 42, 45, 53, 85–91, 97, 99, 103, 106–10, 115, 119, 122–3, 135–6, 139, 145, 149, 181 grandparents  18, 36, 53, 83, 85, 90, 100, 109, 119, 122–3 see also father; mother partners  17, 27, 31, 48, 135 conflict with  1, 19, 24–5, 30, 35–6, 100–1, 104, 112–15, 126, 136, 155–6, 160–4, 172, 174, 181, 188–9, 192, 194 longing for  52, 55, 81, 94, 118, 152–4, 158–9 and Pentecostal teachings  9, 24, 30, 36, 65, 67, 131, 144–9, 162–3, 167, 183 see also courtship; husband; marriage pastors  6 n.6, 33, 35–6, 57–8, 88, 90, 112 Brazilian  1, 7, 12, 15, 26, 66 n.15, 133 during church service  17, 24–5, 35–6, 55, 84–5, 87, 90–5, 104, 110–16, 118–21, 125–6, 131, 156, 165–6, 169, 173, 176 mobility, travelling  56, 66, 74–8, 110–11, 150, 166, 183–4 relation with Mozambicans  2, 4, 9, 23, 28–9, 34, 65–7, 69–71, 78, 82, 88–9, 111, 123–4, 139–40, 141–3, 148–9, 162–4, 167, 174, 177–86, 187–8, 191–3 female  8 n.12–3, 89, 131 n.1 Mozambican  9 n.16, 12, 15, 66, 66 n.17, 160–1, 178 Pentecostal  1–2, 7, 15, 21, 28–9, 73, 91–2, 95, 132, 157, 172, 177–8, 183 patrilineal, patriarchy  19, 38, 48, 86 n.11, 134, 142 Pentecostalism  5–6, 7 n.11, 55, 132, 152, 162, 166–7, 170, 188–96 church buildings  4–5, 10, 11–15, 13, 35, 69, 73, 97, 131, 147, 158–9, 168–9, 184, 194 and continuity/change  19–22, 34, 65–7, 72, 77–8, 97–101, 127–30, 181–2, 191–3

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fasting  3, 25, 55, 88, 92, 114, 121, 125, 149, 156, 166 media  5, 6, 8 n.13, 10, 14, 15, 16, 138–41, 144, 178, 194 numbers  2, 4–5, 16–7 prayer  3, 5, 25, 55, 88, 92, 113–4, 118, 121, 124–5, 149, 156, 161, 166, 188 South-South  4, 22, 56, 68–75, 78, 101, 110, 124, 129, 141, 143, 174, 180, 189–92, 195 see also African Pentecostalism; Brazilian Pentecostalism see also separate entries such as church services; entrepreneurship; exorcism; pastors; assistants; Prosperity Gospel; radio; television; tithes; transnationalism; war, spiritual/ Pentecostal; youth see also names of denominations Penvenne, Jeanne Marie  17, 38, 40–3, 80 pioneering  43, 53, 77, 97, 101, 158, 163, 187 and Pentecostalism  3, 25–8, 37, 53, 56, 75–8, 88, 167–8, 180–3, 185–6, 190 polygamy  38, 45, 86, 88, 89 n.14, 103, 128, 134 Pombagira  1, 2, 9, 110–14 see also spirit spouse Portuguese/Portugal  2, 7, 22, 30, 39–43, 45–7, 57–9, 68, 70–1, 85, 105, 144 language  7, 16 n.28, 33–4, 44, 53, 59, 91, 94 see also colonial period post-colonial period  2, 4, 20, 22, 30, 33, 44–54, 59–61, 85, 109, 127–30, 134–7, 142, 158, 161–3, 171–2, 193–6 poverty  2, 23, 51, 53, 84–5, 86–7, 124, 160, 177–8 mental  89, 92 Presbyterian Church  58–9, 62, 63 n.13, 88, 97 see also Protestantism; Christianity prophets  28 n.36, 56–7, 67, 94, 108, 113 prosperity  22–4, 32, 34, 55, 92, 128, 131–2, 166, 170, 193–5 see also economic factors; money; Prosperity Gospel; sacrifice Prosperity Gospel  6, 15, 22–5, 55, 85, 92, 124–7, 166, 169, 180, 185–6, 195 failure and success  77, 84–5, 124–6, 153, 155–9, 174, 178–80, 184–6 see also sacrifices; tithing

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prostitution  42, 46 n.16, 110, 124 Protestantism  2, 4, 8, 17, 22, 57–62, 82, 97, 162 see also Pentecostalism; Presbyterian Church see also names of denominations radio 35 and Pentecostalism  5, 8 n.13, 14, 15, 133 Redeemed Christian Church of God  6, 189 Renamo  47–50, 59 n.5, 60, 115 n.24 Renewed Baptist Church  8, 89, 144 reproduction, including social reproduction  17–18, 37–9, 53, 56, 61, 75–8, 99–101, 104–8, 124, 167–72, 186, 191 responsibility  85, 88, 155–9, 161, 176–7, 179, 192–5 restaurant 155 risk  16, 23, 30, 34, 54, 126, 127, 129, 134, 137, 168, 181–5, 191–2, 194, 196 ritual  34, 48, 53, 72, 73–4, 90, 111, 124 cleansing  57, 106 initiation  44, 45, 53, 86, 136–7, 143 Pentecostal  25, 121, 168–71 Robbins, Joel  2, 3, 19, 20, 21, 98, 100 Ronga  33, 38 n.6, 41, 103, 106 rumour  25, 34, 73, 107–9, 121, 127, 169–70 rupture  19, 20–2, 53, 56, 62 n.11, 64, 70 n.26, 85–6, 91, 97–101, 184, 191–3 cultural distance  4, 64–5, 67, 78, 94, 112, 121, 189 rural  see urban sacrifices  23–4, 26, 53, 72, 78, 84–5, 114, 118–9, 164–8, 170–2, 177–86, 191, 195 campaigns  5, 8 n.13, 25, 78, 92, 165–7, 173–5, 176 causing family conflict and downward mobility  23, 30, 88, 119, 124, 160, 166, 174, 176–8, 188 Fogueira Santa de Israel (Holy Bonfire of Israel)  126, 165–7, 173–4, 180–1, 183–6 see also Prosperity Gospel Santiago, Apostle Valdemiro  15, 186 Satan  see Devil security  see insecurity self-help  122–3, 182–3, 188, 194–5

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senses  see body Serra, Carlos  11, 72, 117 n.29 sexuality  31, 32, 34, 38, 43, 104, 115, 119, 131, 134–37, 142 and social transformations  17, 45, 51–3, 79, 109–10, 124–30, 145–6 and Pentecostalism  7 n.10, 8 n.12, 76, 110–24, 161–3 and war  49, 86, 115 n.26, 128 Sheldon, Kathleen E.  17, 37–41, 42–5, 47, 50–1, 58, 80, 129 sister  89–92, 95, 110, 124, 126–7, 155, 160, 179, 180 in-law  93, 107 social transformation  2, 9, 17–18, 27, 39–41, 50–4, 76, 101, 127–9, 136, 171–3 and Pentecostalism  20–1, 97–101, 143–46, 196 see also rupture socialism  2, 22, 33, 43–7, 52, 59, 81, 85–8, 109, 137, 187 sorcery  see witchcraft South Africa  11, 22, 41, 42, 56, 68, 83, 162, 181 n.21 churches from  6, 8 n.14, 83 churches in  25 n.32, 61, 74, 179, 182 labour migration  37 n.4, 39–41, 58, 76, 83 Southern Africa  39, 41, 57, 67, 86 n.11, 105, 125 and churches  2, 3, 6, 9, 11, 61, 69, 74–5, 85 spirits  12,18, 27, 30, 34, 53, 65, 67, 73–8, 81, 88, 100, 104,114–17, 136, 139, 168, 180, 191, 193 evil spirits  1–2, 6, 9, 14, 24, 26, 35, 55, 72, 75, 83, 100, 104–10, 148, 150, 161, 169–70, 180–2 possession  57, 115–7, 124–6, 127 see also ancestors; Afro-Brazilian, Holy Spirit; Pombagira; spirit spouse spirit spouse  1, 18, 40, 49, 103–10, 193 and Pentecostalism  1, 29–30, 90110–14, 116–7, 119, 121–30, 161 relation with  90, 112–17, 119 and witchcraft  53, 109–10, 111, 115, 172, 180 spiritual armour  25–6, 29, 114, 124–30, 133, 157, 161 state  see government

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structural adjustment programmes  17, 50, 61 students  82, 90, 93, 95, 135, 151, 155 Swiss Mission  see Presbyterian Church Tadeu, Apostle Jorge  8 n.13, 25, 144, 161, 173, 176 telenovelas  14, 31, 93, 95, 118, 128 n.37, 132–43, 163 television  14, 45, 50, 64, 137, 146, 168 and Pentecostalism  5, 10, 14, 15, 16, 141, 166, 169, 178, 194 see also telenovela terapia do amor  see Therapy of Love Therapy of Love  7, 30, 32, 52, 65, 95, 97, 131–3, 140, 143, 147–9, 150, 152–64, 192 tithes and tithing  3, 6, 8, 14, 23, 55, 82, 88, 92, 118–19, 124, 126, 149, 160, 166, 173–5, 178, 181, 188 tradition  21, 23–4, 30, 32, 34, 43–5, 49, 52–4, 65, 80, 84, 89–92, 94, 98–100, 103, 107, 145, 150–1, 159, 172, 184, 193–4 traditional African religions  2, 69 see ancestors; spirits; tradition; traditional healer traditional healer  29, 31, 40, 56–9, 60–1, 65, 67, 71–4, 84–5, 94–5, 104–10,113, 121, 122, 127, 136–7, 147, 180, 188 transnationalism 62–5 and Pentecostalism  6, 15, 36, 56, 62–7, 75–8, 79, 100–1, 120–2, 124, 180–1, 194 South-South  3, 9, 28, 31, 56, 67–75, 78, 101, 110–12, 129, 141, 150, 174, 180–1, 189–92, 195 transnational spaces  36, 64, 67, 78, 79 see also globalisation trust  see distrust Tsonga  37–8, 40 n.9, 47–8, 69 n.22, 105 Umbanda  7, 9, 10, 14, 71 see also Afro-Brazilian uncertainty  2, 17, 21, 30, 45, 52–3, 77, 87, 92, 95, 125, 127–9, 146, 158, 168, 171, 183, 187, 192 see also insecurity Universal Church of the Kingdom of God (Universal Church , UCKG)  5, 7, 10–15, 32, 34, 74, 84–5, 87–92, 95, 114, 124,

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126, 140, 143, 160, 166, 178–83, 186, 188, 195 business course  17, 32, 88, 176–8, 182 cathedrals and church buildings  4, 10, 11–2, 13, 97, 147, 158 church services  13, 15, 117–21, 123, 156, 165, 169 Folha Universal, Folha Mulher  85, 144, 146, 148 membership and numbers  4, 11 opposition and rumours about  11, 12, 12 n.23–24, 14, 166–71, 186 organisation/structure  10, 66, 66 n.16, 78, 120–1, 183–4 television network, Rede Record, Miramar  10, 14, 140, 156 n.31, 178 social work (ABC)  12–14 see also separate entries such as assistants; Devil; Fogueira Santa; Holy Spirit; intelligent faith; pastors; Prosperity Gospel; sacrifices, tithes and tithing; Therapy of Love; war, spiritual/ Pentecostal urban  6, 11, 16, 20–2, 23, 28, 30–1, 36, 46 n.14, 46–7, 61, 73, 79–80, 110, 191 and gender  2, 9, 16–8, 41–3, 47, 50–54, 61–2, 67, 76–7, 86, 101, 129, 157–9 and rural  20, 37, 40, 42, 44–6, 47, 59, 61, 106, 108–9, 169 Van Dijk, Rijk  2, 3, 6, 20–1, 23, 27, 28, 55, 63, 65, 67, 73, 79, 80, 98, 100, 132, 144, 145, 162, 167, 170, 176, 182, 189, 190–3, 194–5 violence  3, 20, 28–30, 34, 39, 54, 78, 94, 99, 105, 108–9, 127, 191 and conversion  2, 19, 21–2, 24–30, 79, 81, 97, 129, 159–63, 189–96 and Pentecostalism  1, 24–30, 30, 34, 127–30 as breaking   29, 124–30, 181, 188 as conquest  4, 28, 55–6, 124–7, 180–1, 188, 189 as confrontation   29–30, 67, 149–52, 161, 163, 192–3 as destroying  3, 4, 24, 29–30, 124, 167–8, 171–2, 181, 184–5 as hate  30, 163–4 see also domestic violence; war

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wages  see employment war  22, 28, 30, 57, 105, 124 spiritual/Pentecostal  1, 3, 5, 9, 20, 24, 30, 35, 36, 66, 85, 119–20, 124–30, 189 civil  2, 4, 10, 47–50, 60–1, 86, 95, 108, 128–9, 137, 193 (spiritual) soldiers  3, 25–6, 29, 125, 129, 161–63, 179, 190 see also spiritual armour Weber, Max  22, 195 wife  see husband witchcraft  32, 53, 55, 61, 69–72, 76, 77–8, 88, 108–10, 114–15, 121, 127, 150, 158, 169, 180, 193 black magic  7, 70, 120 n.31 and family/kin  18, 29, 109, 147–8, 160, 172, 181 Pentecostalism as  127, 168, 181, 194 women  1, 16 n.28, 17, 38–41, 42–3, 53–4, 77, 81, 117–8 and Frelimo  43–7, 47–50, 51, 85–7, 128 and generations  17, 26, 79–97, 107–8, 183, 185

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and labour  16,-7, 26, 38, 40–4, 50–3, 55, 61–2, 81–2, 85, 88, 158, 171–2 and Pentecostalism  1, 7, 8 n.12, 15, 16–20, 34, 52, 55–6, 61, 77, 97–101, 110–14, 151, 187–90 and social change  17–20, 27–8, 50–4, 76–7, 97–101, 107–8, 113, 121, 187 in civil war  47–50, 108 in colonial period  40–43, 54, 57–62, 82–8, 158 in fieldwork  31, 32 middle-class status  2, 16 n.28 World Bank  50 World Church of the Power of God  7, 15, 167, 178, 183 youth  8 n.12, 32, 59, 79–82, 79 n.2, 80 n.3, 84, 86, 92–7, 107, 131, 134–8, 145, 183, 185, 192–3 Zion Churches  4, 61, 95, 182, 189 see also African Independent Churches

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RELIGION IN TRANSFORMING AFRICA

There has been an extraordinary growth in Pentecostalism in Africa, with Brazilian Pentecostals establishing new transnational Christian connections, initiating widespread changes not only in religious practice but in society. This book describes its rise in Maputo, capital of Mozambique, and the sometimes dramatic impact of Pentecostalism on women. Here large numbers of urban women are taking advantage of the opportunities Pentecostalism offers to overcome restrictions at home, pioneer new life spaces and change their lives through the power of the Holy Spirit. Yet, conversion can also mean a violent rupturing with tradition, with family and with social networks. As the pastors encourage women to cut their ties with the past, including ancestral spirits, they come to see their kin and husbands as imbued with evil powers, and many leave their families. Conquering spheres that used to be forbidden to them, they often live alone as unmarried women, sometimes earning more than men of a similar age. They are also expected to donate huge sums to the churches, often money that they can ill afford, bringing new hardships.

Cover photograph: ‘Go out evil spirit, go out’, God is Love church, Maputo, 2006 (reproduced by kind permission of the photographer © Rufus de Vries)

ISBN 978-1-84701-152-7

9 781847 011527 >

LINDA VAN DE KAMP

Linda van de Kamp is Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

Violent Conversion 

‘an important contribution to the field of Pentecostal Studies and the Study of Religions in Africa. … it sheds new light on the often monochromatic discussion of Pentecostalism and gender, by tracing in detail how Pentecostal answers to issues of partnership, sexuality and fidelity can be both liberating and inhibiting.’ Jörg Haustein, Senior Lecturer in Religions in Africa, SOAS

Violent Conversion Brazilian Pentecostalism and Urban Women in Mozambique LINDA VAN DE KAMP RELIGION IN TRANSFORMING AFRICA

Violent Conversion ppc v3.indd 1

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