Overview
- Juxtaposes case studies from Melanesia and Africa in order to better compare, contrast, and illuminate the effects of and engagements with Pentecostalism
- Focuses on chief themes of Pentecostalism and witchcraft while also bringing in discussions of globalization, visibility, movements of capital, and embodiment
- Presents rich and detailed case studies while also offering up wide-ranging theoretical analyses and critiques of established thinking/concepts
- Includes supplementary material: sn.pub/extras
Part of the book series: Contemporary Anthropology of Religion (CAR)
Buy print copy
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
About this book
This open access book presents fresh ethnographic work from the regions of Africa and Melanesia—where the popularity of charismatic Christianity can be linked to a revival and transformation of witchcraft. The volume demonstrates how the Holy Spirit has become an adversary to the reconfirmed presence of witches, demons, and sorcerers as manifestations of evil. We learn how this is articulated in spiritual warfare, in crusades, and in healing or witch-killing raids. The contributors highlight what happens to phenomena that people address as locally specific witchcraft or sorcery when re-molded within the universalist Pentecostal demonology, vocabulary, and confrontational methodology.
Similar content being viewed by others
Keywords
- Charismatic Christianity
- Holy Spirit
- Pentecostal witchcraft
- Pentecostal movements
- pentecostalisation
- demonology
- Pentecostal demonology
- ethnography
- Papua New Guinea
- Vanuatu
- Congo
- Mozambique
- Tanzania
- indigenous Pentecostal movements
- Christian evangelism
- sorcery
- Oceania
- Open Access
- religion and society
Table of contents (13 chapters)
-
Front Matter
-
Back Matter
Reviews
“Ingeniously entangling Christian demonology and local beliefs, Pentecostalism operates as a major universalizing force that assumes control over life and death, good and evil. This is the starting point of this well composed, mind-boggling volume. It traces the Pentecostalization of witchcraft in various locations in Africa and Melanesia through ten conceptually informed and grounded ethnographies. Framed by an excellent introduction and two concluding afterwords, this volume is a major contribution to the understanding of the global appeal of the Holy Spirit and spiritual warfare in our time. Far from taking recourse to universal theoretical models and essentializing regional modes of comparison, this amazing intellectual project calls our attention to the operation of universalizing religious regimes in action.” (Birgit Meyer, Professor of Religious Studies, Utrecht University, Netherlands)
Editors and Affiliations
About the editors
Knut Rio is Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Bergen, Norway
Michelle MacCarthy is a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Bergen, Norway
Ruy Blanes is a Ramon y Cajal fellow at the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas in Spain
Michelle MacCarthy is a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Bergen, Norway
Ruy Blanes is a Ramon y Cajal fellow at the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas in Spain
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Pentecostalism and Witchcraft
Book Subtitle: Spiritual Warfare in Africa and Melanesia
Editors: Knut Rio, Michelle MacCarthy, Ruy Blanes
Series Title: Contemporary Anthropology of Religion
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-56068-7
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Cham
eBook Packages: Social Sciences, Social Sciences (R0)
Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2017
Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-319-56067-0Published: 10 November 2017
Softcover ISBN: 978-3-319-85819-7Published: 23 August 2018
eBook ISBN: 978-3-319-56068-7Published: 29 October 2017
Series ISSN: 2946-3475
Series E-ISSN: 2946-3483
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XI, 311
Topics: Social Anthropology, Ethnography, Evangelicalism and Pentecostalism, Religion and Society, African Culture