8 research outputs found
Pentecostal intimacies: women and intimate citizenship in the ministry of repentance and holiness in Kenya
This article explores the intersections of gender, sexuality and citizenship in the context of one prominent neo-Pentecostal movement in Kenya, the Ministry of Repentance and Holiness (MRH) led by the charismatic Prophet David Owuor. Employing the concept of intimate citizenship, the article analyses, first, how MRH engages in a contestation of intimate citizenship in the contemporary Kenyan public sphere, especially in relation to womenās bodies. Second, it examines how MRH simultaneously configures, through a range of highly intimate beliefs, practices and techniques, an alternative form of intimate citizenship defined by moral purity and concerned with a political project of moral regeneration. Coining the notion of āPentecostal intimaciesā, the article provides insight into the reasons why so many people, especially women, are attracted to MRH, and hence it interrogates the liberal frame in which intimate citizenship is usually conceptualised