La guérisseuse du docteur Banda au Malawi

Le 14 juin 1993, le peuple du Malawi s'est prononcé par référendum pour l'abolition du système du parti unique et pour l'introduction d'une démocratie pluripartite. Comment se fait-il que, en cette période pénible pour le Dr H. Kamazu Banda qui règne sur le pays depuis 30 ans, son entourage ait engagé une jeune guérisseuse qui a été appelée non seulement pour ouvrer pour la santé personnelle du président, mais pour 'guérir' la nation tout entière? Le succès de la guérisseuse en question, Linley Mbeta, très connue au Malawi, est lié à la forte montée du mouvement chrétien-fondamentaliste de 'ceux qui sont nés une seconde fois' que l'on constate au Malawi à partir des années 1970. C'est une représentante d'une tradition puritaine dont faisaient également partie les mouvements anti-sorcellerie des années 1930 et 1940. Tandis que l'on croit au Malawi que le pouvoir politique des 'anciens' repose sur l'association à des forces occultes, les mouvements puritains sont dirigés par des jeunes qui ne sont pas encore 'contaminés' par la manipulation des forces occultes. L'idéologie puritaine procure à ses fidèles la certitude d'avoir accès à des forces spirituelles bien supérieures à celles dont disposent leurs rivaux. C'est cette certitude-là qui doit avoir séduit le vieux dictateur. ASC – Publicaties niet-programma gebonde

Afrikaanse gemeenschappen, religie en identiteit. Ghanese pinksterkerken in Den Haag

ASC – Publicaties niet-programma gebonde

Negotiating marriage: questions of morality and legitimacy in the Ghanaian Pentecostal diaspora

Among the many immigrant groups that have settled in the Netherlands, migrants recently arrived from Ghana have been perceived by the Dutch State as especially problematic. Explicit measures have been taken to investigate marriages of Ghanaians, as these appeared to be an avenue by which many acquired access to the Dutch welfare State. While the Dutch government tightened its immigration policies, many Ghanaian Pentecostal churches were emerging in the Ghanaian immigrant communities. An important function of these churches is to officiate over marriages; marriages that are perceived as lawful and righteous in the eyes of the migrant community but nonetheless do not have any legal basis as far as the Dutch State is concerned. This contribution explores why the Ghanaian community attributes great moral significance to the marriages that are taking place within their Pentecostal churches. It investigates the changing meaning of the functions of Pentecostal churches in Ghana and in the Netherlands by distinguishing civil morality from civic responsibility. It seeks to explore how, in both contexts, legitimacy is created as well as contested in the face of prevailing State-civil society relations. This exploration indicates why, in both situations, Pentecostalism is unlikely to develop into a civic religion in the full sense of the term. [Journal abstract]ASC – Publicaties niet-programma gebonde

Gloves in times of AIDS: Pentecostalism, Hair and Social Distancing in Botswana

ASC – Publicaties niet-programma gebonde

Foucault, hekserij en puritanisme in Malawi: een expressionistische kritiek op Douglas' 'grid/group' analyse

Dit artikel onderzoekt de grenzen van de bruikbaarheid van het door Mary Douglas ontwikkelde 'grid-group' model aan de hand van het voorbeeld van de ontwikkeling van puriteinse (antihekserij) bewegingen in Malawi. De auteur stelt, dat de rehabilitatie van het individu als actief, handelend en manipulatief subject, waarmee Douglas in de jaren tachtig haar model verfijnde, onvoldoende is om veranderingsprocessen te kunnen verklaren. Wat ontbreekt is een notie van macht zoals Michel Foucault die heeft ontwikkeld. De centrale vraag van het artikel is op welke wijze er, gegeven het bestaan van bepaalde sociale controle-mechanismen in de samenleving, veranderende percepties van bewegingsvrijheid c.q. disciplinering op gang kunnen komen, gericht op het individuele lid van de samenleving. De winst van de benaderingen van Douglas en Foucault wordt vergeleken voor een analyse van bewegingen zoals de Abadwa Mwatsopano (Wedergeborenen) in Malawi. Hoewel men vanwege de preoccupatie in dergelijke bewegingen met reiniging de bruikbaarheid van Douglas' theorie‰n zou verwachten, blijkt Foucault's concept van een 'technology of the self' meer verklaring te kunnen bieden. Bibliogr., notenASC – Publicaties niet-programma gebonde

The natural history of human atherosclerosis : a histopathological approach

This thesis systematically evaluates the critical morphological, pathophysiological and immunological aspects of the human atherosclerotic process using a unique biobank containing over 500 individual peri-renal abdominal aortic wall patches and over 600 coronary artery segments of the left coronary artery. The aortic patches were obtained during liver, kidney or pancreas transplantation and the coronary artery segments were collected from healthy human hearts that were retrieved from Dutch post-mortem donors within 24 hours after circulatory stop and brought to the National Heart Valve for heart valve donation. Contrary to other histological studies investigating mechanistic insight into the atherosclerotic process, we used tissue from a group of apparently healthy individuals with an equal age and sex distribution, thereby avoiding potential bias introduced by the use of autopsy material from coronary death victims (mostly either young or old patients) or by the use of material from patients undergoing vascular surgery (generally end-stage atherosclerotic disease). The primary aim of this thesis was to explore the natural history of human aortic atherosclerosis in order to gain more insight in the pathophysiology of plaque development and unstable culprit lesion formation that potentially gives rise to the clinical manifestations of atherosclerosis.  Dutch Heart Foundation; Guerbet Nederland B.V.; Chipsoft; Sai RegisteraccountantsLUMC / Geneeskund

Pentecostalism, cultural memory and the state: contested representations of time in postcolonial Malawi

In various parts of Africa, Pentecostalism underscores the necessity for its members to make a complete break with the past. Although Pentecostalism speaks a language of modernity in which there is a past-inferior versus a present-superior dichotomy whereby the believer is prompted to sever all ties with former social relations in the search for new individuality, it would be a mistake to argue that Pentecostalism stops here. On the contrary, the author argues that because the moment of instant rebirth is seen as the power base from which new future orientations are constructed, Pentecostalism may swing in different modalities from a disembedding of the subject from past social relations to a re-embedding in relations with a different temporal orientation. This is illustrated by the case of the Pentecostalist movement of 'Abadwa Mwatsopano' (Born Again) in urban areas of Malawi, and most of all in the largest city, Blantyre. This movement rose against the official discourse in Malawi, which fetishes the remembrance of the country's cultural past. Conversion narratives of young fundamentalists remember the past only to deny it. For the Born Again movement, the truth lies with a Christian future, utopian in its emancipatory promise. Bibliogr., notes, refASC – Publicaties niet-programma gebonde

The Pentecostal gift: Ghanaian charismatic churches and the moral innocence of the global economy

The paradigm of the enchanted global economy and the moral perils of involvement with foreign commodities suggests that anxieties about the generally immoral powers believed to exist within foreign objects result from an imperfect understanding of the global marketplace. However, urban Pentecostalists in Accra, Ghana, who are deeply engaged in the global economy, do not fear the moral dangers of commodities as such and do not lack an understanding of modern global capitalism. Ambiguities do arise when commodities are turned into gifts. Gifts carry sentiments, messages and intentions, and the obligation to give or to receive them may contain dangers. In dealing with this dilemma, Pentecostalism creates a space where free gifts can be given without material reciprocity, where commodities can be personalized without invoking evil powers, where its members can be delivered from the powers that emanate from the 'fie', the "house" or "shrine" of an ancestral deity, conveyed by gifts that cannot be refused, and where gifts may signal the purity of the giver's heart and soul. This multilayered gift-ideology and gift-economy enables Ghanaian Pentecostalism to occupy a pivotal position between the global economy and its own transational and transcultural relations, on the one hand, and local cultural structures dominated by gifts and reciprocal relations, on the other. ASC – Publicaties niet-programma gebonde

Young puritan preachers in post-independence Malawi

ASC – Publicaties niet-programma gebonde

'Beyond the rivers of Ethiopia': Pentecostal Pan-Africanism and Ghanaian identities in the transnational domain

Rev. Mensa Otabil, the founder of the International Central Gospel Church in Accra, is considered an influential representative of a new Pentecostal-inspired Pan-Africanist ideology. His book 'Beyond the Rivers of Ethiopia' lays the foundations of a Pentecostal Liberation Theology that proclaims a Christianized sequel to Pan-Africanism. Operating from Ghana, his ideas for Africa and for 'black consciousness' have spread to Ghanaian migrant communities worldwide. While Otabil has been successful in transforming ownership of the intellectualist production of Pan-Africanism by tailoring it to the needs of the ordinary Pentecostal believer, it has not been adopted so extensively among all Ghanaian migrant communities in the West. By exploring Ghanaian migrant communities and their Pentecostal churches in the Netherlands, where the staunch identity politics of the Dutch government leave little room for the assertive proclamation of 'Africanness', this chapter demonstrates that Otabil's ideas do not act as a main source of inspiration everywhere in the Ghanaian diaspora. Bibliogr., notes, ref., sum. [Book abstract]ASC – Publicaties niet-programma gebonde