Cosmopolitanism and the Devil in Malawiстатья из журнала
Аннотация: Abstract The article contributes to recent attempts to provide historically and ethnographically nuanced accounts of cosmopolitanism. A central argument in the article revolves around the notion of situated cosmopolitanism. While cosmopolitanisms must be envisaged in the plural, common to these diverse cultural projects is an uneasy relation to the home that imposes itself on the subject. Pentecostal Christians in an impoverished township in Malawi consider this-worldly realities as one, ruled by the Devil. Their cosmopolitan vision transcends, therefore, social and spatial boundaries, but it gains its force from their particular existential predicament of impoverishment. The article shows in detail how the Pentecostal belief in the second birth establishes a specific form of cosmopolitan relatedness. It entails a deterritorialized mode of belonging which undermines, among others, the rural–urban distinction. Keywords: PentecostalismmigrationurbanizationMalawi Acknowledgment An early version of this article was presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association in 2000. I thank Eric Gable and Charles Piot for organizing the session where it was presented, and James Ferguson for his comments as our discussant. Further helpful and challenging suggestions came from Erica Bornstein, Richard Werbner and the editors and reviewers of Ethnos. All mistakes remain my own. Notes Christianity has, of course, constituted one of the earliest global designs in world history. For unconventional readings of the histories of cosmopolitanisms, including Kant's influential ideas, see McCarthy () and Mignolo (). Five per cent of Malawi's population lived in urban areas at independence in 1964, while the 1998 population census indicated that still only 14 per cent lived in urban areas (Kalipeni :61; National Statistical Office :10; Potts :184). In neighbouring Zambia, by contrast, the population that lived in urban areas increased from 20 to 40 per cent of the total population between independence in 1964 and 1980 (Hansen :5). Half of Zambia's population is estimated to live in urban areas at present. For a stimulating discussion of how the notion of 'situated' cosmopolitanism does not need to be tied to the confining metaphor of locality, see Robbins (). Following especially Casey (, ), I have elsewhere discussed in more detail the sense in which emplacement is an existential rather than a spatial condition (see Englund ). For recent studies of the political economy of Malawi's democracy, see Englund (). I have conducted fieldwork in the township in 1996–97, 1999, 2000 and 2001–2003, in total for over two years. The language of fieldwork has been Chichewa, the national language of Malawi and the lingua franca of the township. An estimated 74 million Pentecostal and neo-Pentecostal Christians represented six per cent of the world's Christian population in 1970. By 1996 the figure was 480 million or 27 per cent, more than the combined numbers of Protestants and Anglicans (see Barrett :25). For recent syntheses of the available scholarship on Pentecostalism, stressing its capacity to transcend social and political boundaries, see Droogers () and Martin (). Assemblies of God from the United States was the first Pentecostal church to establish itself in Malawi in the 1940s. For historical perspectives on Pentecostalism in southern Africa, see e.g. Maxwell () and Schoffeleers (). Pentecostals' condemnation of asing'anga obscures considerable differences among these healers. While some healers are self-conscious followers of 'ancestrals customs' (miyambo ya makolo), others mimic biomedical practices in their clinics. Some even claim to be Born-Again Christians, although they are not allowed to belong to Pentecostal churches. Whatever the spiritual outlook, the most successful healers usually command extensive knowledge of medical botany (see Morris ). The disease that most clearly defines 'the present' (masiku ano) for many Malawiansis aids. Since the early 1990s, the hiv sero-prevalence rate has been around 25per cent of the adult population, one of the highest in the world (UNDP :41). Under-nourishment also wreaks havoc among the populace, and malaria is a fatal disease especially among children. For example: 'Do you know that it is not many among the rich who are touched by God? They see no reason to pray… 'They think that "oh, should I pray? What will I benefit since I have everything?"' (Kodi mukudziwa kuti anthu olemerasi ambiri amene ndi okhudzidwa ndi Mulungu? Amaona kuti palibe chifukwa choti apemphere… Amaganiza kuti 'oh, ndipemphere? Ndipindula chiyani, popeza zonsendili nazo?).
Год издания: 2004
Авторы: Harri Englund
Издательство: Routledge
Источник: Ethnos
Ключевые слова: Diaspora, migration, transnational identity, Migration, Refugees, and Integration, Migration and Labor Dynamics
Открытый доступ: closed
Том: 69
Выпуск: 3
Страницы: 293–316