Charismatic Healers in Contemporary Africa

Sandra Fancello is Research Director at the National Center for Scientific Research, France.Alessandro Gusman is Associate Professor of Anthropology, University of Turin, Italy.

Based on ethnographic studies conducted in several African countries, this volume analyses the phenomenon of deliverance - which is promoted both in charismatic churches and in Islam as a weapon against witchcraft - in order to clarify the political dimensions of spiritual warfare in contemporary African societies. Deliverance from evil is part and parcel of the contemporary discourse on the struggle against witchcraft in most African contexts. However, contributors show how its importance extends beyond this, highlighting a pluralism of approaches to deliverance in geographically distant religious movements, which coexist in Africa. Against this background, the book reflects on the responsibilities of Pentecostal deliverance politics within the condition of 'epistemic anxiety' of contemporary African societies - to shed light on complex relational dimensions in which individual deliverance is part of a wider social and spiritual struggle. Spanning across the study of religion, healing and politics, this book contributes to ongoing debates about witchcraft and deliverance in Africa.

Focuses on the political impacts of healing and deliverance practices in the contemporary Christian and Muslim worlds in Africa

List of FiguresList of ContributorsAcknowledgementsIntroduction, Alessandro Gusman (University of Turin, Italy) and Sandra Fancello (CNRS-IMAF, France)Part I - Deliverance and Spiritual Insecurity1. Battling Satan's Minions: Christian-Muslim Entanglements in an Age of Spiritual Insecurity, Adeline Masquelier (Tulane University, USA)2. Deliverance Centers, Spiritual Insecurity and a Pragmatic Approach to Healing in Ugandan Pentecostalism, Alessandro Gusman (University of Turin, Italy)3. Everyday Deliverances in Tanzania, Martin Lindhardt (Syddansk Universitet, Denmark)Part II - Charismatic Healing in the Markets of Well-Being4. Kapopo, the "Incurable Illness" Structural Violence, Social Suffering and Spiritual Healers in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Edoardo Quaretta (University of Turin, Italy)5. Resisting Deliverance: Majini Spirits, Matriliny, and Religious Change in Northern Mozambiqu, Daria Trentini (Drake University, USA)6. Churches against Hospitals? Deliverance and healers in the field of public health, Sandra Fancello (CNRS-IMAF, France)Part III - Healing and Social Change7. Healers vs. Prayer Teams: Contesting Deliverance and Healing among Ugandan Charismatic Catholics, Alison Fitchett-Climenhaga (Australian Catholic University, Australia)8. Staking out God's Kingdom: Moral Geographies, Land and Healing in Southern African Charismatic Christian Farming, Hans Olsson and Karen Lauterbach (University of Copenhagen, Denmark)9. Possessed by the post-Socialist Zeitgeist: History, spirits, and the problem of generational (dis)continuity in an Ethiopian Orthodox exorcism, Diego Maria Malara (University of Glasgow, UK) and Bethlehem Hailu Dejene (NorthWestern University, USA)NotesBibliographyIndex