Public counselling: Brazilian Pentecostal intimate performances among urban women in Mozambique

Abstract

Analysing the public character of Brazilian Pentecostal counselling sessions in urban Mozambique, this paper aims to examine the configurations of exposure through which counselling acquires and produces sociocultural forms of intimacy. During ‘therapy of love’ sessions held by the Brazilian Universal Church of the Kingdom of God, strict bodily acts need to be performed publicly to authorise love. Drawing on the notion of religious habitus, the paper focuses on how the performativity of Brazilian Pentecostal counselling practices responds to and shapes a public culture of love and intimacy among upwardly mobile women in urban Mozambique, and how the performative scripts converts carry out during therapy result in ambiguous relationships.

Tomando en cuenta el carácter público de las sesiones de asesoría del pentecostalismo brasileño, el presente artículo pretende examinar las configuraciones de exposición a través de las cuales la asesoría adquiere y produce formas socioculturales de intimidad. Durante las sesiones de terapia de amor realizadas por la Iglesia Brasileña Universal del Reino de Dios, estrictos rituales corporales deben ser expresados públicamente para [que] el amor [sea] autorizado. Apoyándose en la idea de habitus religioso, el artículo se centra en cómo la perfomatividad de las prácticas de asesoría pentecostal brasileña responde ante—y también moldea— una cultura pública de amor y de intimidad de las mujeres que viven una movilidad social ascendente en el Mozambique urbano; asimismo, se enfoca en analizar cómo, los guiones performativos que los conversos llevan a cabo durante las sesiones de terapia, dan lugar a relaciones ambiguas.

En analysant le caractère public des séances de counselling menée par les églises pentecôtistes brésiliennes dans les zones urbaines du Mozambique, cet article se donne pour objectif d'examiner les configurations de l'exposition des individus, à travers lesquelles le counselling acquiert et produit des formes socio-culturelles de l'intimité. Au cours des séances de “thérapie de l'amour” de l'Église Universelle Brésilienne du Royaume de Dieu, des actes corporels précis doivent être pratiqués publiquement pour “autoriser” la réalisation de l'amour. En s'inspirant des notions de habitus religieux, l'article se concentre sur la manière selon laquelle 1) la performativité des pratiques de counselling de l'église pentecôtiste brésilienne répond à / forme une culture publique de l'amour et de l'intimité parmi des femmes de plus en plus mobiles dans les villes du Mozambique 2) les scripts performatifs que les convertis réalisent au cours des thérapies ont pour résultat des relations ambigües.

Keywords::

• public counselling
• Brazilian Pentecostalism
• intimacy
• bodily practices
• Mozambique

Acknowledgements

I gratefully acknowledge the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research, the VU University Amsterdam and the African Studies Centre, Leiden, for the financial support received throughout the duration of the study. For their thoughtful comments of an earlier version of the paper I wish to thank the editors of this special issue and four anonymous reviewers.

Notes

^1. When I use the term ‘the therapy’ in this paper, I am referring to terapia do amor.

^2. Despite the high HIV prevalence in Mozambique, this will not be a prominent issue in this paper because HIV was silenced among Pentecostals, regardless of the forced openness about sexuality. This shows one of the ambiguous aspects of the counselling practices that are addressed at the end of the paper. On the interplay between HIV/AIDS and religious organizations in Mozambique, see Agadjanian and Menjívar (2011) and Pfeiffer (2011).

^3. I conducted in-depth interviews with 30 Pentecostal women. The discussion group consisted of eight young converts (men and women) and took place once every two weeks for several months. All names in the text have been changed.

^4. This figure is based on my own findings (cf. Pfeiffer, Gimbel-Sherr and Augusto 2007; Igreja and Dias-Lambranca 2009).

^5. Some women resisted the forced colonial labour by moving from the rural areas to the city (Penvenne 1997; Sheldon 2003).

^6. Front for the Liberation of Mozambique.

^7. With the liberalisation of the mass media in the 1990s, there is now a prominent Brazilian presence in the Mozambican media (Power 2004, 278).

^8. Since the churches do not keep records of members and receive many temporary visitors, it is difficult to say exactly how many people attend Brazilian Pentecostal churches but they attract substantial numbers. For example, the Universal Church has a total of about 250 similar-looking church buildings in Mozambique, of which 100 are in Maputo (at least one in every neighbourhood), mostly at strategic locations like a central market or on a main road. Depending on their size, these buildings can accommodate between 200 to 2000 persons and the main cathedral can host several thousand individuals.

^9. There were also Mozambican and Angolan pastors who adopted the Brazilian Portuguese.

^10. October 2006.

^11. In an interview, 28 June 2006.

^12. It is becoming more common for couples to walk hand-in-hand in Maputo's streets (see Manuel 2011).

^13. For more on the relationship between telenovelas and Brazilian Pentecostalism see Oosterbaan (2006).

^14. 28 January 2006.

^15. 26 July 2008.

^16. Conversation, 24 June 2007.

^17. This follows the Faith Theology by attributing spiritual power to spoken words and performances (Anderson 2004, 39–165).

^18. Mahmood (2005) follows the Aristotelian genealogy of habitus that differs from Bourdieu's use of the term with regard to the conscious training in the habituation of virtues.

^19. Interview, 28 June 2006.

^20. Conversation, 7 May 2007.

^21. 28 January 2006.