Space in Pentecostal Healing Practices among Ghanaian Migrants in London

Abstract

In this article I analyze different spatial practices related to Pentecostal healing, drawing on fieldwork with Pentecostal believers who have migrated from Ghana to London, UK. I explore the relationship between space and the manifestation of the Holy Spirit by looking at how points of contact with the divine are created in the personal life of people and at the sites where the casting out of demons takes place. Unlike in other spirit-centered healing traditions, the Christian Holy Spirit is not conceived of as embodied in specific places, but rather is spatially unbound. To manifest, however, the Holy Spirit requires specific spatial qualities and esthetics.

Keywords:

• migration
• Pentecostal healing
• Pentecostal place making
• spirits and space
• transnationalism

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I am grateful to pastors, church members, and Ghanaian friends in London, who supported with patience and understanding my sometimes difficult research and accepted me as an agnostic, white, middle class researcher from Germany. I thank the four anonymous reviewers for constructive and sharp comments. I am also grateful to David Parkin, Diana Aurisch, and Lenore Manderson for their patience and constructive criticisms. Some aspects discussed in this article have been dealt with in a paper jointly written with Rijk van Dijk (Krause and Van Dijk 2012).

Notes

For protection of my interlocutors, I use pseudonyms for churches and people.

The Akan in Ghana are matrilineal. The office of the queen mother is a very important one, since she advises the chief and appoints the successor to a royal office, called ‘stool’ in Ghanaian English.

I use the term Pentecostalism as shorthand for forms of spirit-centered Christianity that assign a central role to the Holy Spirit as well as to an individual relationship to God. For overviews, see Meyer (2010) and Robbins (2004).

These churches are so-called because the members are visible in the public space because they wear all-white dresses when going to church. In the view of Efua's pastor, this church works with the wrong spiritual powers.

This point raises interesting questions about how spirits in Pentecostalism underpin transnational connections. Unresolved questions concern, for instance, why a territorial spirit would or would not allow a curse or spell to go through and how spirits negotiate with each other.

Adam Mohr (2008) used this term to denote the different practices employed in Christian churches.

Research in London was made possible by funding from the Economic and Social Research Council and Villigst, and formed the basis for my PhD thesis at the University of Oxford. In addition, I draw on insights from research on transnational networks of churches founded by migrants from Ghana in Germany (DFG funded project directed by Gertrud Hüwelmeier).

Spiritual churches in Ghanaian English are churches that were founded independently from mission churches and focus on the gifts of the Holy Spirit. For an overview, see Sackey (2001) and Meyer (2004).

The assumption that religious architecture might be somehow not ‘functional’ might be the exception rather than the rule when looking into the history: early Christians in Rome for instance met first in private buildings, the domus ecclesia, which were adapted to the new functions as best as possible (Krautheimer 1982:16), they moved under Constantin into the first buildings purposely built for worship, but nevertheless rooted in what Krautheimer called the genus basilica: a multifunctional hall “designed for large gatherings of the township; for markets; for judiciary sessions; for military drill; as lobbies adjoining theaters, thermae, and temples” (Krautheimer 1982:122). I am grateful to Helga Kessler-Aurisch for pointing out this parallel.

See also Luhrmann (2004); Krause and Van Dijk 2012.

After I completed my fieldwork, a small group of Romanians started to attend the church also.

The display of prestigious objects such as expensive media technology, but also an esthetic reminiscent of TV studios and offices, corresponds to what Mattia Fumanti has described as “showing-off aesthetics” (2013) among Ghanaians in London.

For exceptions, see Engelke (2010) and the work of Kirsch (e.g., 2008).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Kristine Krause

KRISTINE KRAUSE is Assistant Professor at the University of Amsterdam and Research Partner of the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity, Göttingen. Her research interests include political subjectivity and care, transnationalism and health, and medicine and religion, particularly global Pentecostalism.