African Independent Churches in Mozambique
Healing the Afflictions of Inequality
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 2478697 |
|---|---|
| Authors | J Pfeiffer (0000-0002-7985-9437, Case Western Reserve University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2002 |
| Volume | 16 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 176-199 |
| Publication date | 2002-06-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Medical Anthropology Quarterly (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0745-5194 • E-ISSN: 1548-1387 |
| Publisher | Wiley (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1525/maq.2002.16.2.176 |
| PMID | 12087628 |
| OpenAlex | W2123077702 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 54 |
| References cited | 55 |
The recent explosive proliferation of African Independent Churches (AICs) in central Mozambique coincided with rapid growth of economic disparity in the 1990s produced by privatization, cuts in government services, and arrival of foreign aid promoted by Mozambique's World Bank/International Monetary Fund Structural Adjustment Program. Drawing on ethnographic research in the city of Chimoio, this article argues that growing inequality has led to declining social cohesion, heightened individual competition, fear of interpersonal violence, and intensified conflict between spouses in poor families. This perilous social environment finds expression in heightened fears of witchcraft, sorcery, and avenging spirits, which are often blamed in Shona ideology for reproductive health problems. Many women with sick children or suffering from infertility turn to AICs for treatment because traditional healers are increasingly viewed as dangerous and too expensive. The AICs invoke the "Holy Spirit" to exorcise malevolent agents and then provide a community of mutual aid and ongoing protection against spirit threats. [Mozambique, social inequality, African Independent Churches, intrahousehold, health
Development economics · Economic growth · Economics · Ideology · Inequality · Mutual aid · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Social inequality · Sociology · Gender Studies · Global Maternal and Child Health · Law · Poverty, Education, and Child Welfare · Religion, Society, and Development
Religious Affiliation and Under-Five Mortality in Mozambique
Violence on the Periphery
Adherence as therapeutic citizenship
Issues of doctrine and reality in Christian attitude towards traditional medicine in Nigeria
Social environment perception and associations with overweight in the city of Porto Alegre, Brazil
Historical Legacies, Social Capital, and Women’s Decision-Making Power
Religion and Economies
Religion and Medicine
Influence of religious affiliation and education on HIV knowledge and HIV-related sexual behaviors among unmarried youth in rural central Mozambique
Civil Society, NGOs, and the Holy Spirit in Mozambique
Commodity Fetichismo The Holy Spirit, and the turn to Pentecostal and African Independent Churches in Central Mozambique
Diálogos da Igreja Universal com outras práticas religiosas no sul de Moçambique
Pentecostalism and Aids treatment in Mozambique
Religious responses to HIV and Aids
Use of traditional complementary and alternative medicine for HIV patients in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa
O papel da religião na promoção da saúde, na prevenção da violência e na reabilitação de pessoas envolvidas com a criminalidade
Traditional healers and laypeople
Anthropology, Inequality, and Disease
A Better Life for All’
Uchawi Upo
Breaking up 'because of the phone' and the transformative potential of information in Southern Mozambique
Religious teachings and influences on the ABCs of HIV prevention in Malawi
Pentecostalismo brasileiro em Moçambique
Becoming and remaining community health workers
Threats to safe motherhood in Honduran Miskito communities
Health interventions and the persistence of rumour
Gender, religious involvement, and HIV/Aids prevention in Mozambique
The Persistence of Traditional Healing for Mental Illness Among the Korekore People in Rushinga District, Zimbabwe
La fièvre des téléphones portables
A Historiographical Overview of Mission and Politics in Twentieth-Century Angola and Mozambique
Conversão Do Marido Espiritual
Uma etnografia gráfica como forma de afeto e de memória
This Is Not Our Culture! Discourse of Nostalgia and Narratives of Health Concerns in Post-Socialist Tanzania
Chikotsa-Secrets, Silence, and Hiding
Condom Social Marketing, Pentecostalism, and Structural Adjustment in Mozambique
The Holy Spirit in the Household
Women's Religious Authority in a Sub-Saharan Setting
Anthropological Perspectives on Structural Adjustment and Public Health
Embedded Narratives
Religious Belonging, Religious Agency, and Women's Autonomy in Mozambique
Witches' wealth
In God's hands
Bearing the Decline of Animal Sacrifice
One beer, one block
Women's Schooling and Religious Mobility
Aids-related knowledge and sexual behaviour among married and previously married persons in rural central Mozambique
Affective journeys
Reconsidering the Allure of the Culturally Distant in Therapy Seeking
A Nova Vida
Therapeutic Navigations and Social Networking
Healing is a Done Deal
Converting the Spirit Spouse
The Night War of Nampula
Smoked or Bewitched? The Relationship Between Cannabis Use and Mental Illness Among the Shona Persons in Zimbabwe
Zulu Zion and some Swazi Zionists
Bantu Prophets in South Africa
Dying for growth
Globalization and identity
Religion in Africa
Syncretism/Anti-Syncretism
Epidemiology of Spirit Possession Among the Luvale of Zambia
Sorcery in Its Social Setting
The Social Environment and Health
Peace without profit
Religion in context
Modernity and its malcontents
NgomaDiscourses of Healing in Central and Southern Africa
Zionism and Faith-Healing in Rhodesia
Images of rejection in the construction of morality
Zezuru turn of the screw
Body of Power, Spirit of Resistance
Magic and witchcraft
Structural adjustment and social policy in Mozambique
Social capital, income inequality, and mortality
How Serious is the Neglect of Intra-Household Inequality
If You Are a Devil, You Are a Witch and, If You Are a Witch, You Are a Devil.' the Integration of 'Pagan' Ideas Into the Conceptual Universe of Ewe Christians in Southeastern Ghana1
Historicizing Christian Independency
Poor and Puritan; an attempt to view Zionism as a collective response to urban poverty
Social Theory and Social Structure
African Healing Strategies
Witches, Prophets and Avenging Spirits
Crime
Mai Chaza'sGuta re Jehova(city of God)
Plundered kitchens and empty wombs
Social capital and health
Women and health in Africa
Intrahousehold resource allocation and child growth in Mozambique
Interpreting infertility
South Africa
Witches, Prophets and Avenging Spirits
The Healer-Prophet in Afro-Christian Churches
Empirical Studies of African Independent/Indigenous Churches
Globalization and the Power of Indeterminate Meaning
At the Threshold of the Millennium
The Drums of Affliction
Religious Movements and Politics in Sub-Saharan Africa
Witchcraft and Sorcery in East Africa
Charismatic Christianity as a Global Culture
Cosmologies in turmoil
Ritual healing and political acquiescence
Witchcraft, Modernity and the Person
Spirit Possession Revisited
| Unique citing works | 54 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 2,35 |
| Citation span | 2003 - 2026 (24) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 53 |