Innovation or competition? A critical analysis of contemporary divine healing practices of pentecostal Africans in Africa and the diaspora

Abstract

This article examines current practices of divine healing of Pentecostal Africans. It provides insights into current developments by using the explanatory concepts of innovation, competition, and agency. The article draws on data obtained through an interdisciplinary, transnational, and multisite investigation of eight Pentecostal churches in Kampala, Nairobi, Cape Town, and London. Methods used included ethnographic observation, visual ethnography, and semistructured interviews. Pentecostal Africans in Africa and the diaspora, this article argues, are simultaneously reenacting centuries-old faith-informed healing practices and creatively reinventing aspects of these practices to assert their relevance in a postmodern world characterized by religious plurality, competition, and secularism.