Abstract

CAZARIN, Rafael. African pastors and the religious (re)production of a visual culture. Etnográfica [online]. 2017, vol.21, n.3, pp.463-477. ISSN 0873-6561.

The (re)production of visual material is an extended practice amongst Pentecostal-Charismatics worldwide and church leaders seem to play a decisive role in engendering such practice. While promoting spiritual missions and institutional visions, pastors reinforce their personae in accordance to the “spiritual gifts” they perform. This article explores the forging of a visual culture that legitimates such performances, through the usage of posters and flyers which, it is argued, feature a particular speech. The arguments emerge from the observed cases of African pastors located in Spain and South Africa and the “discovery” of these visual representations through ethnographic fieldwork carried out between 2012 and 2015. The ascription of meaning to such materials is achieved by focusing on the graphic portrayal of emotions, religious experiences, ethos and morality, aligned with a somewhat “African Pentecostal speech”. It is suggested that, by engendering a “speech community”, this graphic language reflects the global and local quests for belonging faced by worshippers in the Diaspora.

Keywords : African Pentecostalism; Diaspora; media; migration; religious minorities.

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