Abstract

How religion, gender, and urban sociality are expressed in and mediated via television drama in Kinshasa is the focus of this ethnographic study. Influenced by Nigerian films and intimately related to the emergence of a charismatic Christian scene, these teleserials integrate melodrama, conversion narratives, Christian songs, sermons, testimonies, and deliverance rituals to produce commentaries on what it means to be an inhabitant of Kinshasa.

“I would highly recommend this fascinating  ethnography to upper-level undergraduates, graduate students, and scholars in anthropology and African, religious, media, performance, and urban studies.”  ·  American Anthropologist

“This book is… an exemplary combination of detailed ethnography and anthropological theory that is rare in the study of Pentecostalism. Pype’s writing is flawless and engaging. She also allows immediate access to some of the film material through the publisher’s website. Moreover, Pype’s reflections of her own role as researcher provide transparent insights into the dynamics of her fieldwork. This dimension also makes the book a reference-point for those interested in participant observation among Pentecostals.”  ·  Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute

“Clearly, the analysis and conclusions of this book reach much wider than Kinshasa’s Pentecostal groups alone. Not only does it have far-reaching consequences for contemporary thinking on religion, and where and how to study it, it also opens up discussions in the fields of media, popular culture and arts, youth, gender and sexuality, and urban studies. As such, the book - with accompanying moving images available at Berghahn’s website - is of great value to a much wider readership than only those interested in Pentecostalism in Africa.”  ·  Nova Religio: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions

“Pype’s book is a contribution to ‘anthropology of media’, an upcoming sub-discipline of cultural studies, and this (but not only this) makes this publication so important.,,[and] inspiring.”  ·  PentecoStudies

“By offering a vibrant ethnography of the trajectories of evangelizing TV actors’, their personal ambitions, anxieties, and disagreements with one another, Pype deconstructs the content of the melodrama…the ethnography offers insight into the role of religious media in the public sphere and its impacts on morals, even in secularized societies.”  ·  Sociology of Religion

“Pype proposes a very innovative understanding of the continuum between artistic and moral dimensions of media production/consumption. For this, she uses the problem of gender as a critical guideline to understand the continuities and disruptions provoked by the ‘Pentecostal melodrama’. From this perspective, this book…moves beyond the mere analysis of Pentecostalism as a phenomenon in itself, placing it within a wider, more fruitful scope
of reflection.”  ·  Social Anthropology/Anthropologie sociale

“Theoretically literate, based on superb ethnography, this book provides one of the best studies of television we have yet in African studies…[that] promises to open up a new field of analysis and define the standards for how this research is to be conducted…a landmark that will make a significant contribution to some of the main fields in African studies and anthropology.”  ·  Brian Larkin, Columbia University

“[A] tour de force. This very elegantly and evocatively written ethnography of Congolese television drama is a path-breaking example of what it means to conduct and construct a thick description of a culture of media production.”  ·  Debra Spitulnik Vidali, Emory University

“This book is beautifully written, theoretically sophisticated, nuanced in its analysis and empirically rich. Given that so much has already been written on African Pentecostalism, coming up with something original and new to say on the topic is quite a challenge, but Pype pulls it off and deserves a lot of credit for that.”  ·  Martin Lindhardt, University of Copenhagen

“The author deserves great praise for the original way in which she moves her analysis beyond a mere observation of African Pentecostalism. This ethnographically grounded book not only captures the heterogeneity that marks Kinshasa in a beautiful way, but it also innovatively combines three currently burgeoning fields within anthropology: the anthropology of urban settings, the anthropology of youth, and the anthropology of media.”  ·  Filip De Boeck, University of Leuven

Katrien Pype is Assistant Professor at University of Leuven and a Fellow with the Department of African Studies & Anthropology at University of Birmingham. She is co-initiator, with Miles Larmer and Rueben Loffman, of Congo Research Network, a platform that aims at enhancing dialogue and collaboration among Congo researchers in the humanities and social sciences.