Current Institutional Affiliation
Research Assistant, Institute for Humanities in Africa (HUMA), University of Cape Town

Award Information

Next Generation Social Sciences in Africa: Doctoral Dissertation Research Fellowship 2015
Institutional Affiliation (at time of award):
Institute for Humanities in Africa, University of Cape Town
Pentecostal Charismatic Churches, Prosperity Gospel and upwardly mobile University students in Zimbabwe: Two case studies of PCCs at the University of Zimbabwe

This project grapples with the 'recent' extensive growth and 'colonization' of secular public spheres by Pentecostal Charismatic Churches (PCCs). It particularly examines the explosive growth and appeal of PCCs on University of Zimbabwe campus. Central to this burgeoning growth of PCCs on campus, to which scholars of religion have blatantly overlooked, is the complex intersections between prosperity gospel, upward mobility and spiritual warfare. In spite of the conspicuous dynamic growth of PCCs on campus, there is hardly any study in Zimbabwe that explores this phenomenon in such spaces. How do we explain the extra-ordinary growth of PCCs in 'secular' university spaces among the educated and upwardly mobile university students? This project tries to develop a nuanced understanding of how PCCs (re)shape the political, economic and social life worlds of students. My study is grounded in qualitative ethnographic case study design, triangulating participant observation, in-depth interviews and secondary sources in collecting data.

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