Girish Daswani

A companion to diaspora and transnationalism

A Companion to Diaspora and Transnationalism offers a ground-breaking combined discussion of the concepts of diaspora and transnationalism. Newly commissioned essays by leading scholars provide interdisciplinary perspectives that link together the concepts in new and important ways. • A wide-ranging collection which reviews the most significant developments and provides valuable insights into current key debates in transnational and diaspora studies • Contains newly commissioned essays by leading scholars, which will both influence the field, and stimulate further insight and discussion in the future • Provides interdisciplinary perspectives on diaspora and transnationalism which link the two concepts in new and important ways • Combines theoretical discussion with specific examples and case studies

(In-)Dividual Pentecostals in Ghana

How are Ghanaian Pentecostals related to others, not just as individuals but relationally and as partible and divisible selves that have an influential force over each other? In answering this question I use the example of two Ghanaian Pentecostal women who face personal problems in their lives and who seek different alternatives in alleviating their suffering. While claims to individuality may be important in born-again conversion, I argue that we also need to consider how Pentecostal Christians are dividual and related to others. In doing so, I examine these Ghanaian Pentecostal women as ethical subjects who are involved in balancing individual achievements against moral obligations to others.

Introduction: What is an individual? The view from Christianity

The introduction to this special section of Hau focuses on the tensions between individualism and dividualism as modes of personhood; while this essay approaches this foundational anthropological question through recent debates in the anthropology of Christianity, its larger concern is to reopen the question of in/dividualism in order to see whether we can imagine different relations between these two forms of being. As part of this discussion, this introductory essay rehearses the history of individualism and dividualism as concepts, reviews the current controversy over partible Christian personhood in Melanesia, and attends to recent debates about the relation between religion, the nation, and the state in Papua New Guinea that have followed from defacement of the Papuan Parliament Building. Synthesizing this material, we argue for a shift in framing of the question of in/dividualism. Rather than viewing dividualism and individualism as merely heuristics, or as vying but extant modes of organizing the subject, we suggest that in/dividualisms are best thought of as actualizations of a unitary underlying generative problematic. This is a problematic not merely for the anthropologist but for the anthropologist’s interlocutors as well; and as this problematic is worked through in various locales, we should expect not merely a wide variety of dividual and individual crystallizations of the person but also we should anticipate particular ethnographic milieus expressing complex emergent relations between the various extant dividualisms and individualisms.

What is an individual

The introduction to this special section of Hau focuses on the tensions between individualism and dividualism as modes of personhood; while this essay approaches this foundational anthropological question through recent debates in the anthropology of Christianity, its larger concern is to reopen the question of in/dividualism in order to see whether we can imagine different relations between these two forms of being. As part of this discussion, this introductory essay rehearses the history of individualism and dividualism as concepts, reviews the current controversy over partible Christian personhood in Melanesia, and attends to recent debates about the relation between religion, the nation, and the state in Papua New Guinea that have followed from defacement of the Papuan Parliament Building. Synthesizing this material, we argue for a shift in framing of the question of in/dividualism. Rather than viewing dividualism and individualism as merely heuristics, or as vying but extant modes of organizing the subject, we suggest that in/dividualisms are best thought of as actualizations of a unitary underlying generative problematic. This is a problematic not merely for the anthropologist but for the anthropologist’s interlocutors as well; and as this problematic is worked through in various locales, we should expect not merely a wide variety of dividual and individual crystallizations of the person but also we should anticipate particular ethnographic milieus expressing complex emergent relations between the various extant dividualisms and individualisms.

Transformation and migration among members of a Pentecostal church in Ghana and London

While an ideology of rupture is central to understanding Pentecostal Christianity in Ghana, not enough attention has been given to the moral relationships and ritual practices that help sustain a Pentecostal transformation and its situational application in different contexts. By comparing the experiences of members of the Church of Pentecost (CoP) in Ghana and London, I show how Pentecostal transformation provides church members with an ethical framework, that helps them cope with unhealthy relationships, witchcraft attacks, and migration, albeit differently. I argue that while promoting discontinuity, individuality, and positive change, Pentecostal transformation also raises concerns regarding continuity, communality, and negativity.

Looking back, moving forward : transformation and ethical practice in the Ghanaian Church of Pentecost

Introduction 1. Rupture and Continuity 2. Uncertainties and Dilemmas 3. Prophets and Prayer 4. Individuality and Dividuality 5. Kinship and Migration 6. African Christians in London 7. Citizens of Heaven Conclusion: The Future Will Fight Against You

Global Pentecostal Networks and the Problems of Culture: The Church of Pentecost in Ghana and Abroad

This chapter explains how networks shape and continue to influence Pentecostalism in Ghana. This is done by looking at the historical context of the regional and transnational networks that anticipated the Church of Pentecost’s (CoP) emergence in the Ghanaian religious landscape as well as the more recent changes within Pentecostalism in Ghana. The chapter also explains how Pentecostal networks are embedded in discursive networks by exploring the role that culture plays in the formation of global Pentecostalism. By turning Ghana into a ‘global village’ globalization has also brought negative aspects of culture that threaten to disrupt the conceptual order of transcendental certainty through which Pentecostalism thrives. It provides a practical specification to Pentecostalism; introducing a limit to the discourse on networks, highlighting both continuity and discontinuity, and the different inclusions and exclusions involved in negotiating Pentecostal boundaries. Keywords:Church of Pentecost’s (CoP); Ghana; global Pentecostal networks; Pentecostalism