Katrien Pype

Dancing for God or the Devil: pentecostal discourse on popular dance in Kinshasa

This article studies the dance poetics and politics of Christians in contemporary Kinshasa. For Kinois (inhabitants of Kinshasa), dance is one of the most important technologies to get in touch with an invisible Other, the divine or the occult. In sermons, and other modes of instruction, spiritual leaders inform their followers about the morality of songs and dances. These discourses reflect pentecostal thought, and trace back the purity of specific body movements to the choreographys source of inspiration. As the specific movements of so-called sacred dances borrow from a wide array of cultural worlds, ranging from traditional ritual dances and popular urban dance to biblical tales, the religious leaders state that not just the body movements, but also the space where people dance and the accompanying songs, define the Christian or pagan identity of the dancer. Therefore, both the reflections upon dance movements and the dance events within these churches will be discussed as moments in the construction of a Christian community.

Confession cum Deliverance : In/Dividuality of the Subject among Kinshasa's Born-Again Christians

The article deals with the social significance of confessions among Kinshasa’s born-again Christians.1 Together with conversion narratives and former witches’ testimonies, confessions represent the main discursive rituals in the religious practices of newborn Christians. The analysis departs from the observation that among Kinshasa’s born-again Christians confessions are usually preceded or followed by deliverance rituals, and, that they are rarely acted out in an intimate and private encounter with the pastor. Rather, these narratives are usually expressed in public, preferably with the sinners’ victims as audience. The public nature of the confessions and their co-occurrence with spiritual cleansing as performed via deliverance rituals allow us to embark on an analysis that foregrounds the uncertainty of the Christian subject and the ways in which the subject can emerge but also be broken down.

Of Fools and False Pastors: Tricksters in Kinshasa's Television Fiction

Sub-Saharan African public spheres have increasingly transformed following the Pentecostalist wave that is sweeping over the continent since two decades ago. This is also the case for Kinshasa, where this new type of Christianity dominates both the urban soundscape and the media world. A Christian popular culture flourishes with its own music, dance forms, TV shows and celebrities. This article focuses on local TV serials, that, disregarding the profile of the channels on which these are broadcast, are embedded in the spread of an apocalyptic interpretation of life, as professed by these new churches. The TV serials are approached as narratives that, just like traditional epic tales, depict spiritual and social transgression. Two main characters, the fool and the false pastor (pasteur), will be studied through the lens of the trickster, a longstanding figure in the study of traditional storytelling.

Visual Media and Political Communication: Reporting about Suffering in Kinshasa

Many sub-Saharan African societies have undergone significant political shifts in the last two decades. Changes in political representation and leadership have generated new forms of political mediation and communication. This article interrogates one of the most visible transformations in Kinshasas political society: television news reports about urban misery, often resulting from a malfunctioning state, in which Kinshasas inhabitants testify about their difficulties and press fellow citizens, as well as local and national leaders, to bring about change. Exposing suffering is a shame mobilisation strategy, and so becomes a political act. Through the discursive and visual aesthetics of the proximity account, citizens and political leaders are inserted into one political community. The main argument of this article is that the proximity account illustrates a new kind of political communication. In this article I analyse the socio-political contexts in which the proximity report emerged and became popular. I trace the materialisation of this new kind of interaction between political leaders and citizens to the transformation of the late Zairian ‘state’, to vernacular understandings of ‘democracy’, and to the influence of NGO activities and Pentecostal Christianity.

Dead Media Objects and the Experience of the (Once) Modern. Ethnographic Perspectives from the Living Rooms of Kinshasa’s Old Aged

ABSTRACT This article departs from the observation that in many living rooms of elderly Kinois (inhabitants of Kinshasa), old and defunctive radio and television sets are put on display. When their primary function, to inform, has been rendered obsolete, we are faced with the question why people continue to display these objects, often next to newer models, in their living rooms. The main argument is that Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) commodities, old and new, defective and repaired, are primarily social objects that are embedded in complex webs of practices and expectations which unsettle the taken-for-granted associations between technology and time. ICT objects are shown to be metonyms of dynamics in social relationships between owners of these ICT goods and others; and, although seemingly paradoxically, these same objects, even when damaged, inhabit promises for a better future. The article thus offers an alternative perspective on electronic modernity, and in particular, the role of Africa therein.

Funerary comedies in contemporary Kinshasa: Social difference, urban communities and the emergence of a cultural form

ABSTRACT The article situates a new type of stand-up comedy, performed in Kinshasas mourning spaces (matanga), within the citys social universe. This type of funerary joking, enacted by comedians unrelated to the bereaved, represents a clear departure from the customary funerary humour in which accepted jokers occupy particular social positions vis-à-vis the deceased. Following recent changes in the organization of mourning rituals within the circles of Kinshasas wealthy, these rather intimate events are ever more open to ‘strangers’, who anticipate the spending capacities of the gathered crowd. Comedians constitute one among a wide range of outsider groups who approach the bereaved community as a space of opportunity. It is argued that this emergent cultural form is utterly urban, and could only appear within urban life worlds where conviviality with others, and in particular an understanding of peoples need to make a living in precarious circumstances, transforms the mourning community into an audience that pays for a cultural performance. Humour is not only derived from a symbolic difference between the poor and the rich, but also through the performance of exaggerated flattery, producing the illusion of patronage and situating the comedian within a feigned patron–client relationship for the duration of that performance. RÉSUMÉ L’article situe un nouveau type de stand-up comique qui se pratique dans les lieux de deuil (matanga) de Kinshasa, au sein de l’univers social de la ville. Ce type de plaisanterie funéraire, pratiqué par des comiques sans lien de parenté avec les proches du défunt, représente une nette rupture avec l’humour funéraire coutumier dans lequel des plaisantins acceptés occupent des positions sociales particulières vis-à-vis du défunt. Suite à une évolution récente de l’organisation des cérémonies de deuil dans les milieux aisés de Kinshasa, ces événements plutôt intimes sont de plus en plus ouverts aux « étrangers », qui anticipent le pouvoir d’achat des personnes rassemblées. Les comiques forment un des nombreux groupes extérieurs qui abordent la communauté en deuil comme un espace d’opportunité. L’auteur soutient que cette forme culturelle émergente est strictement urbaine et qu’elle ne pourrait apparaître que dans des univers de vie urbains où la convivialité avec autrui, et en particulier une compréhension du besoin des personnes en situation précaire de gagner leur vie, transforme la communauté endeuillée en public qui paye pour voir un spectacle culturel. L’humour vient non seulement de la différence symbolique entre les pauvres et les riches, mais aussi de l’interprétation d’une flatterie exagérée qui donne l’illusion d’un patronage et situe le comique, le temps du spectacle, dans une relation patron-client feinte.

Taboos and Rebels—Or, Transgression and Regulation in the Work and Lives of Kinshasa's Television Journalists

This article explores political transgression in Kinshasas media space and informal and official reactions to these. Ethnographic material will exhibit violation and regulation in the context of two highly popular media genres, call-in shows and short reportages about life in the city. In order to extend our understanding of political mediation, I argue we need to pay attention to the management of public information, to the parties involved in the negotiations about what can and should be publicly (re-)presented and what not, and to the ways in which political actors balance between containment and exposure. I present two types of media rebellion in order to illustrate in some detail the variety of ways in which political conflict and mass media interact in present-day Kinshasa, and how certain television journalist defy the borders between “the speakable” and that what should remain hidden.

The interdependence of mobility and faith–an introduction

The introduction to the special issue draws together theoretical and analytical strands that run through the four papers. As the four papers illustrate, devotion and mobility, belief and trajectory, go hand in hand. The main argument is that the religious movements discussed in this special issue are not local phenomena attempting to transcend fixed boundaries: they are transcendence, in the sense that they always are (and have been) part of the border land between global and vernacular, modern and traditional. They are not at the border: they are the border. Concepts such as mobility, postcoloniality and translocality are being discussed, which in turn lead to a problematization of concepts such as “Africa” and “Diaspora”. A second strand that combines the various papers is that trajectories along which religious practitioners travel are not nicely established routes, rather these are constantly “interrupted”; travellers move between localities, hopping from one hub to another. Such an approach allows a focus on networks and concrete interactions; and it destabilizes the assumed homogenous tracts along which Africans (or Pentecostalists) venture into the world “out there”.

The Noise of Still Images: Encounters in and with sub-Saharan Africa

The articles for this Special Issue arrived separately on the desk of Paul Hockings, the editor of Visual Anthropology. Surprised by the sudden flood of manuscripts dealing with sub-Saharan Africa’s visual cultures, he decided to group them into one issue, and invited me to write an Introduction for it. As the articles had not been commissioned with a particular theoretical or analytical program in mind, I attempted to discover the epistemological focus that the authors shared. Five authors examine images produced in ethnographic field research, religious figurative art, photography and marketing material produced in Africa for spectators either African or non-African. Despite the variety of their visual material and their space–time settings, the analysis of images in and of Africa offered here is fully located within the visual turn in anthropology. This means that, apart from discussing the image content, the researchers also explore the contemporaneous economic, political and social contexts, be it the academic world (Morton, Francis), the religious proselytizing moment (Jenkins, Gocking), or the tourist market (Francis, Finlay). The articles thus move beyond the production of sensational and strong primitivizing images such as the icon of Sara Baartman or the Central African pygmies, which have come to occupy a central place in our consciousness and which continue to inspire narratives about Africa. The text of this Introduction has not been discussed with the authors, who may or may not agree with my readings of their texts; though, in my view, the focus on encounters mediated by the still images binds the articles, and this will be the main thread of this Introduction.

Dancing to the rhythm of Léopoldville: nostalgia, urban critique and generational difference in Kinshasa’s TV music shows

ABSTRACT This article addresses social and symbolic differences in contemporary Kinshasa as these are expressed in and mediated via widely watched music television shows such as Bana Léo (‘The Children of Léo[poldville]’) and Sentiment Lipopo (‘The Feeling of Lipopo’), both of which have become extremely popular in Kinshasa (‘Léopoldville’ as the city was called during colonial times, or affectionately ‘Lipopo’) since the early 2000s. Recorded in local nightclubs, these programmes show elderly people performing cha cha cha, merengue, polka piquée, bolero, rumba, and other international dance styles to Congolese rumba music dating from the late colonial and early postcolonial periods. Intimately tied to the emergence of a new category of elderly people in Kinshasa, these shows clarify the boundaries between the ‘urban elderly’ and (a) the younger generations and (b) the ‘elders from the village’. A ‘practical nostalgia’ is performed that aims at restoring value to, and the esteem of, elders in the African city. The Bana Léo genre thus illustrates the ambiguity of the production of difference in the cultural domain. While generational differences may be expressed in the space of this genre, it simultaneously articulates a cultural attempt to overcome that distance and to create conviviality among the generations.