Drawing on two years of ethnographic research, Naomi Haynes explores Pentecostal Christianity in the kind of community where it often flourishes: a densely populated neighborhood in the heart of an extraction economy. On the Zambian Copperbelt, Pentecostal adherence embeds believers in relationships that help them to “move” and progress in life. These efforts give Copperbelt Pentecostalism its particular local character, shaping ritual practice, gender dynamics, and church economics. Focusing on the promises and problems that Pentecostalism presents, Moving by the Spirit highlights this religion’s role in making life possible in structurally adjusted Africa.

About the Author

Naomi Haynes is a Chancellor’s Fellow and Lecturer in Social Anthropology at the University of Edinburgh. She is coeditor of the Current Anthropology special issue The Anthropology of Christianity: Unity, Diversity, New Directions and of the Social Analysis special issue Hierarchy, Values, and the Value of Hierarchy. She is also co-curator of the Anthropology of Christianity Bibliographic Blog at www.anthrocybib.net.

List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Note on Bemba Orthography and Pseudonyms
Prologue: A Breakthrough for Mr. Zulu

Introduction: Pentecostalism as Promise, Pentecostalism as Problem

1. Boom and Bust, Revival and Renewal
2. Making Moving Happen
3. Becoming Pentecostal on the Copperbelt
4. Ritual and the (Un)making of the Pentecostal Relational World
5. Prosperity, Charisma, and the Problem of Gender
6. On the Potential and Problems of Pentecostal Exchange
7. Mending Mother’s Kitchen
8. The Circulation of Copperbelt Saints

Conclusion: Worlds That Flourish

Notes
References Cited
Index

Reviews

"Naomi Haynes provides a compelling ethnographic study of the centrality of Pentecostal Christianity in contemporary Zambia... Haynes’ attention to certain socially productive elements of Pentecostalism allows her to dig deep into her ethnographic material and to detail what animates the everyday, interpersonal relationships at the core of Pentecostal Christian communities on the Zambian Copperbelt."
— AllegraLab

"Haynes’s book is a page-turner and a table-turner – gracefully written and gently dissentient toward some existing ideas on contemporary African Pentecostalism. . . . Scholars of Pentecostal-Charismatic Christianity and anthropologists of Christianity are in debt to Naomi Haynes for supplying her readers with such an empirically rich and theoretically nuanced portrait of contemporary Zambian neo-Pentecostals."
— PentecoStudies

“A fantastic book. In the tradition of the best work on the Zambian Copperbelt, Naomi Haynes gives us an up-to-date account of the literature’s enduring themes, including how urbanization, economic development, and modernity are faring in the post colony.” —Matthew Engelke, Professor of Anthropology, London School of Economics

“This detailed ethnography of life in Pentecostal communities on the Zambian Copperbelt offers a close view and a meaningful appreciation of both leaders and members, especially with respect to the concepts of charisma and prosperity. Moving by the Spirit is a very rich case study of what has become a growing movement in the wider world.” —Jane I. Guyer, Professor Emerita of Anthropology, Johns Hopkins University

About the Book

About the Author

Table of Contents

Reviews