2 - Transnational Spaces of Conquest

Summary

In our conversations, Pentecostal women often stressed how they wanted to go ‘elsewhere’ or to ‘another place’ (um outro lugar) far from Mozambique, where they would be less affected by locally binding forces. They complained about kin on whom they had to spend their hard-earned salary, about the difficulties in finding a reliable partner and jealous colleagues who used feitiços or fetishes against them so they would lose their jobs. Dona or Madam Gracelina (45 years old), for example, felt paralysed because certain powers were blocking her family – she, her husband and their children – from prospering. Her husband had profited from the new emerging economy in the city after the war and had a good job at an ICT company. However, he recently lost his job when he became seriously ill. Then, Dona Gracelina decided to open a business, but she was not able to get the right licence from the government. Like others in such a situation, she was assured that evil spiritual powers were hindering their success and happiness. In the Brazilian Pentecostal God is Love Church she had been frequenting for some time, she handed over the project file with the plans for the new company and copies of all the papers she had to arrange for the licence to a Brazilian pastor. He would take it with him on his travels until he was back in Brazil, where the Church's founder was going to pray for her. During the service it was revealed that an evil spirit stood behind Dona Gracelina and was following her wherever she went. The pastor screamed to the spirit to go away and proposed that Dona Gracelina defeat the demon with a programme of prayer, offerings and fasting.

Brazilian Pentecostal pastors proclaim that faith is capable of moving lives, families and nations and that people do not need to accept a low salary, a small house, illness and an unhappy marriage. These stand for stasis and stagnation, and show that something is blocking one's well-being and prosperity (van Dijk 2006). The power of the Pentecostal gospel removes blockades and produces enormous success. Whole nations can move forward and progress with the force of the Pentecostal faith. The centrality of movement was very present in the lively church services that I attended where the power of the Holy Spirit was manifest in pulsating music and shaking bodies.