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Lawanson, Taibat ; Millington, Gareth:
The territorial temporalities of urban religion : Pentecostalism, neighbourhood change and planning control in Lagos, Nigeria.
In: Garbin, David ; Coleman, Simon ; Millington, Gareth
(Hrsg.):
Ideologies and Infrastructures of Religious Urbanization in Africa : Remaking the City. -
London
: Bloomsbury
,
2022
. - S. 107-126
ISBN 978-1-350-15212-0
DOI: https://doi.org/10.5040/9781350152144.ch-007
Abstract
When African cities grow or transform from within, urban management systems are often ill-equipped to respond to the challenges and complexities that accompany such developments. Religious denominations and places of worship are increasingly being identified as significant actors in the creation of urban forms, actors that sometimes challenge or contradict the stated goals of land use planning in many African and Asian cities (Bouma and Hughes 2000; Hancock and Srinivas 2008; Meyer 2002). At the same time, examples of the influence of religious movements in residential neighbourhoods abound in many cities globally with faith communities shaping local everyday life, deploying infrastructures and providing material and symbolic resources to members and residents (Day 2017; Fawaz 2009; Hancock and Srinivas 2008). Recent scholarship on the nexus between religion and urban space in Nigeria include Adeboye (2012), Katsaura (2019), Larkin (2008) and Obadare (2018), all of whom highlight how the activities of faith-based organizations influence urban cultures and practices. Ukah (2013a, 2016) brings an alternative and offers a welcome emphasis on political economy in his study of the RCCG (Redeemed Christian Church of God) Redemption Camp, a large Pentecostal urbanizing enclave situated just outside of Lagos (see also Asamoah-Gyadu 2019). Ukah argues that the camp is part and parcel of an ‘entrepreneurial’ religious vision, highlighting RCCG’s integration of market logic with evangelism. This, he suggests, is the business of ‘doing God’s work’. Accordingly, ‘the church’s attempt to construct a city out of dense forest area, based on a profit driven understanding and practising of faith … follow[s] the path of neoliberal urbanism’ (Ukah 2016b: 258). However, while it is important to pay attention to spectacular peripheral enclaving, this chapter argues that there is also a need to interrogate the interface of religion and urbanization at a smaller scale, and in more central parts of the urban landscape, and this with a view to gain a more comprehensive understanding of how cities across the globe are evolving in pace with revivalist (Christian) movements. Using as a case study the inner urban neighbourhood of Onike in Lagos, this chapter seeks to understand the growing local presence of yet another iconic, global Nigerian Pentecostal Church – the Mountain of Fire and Miracles Ministries (MFM). In particular, we place the church’s territorial strategies – accomplished over three decades – and its ‘moralising’ influence over urban space under critical scrutiny. As we shall see, a key question is whether this example of religious urban enclaving constitutes a form of ‘popular urbanization’ – in the sense of a strategy through which an urban territory is produced, transformed and appropriated by institutions and/or forms of self-organization beyond the state (Streule et al. 2020) – or a Pentecostal-inflected mode of ‘pacification’, gentrification and displacement....
Weitere Angaben
| Publikationsform: | Aufsatz in einem Buch |
|---|---|
| Begutachteter Beitrag: | Ja |
| Institutionen der Universität: | Research Networks > African Studies Forschungseinrichtungen > Sonderforschungsbereiche, Forschergruppen > EXC 2052 - Africa Multiple: Afrikastudien neu gestalten |
| Titel an der UBT entstanden: | Nein |
| Themengebiete aus DDC: | 200 Religion 300 Sozialwissenschaften |
| Eingestellt am: | 05 Nov 2026 12:19 |
| Letzte Änderung: | 05 Nov 2026 12:19 |
| URI: | https://eref.uni-bayreuth.de/id/eprint/99943 |