Anthropology Club and CASI joint session

April 9, 2014

Miracle Truth: Permanent Struggle and Fragile Conviction in a Pentecostal Church in Kyrgyzstan

April 9, 2014 

Mathijs Pelkmans

Abstract: This paper looks at the successes and failures of Pentecostal Christianity in Kyrgyzstan. Focusing on the centrality of divine intervention in Pentecostal belief, the paper aims to produce insight in the dynamics of religious conversion in unstable political-economic environments. It argues that the unstable Pentecostal mission offers a stark illustration of the effervescent as well as fragile qualities of Pentecostal conviction.

Bio: Mathijs Pelkmans is Associate Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the London School of Economics. He has carried out extensive fieldwork in Georgia and Kyrgyzstan, and has published extensively about religious change, identity politics, and border regimes based on his ethnographic research. His latest book is titled "Ethnographies of Doubt: Faith and Uncertainty in Contemporary Societies" (2013).

<< go to news list