The so-called explosion of Pentecostal Christianity is one of contemporary Africa’s more astonishing storylines. Yet what might be gained by shifting attention from the amply documented places where Pentecostal churches flourish to the relatively unknown places where they fail? In this talk, anthropologist Devaka Premawardhana reflects on the ambivalence with which Pentecostalism has been received by the Makhuwa-speaking people of northern Mozambique. The Makhuwa are not averse to the newly arrived churches. Many relate to them powerfully, but few remain in them permanently. Premawardhana attributes this religious fluidity to pragmatic and experimental dispositions cultivated by the Makhuwa in their pre-Pentecostal pasts—through migration histories and lifecycle rituals—and carried by them into their post-Pentecostal futures.

Biography
Devaka Premawardhana’s research and teaching bring ethnographic and existential perspectives to bear on the fields of global Christianity and African religions. He is an anthropologist with extensive fieldwork experience in Makhuwa-speaking communities of Mozambique (in southeast Africa). His first book, Faith in Flux: Pentecostalism and Mobility in Rural Mozambique, explores the ambiguities of religious change among a traditionally mobile people. It contests the widely assumed narrative of a worldwide Pentecostal “explosion,” doing so on the grounds that indigenous religions often remain vibrant and influential—even in the lives of converts.Among other awards and honors, Premawardhana was named a 2017 Emerging Scholar by Diverse: Issues in Higher Education magazine. He has served on the editorial board of the Encyclopedia of Christianity in the Global South and currently sits on the steering committee of the American Academy of Religion’s African Religions unit. Before joining Emory’s department of religion in 2018, Premawardhana earned his Ph.D. from Harvard University and taught at Colorado College.Ph.D. in Religion and Anthropology, Harvard University, 2014