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Kenyan Pentecostals attempt to ‘live as Londoners do’ without compromising their devotion to God. Doing so necessitates coexisting with religious and non‐religious others, including Muslims who they view simultaneously as a ‘threat’ to historically Christian Britain and an ‘example’ to emulate. While the anthropologies of Christianity and Islam have developed as separate sub‐fields, pluralist settings like East London demand attention to inter‐religious coexistence. To understand these born‐again Christians’ subjectivities and lives, I draw on existential anthropology to explore how they navigate the circumstances in which they find themselves. I argue that Pentecostalism offers them the means to live as ‘good’ Christians, allowing them to seek material success and salvation in such a setting. More broadly, I suggest that an existential anthropological lens is well suited for studying pluralist contexts where relational encounters between diverse people and ideas are inevitable.
This article explores the intertwining of migration and religion in the lives of migrant men who were born in Kenya and have become Pentecostal pastors in London. Drawing on the spiritual careers of several pastors, I suggest that pastorhood be understood as a gendered means of social mobility. As pastors, these men attain a status that is socially and culturally intelligible in London and Kenya. At the same time, given that status is contingent upon recognition, the article also examines how pastorhood helps them navigate the challenges and inconsistencies of their lived experiences, such as a competitive religious marketplace and hostility in London, and the high expectations of those in Kenya. Rather than viewing religion as compensatory, I argue that Pentecostalism offers a ‘site of action’, to use Ruth Marshall's phrase, in which they can (re)make themselves as ‘new’ men and (re)position themselves vis‐à‐vis the multiple social worlds they inhabit.
The socio-economic and political uncertainties of Kenya in the 1990s jeopardised what many saw as the promises of modernity. An increasing number of Kenyans migrated, many to Britain, a country that felt familiar from Kenyan history. Based on extensive fieldwork in Kenya and the United Kingdom, Leslie Fesenmyer's work provides a rich, historically nuanced study of the kinship dilemmas that underlie transnational migration and explores the dynamic relationship between those who migrate and those who stay behind. Challenging a focus on changing modes of economic production, 'push-pull' factors, and globalisation as drivers of familial change, she analyses everyday trans-national family life. Relative Distance shows how quotidian interactions, exchanges, and practices transform kinship on a local and global scale. Through the prism of intergenerational care, Fesenmyer reveals that the question of who is responsible for whom is not only a familial matter but is at the heart of relations between individuals, societies, and states.
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