This fascinating and unique book is the result of Devaka Premawardhana's journey of nearly one year to explore the local response to the recent arrival of Pentecostal churches in northern Mozambique. The chosen location for his fieldwork was the Maúa district, an area in the Niassa province and home to the Makhuwa-speaking people. Although focused on a short period of time between 2011 and 2012, Faith in Flux is an account about movement, not linear and straightforward movement, but rather movement that is circular and complex. Contrary to conventional narratives about the universal rise of Pentecostal conversions, Premawardhana finds a distinctive dynamic in the Maúa district, where "churches [are] arriving, but without always thriving" (10). According to the author, Maúa is home to four Pentecostal congregations of the African Assembly of God (ADA), which arrived from Zimbabwe in 1992, and the Evangelical Assembly of God (EAD), which was brought by Brazilian missionaries in 2001. Both churches seem to be in continuous flux. After a steady decline in the number of its attendees, the EAD-operating in Maúa town-managed to revive its ministry during the author's fieldwork year. Yet, Premawardhana chose to focus more on the rural areas of the Maúa district, where the ADA is more prominent. Most of his ethnographic material was collected in the village of Kaveya (population 700). Jemusse and Fatima's mud hut compound served as his headquarters. His hosts were especially wellsuited for this enterprise, as they were among the most earnest participants in Kaveya's ADA church, and Jemusse also held a low-level leadership position, which connected him both to the Makhuwa community and to the church. Premawardhana brilliantly brings together religion and migration in what he identifies as a Makhuma culture of mobility, a historical experience and cultural practice based on the move. According to him, this culture of mobility has its particularities. It is, for starters, circular mobility. To explain such circularity, Premawardhana recalls the Makhuwa foundational myth of Mount Namuli, in which Namuli is considered both a place of origin and a final destination for the Makhuwa. "Upon death, the munepa (spirit) of a
Even though scholars have made substantial contributions in connecting the fields of transitional justice and memory studies, important questions remain unanswered. The question of sequencing is one of them. How does a certain TJ mechanism condition the implementation of subsequent mechanisms and how together they shape memory narratives in a given society? This article builds on the case of Mozambique. Soon after the signing of the General Peace Agreement in 1992, the Frelimo-led government approved Amnesty Law 15/92 and with it, the past was to be left in the past. Such a choice was different from the one taken by Samora Machel—Mozambique’s first president—between 1975 and 1982. By promoting a quasi-truth commission, Machel revisited Mozambique’s colonial past and brought comprometidos’ actions into the open. This article finds that whether the government opened up about the past or sought to leave it behind, the result has been the same: the celebratory reproduction of the liberation war narrative. Resorting to path dependence and critical junctures, this study explains the ways in which such a narrative has become hegemonic throughout the last four decades.
Em 4 de outubro de 1992, foi assinado o Acordo Geral de Paz (AGP) que pôs fim ao conflito armado que assolou Moçambique por dezesseis anos. Apesar de este dia ser celebrado como o dia da Paz e da Reconciliação e oficialmente marcar o fim da guerra entre a Frelimo e a Renamo (1976-1992), este também pode ser visto, de uma forma mais ampla, como o fim de uma era de violência direta e de conflito armado que começou com a Luta de Libertação Nacional (1964-1974) contra o colonialismo português. Em seu romance Terra Sonâmbula, Mia Couto entrelaça duas histórias diferentes, misturando o presente e o passado, com o intuito de denunciar a destruição causada por “uma guerra que parece não ter fim”. Argumentamos que essa ideia de continuidade da guerra em Moçambique se expressa em três dimensões: através das ligações entre a guerra colonial-libertação e a guerra civil, por meio das memórias daquelas pessoas que a vivenciaram de forma direta ou indireta, e da memória coletiva de forma mais geral e, por fim, através da permanência de relações de colonialidade na sociedade moçambicana contemporânea. Com base na obra de Mia Couto e recurso às gramáticas do Pós-colonialismo, dos Estudos para a Paz e dos Estudos da Memória, este artigo reflete sobre a continuidade da guerra no país e como esse passado ainda se faz tão presente através das narrativas de memórias acerca do mesmo.
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