Exorcism Untangled: investigating Deliverance ceremonies among middle-class Pentecostal Congregation in Johannesburg, South Africa.

这项民族志研究的首要目标是调查当代南非五旬节派教会的救赎实践与该国更广泛的社会政治气候的关系。该项目的目的是促进对基督教人类学，更具体地说是五旬节教人类学这一日益增长的分支领域的比较关注，同时也解决南非缺乏关于解救仪式的深入研究的问题。这项研究将建立在有影响力的研究的基础上，这些研究确定了五旬节派中“现代”和“传统”概念之间的二分法，调查了五旬节教区居民中存在的不同社会文化和社会经济模式，考察了鉴于后种族隔离时期带来的社会文化变化，仪式的实践和意义发生了变化。通过这项人种学研究，我的目标是研究中产阶级、多种族的南非五旬节派教徒的生活经历，在这个国家漫长而复杂的殖民历史和五旬节派信徒的宗教认同之间建立联系。这些目标将通过调查和在南非约翰内斯堡Roodepoort省的两座五旬节派教堂进行广泛的田野调查来实现。因此，“自由教会”和“五旬节圣公会戴维逊维尔教会”是一个大型教会和社区教会，具有多代人和多种族的形象，属于一个由来自不同背景的中产阶级组成的环境，其中包括欧洲、非洲和亚洲遗产的教区居民和许多跨种族家庭。我的研究目标将通过从事现象学方法论来实现，这种方法论将使我能够创建一个分析模型，摆脱先前存在的文学偏见，通过受当地“宇宙剧目”影响的个人视角来接近解脱。这种方法论观点将伴随着对关键告密者的多次深入采访，这将为我的工作提供对信徒生活的详细了解。通过这个项目，我希望通过展示这些仪式如何为信徒提供必要的工具，让他们在动荡的过去、他们现在和不可预测的未来中定位自己，从而消除学术语料库中和非五旬节派的头脑中围绕解脱的任何预先假设和误解。

The overarching goal of this ethnographic study is the investigation of the contemporary practice of deliverance in Pentecostal churches in South Africa, in relation to the broader socio-political climate of the country. The aim of this project is to contribute to the comparative concern of the growing subfield of the Anthropology of Christianity and more specifically, the Anthropology of Pentecostalism, while also addressing the lack of in-depth studies surrounding deliverance ceremonies in South Africa. This research will be built upon influential studies that identify within Pentecostalism a dichotomy between the concepts of "modernity" and "tradition", investigating the different socio-cultural and socio-economic patterns that exists within the Pentecostal parishioners, examining the shift that has occurred within the practice and significance of the rituals, given the socio-cultural changes the post-apartheid period has brough to the surface. Through this ethnographic research, I aim to study the lived experience of middle-class, multi-racial South African Pentecostals, creating links between the long and intricate colonial history of the country and the religious identity of Pentecostal believers. These goals will be achieved by investigating and conducting extensive fieldwork in two Pentecostal churches in the Roodepoort province in Johannesburg, South Africa. "Liberty Church" and the "Pentecostal Holiness Church Davidsonville" are a mega-church and a community church, accordingly, with a multi-generational and multi-racial profile that belong in an environment consisting of a middle-class of people coming from different backgrounds, including parishioners of European, African and Asian heritage and many interracial families. My research objectives will be met by engaging in a phenomenological methodology that will allow me to create an analytical model, free of pre-existing literature biases, approaching deliverance through the individual perspective that is influenced by the local "cosmological repertoire". This methodological perspective will be accompanied by multiple in-depth interviews with key informants that will provide my work with a detailed understanding of the believers' lives. With this project, I hope to diminish any pre-assumptions and misconceptions surrounding deliverance, both in the academic corpus, as well as in the minds of non-Pentecostals, by showcasing the ways through which these ceremonies provide believers with the necessary tools needed to position themselves within the turbulent past, their present and unpredictable future.