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南非五旬节派教会的当代解脱实践，与该国更广泛的社会政治气候有关。该项目的目的是促进对基督教人类学日益增长的分支领域的比较关注，更具体地说，是五旬节派人类学，同时也解决了对南非拯救仪式缺乏深入研究的问题。本研究将建立在一些有影响力的研究的基础上，这些研究确定了五旬节派中“现代性”和“传统”概念之间的二分法，调查了五旬节派教民中存在的不同社会文化和社会经济模式，研究了在种族隔离后时期社会文化变化的情况下，仪式的实践和意义中发生的转变。通过这项民族志研究，我的目标是研究南非中产阶级、多种族的五旬节派信徒的生活经历，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身份之间建立联系。这些目标将通过在南非约翰内斯堡Roodepoort省的两个五旬节派教堂进行调查和广泛的实地工作来实现。“自由教会”和“戴维森维尔五旬节圣洁教会”是一个大型教堂和社区教堂，因此，具有多代和多种族的特征，属于一个由来自不同背景的中产阶级组成的环境，包括欧洲，非洲和亚洲遗产的教区居民以及许多跨种族家庭。我的研究目标将通过现象学方法论来实现，这将使我能够创建一个分析模型，摆脱已有的文献偏见，通过受当地“宇宙学曲目”影响的个人视角来接近解脱。这种方法论视角将伴随着对关键线人的多次深入访谈，这将使我的工作对信徒的生活有一个详细的了解。通过这个项目，我希望通过展示这些仪式为信徒提供必要的工具，让他们在动荡的过去、现在和不可预测的未来中定位自己，从而减少学术语料库中以及非五旬节派信徒心中对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.