No full-text available
To read the full-text of this research,
you can request a copy directly from the author.
Kimbanguist Diaspora in the West
Abstract
Kimbanguism, an African Independent Church, has implanted itself in the West since 1975, initially as an association of Congolese students. They found themselves compelled to create their own gathering space to worship according to their traditional forms of belief—worship services, baptisms, religious feasts—, moral guidelines, and identity reference codes. But in almost 50 years of a slow and still incomplete settling down of the Kimbanguist church in Western societies, its modes of integration remain specific to the migratory context. This chapter will thus focus on community modes of expression, specific modes of Kimbanguist integration, problems of adjustment, interracial marriages, and the discrepancy between two systems of value, entailing a generation gap between traditional Kimbanguism and the modes of religious affiliation and beliefs of second- and third-generation Kimbanguists, born or educated in the West.KeywordsKimbanguismAfrican Independent churchKongoKimbanguist diasporaMigrations
ResearchGate has not been able to resolve any citations for this publication.
Taking the London-based brass band of a transnational Congolese church (the Kimbanguist church) as a case study, this article explores how the sonic, visible and embodied experience of religion in the public space is linked to the politics and poetics of diasporic belongings. These public performances enable Kimbanguists to claim a place and a space in the city while ‘emploting’ a particular vision of self and others in the pluralised environment of the diaspora. After discussing the literature on urban religious parades and processions, the article addresses the wider implications of the sacralisation of space and public performance of faith in terms of urban but also post-colonial centre/periphery dialectics. Finally, it reflects on the construction of diasporic and ethnic identities as well as the reinterpretation of Kimbanguist religiosity among second-generation Congolese youth in the British context.
Kimbanguism as a migrants’ religion in Europe”, in Christianity in Africa and the African Diaspora. The Appropriation of a Scattered Heritage
- Mokoko Gampiot
Expression messianique d’une Eglise afro-chrétienne en contexte migratoire
- Mokoko Gampiot
- Aurélien Les Kimbanguistes En
Approaches to Ministry in Kimbanguism, an African prophetic church in France”, Urban Ministry Reconsidered
- Mokoko Gampiot
Christian Pluralism and the Quest for Identity in African Initiated Churches in Germany.” Paper given at the CESNUR conference “The Spiritual Supermarket: Religious Pluralism in the 21st Century
- Benjamin Simon
Les Kimbanguistes en Europe: d’une génération à l’autre
- Mokoko Gampiot
Être kimbanguiste et agir au féminin au sein de la diaspora kimbanguiste
- Mokoko Gampiot