"We Make the Voice of These People Heard": Trajectories of Socioeconomic Mobility among Congolese Pastors in Kampala, Uganda

Abstract:This article focuses on religious entrepreneurship in a context of displacement, specifically among Congolese refugees in Kampala, where becoming a pastor is one of the few opportunities available for social mobility. I analyze the social trajectories of two Congolese pastors. However different they may be from each other, they highlight ideas of success and prosperity that encourage us to rethink the socioeconomic role of Pentecostalism in Africa, analyzing the entanglements between the religious and the economic spheres from a multidimensional and a relational perspective. The article shows that entrepreneurial trajectories are instruments of mobility, but at the same time they need to be understood in terms of social becoming, the success of the two Congolese pastors being judged by the moral value that other people grant them and in relation to their role within the Congolese community.