"It's All under Christianity": Religious Territories in Kenya

Abstract:This article presents key features of Kenyan Christianity's process of Pentecostalization, emphasizing the phenomenon's dual dynamic of homogenization and fragmentation. Against the backdrop of this inherent dynamism, we introduce the religious territory perspective, which we present as actual and discursive arrangements of (il)legitimate religious practice. The borders of these territories are self-fashioned, and may be redrawn from one moment to the next or over long stretches of time. We argue that the demarcation of such religious territories reveals people's unique conception of their religious environment and their own positionality therein. We thus emphasize the intertwining of moral legitimization and actual practice, and the performative aspect of the discursive presentation of such inner religious geographies.