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

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.