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Curing what ails them: individual circumstances and religious choice among Zulu-speakers in Durban, South Africa

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 December 2011

John C. Rounds
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Extract

Much attention has been given to the causes accounting for the rise of religious movements: inequality (Linton, 1943), racism (Lea, 1926; Sundkler, 1948), relative deprivation (Barber, 1941; Aberle, 1972), oppression (Lanternari, 1963), the colonial situation (Balandier, 1970), and white power (Ifeka-Moller, 1976) are among the factors which have been given prominence. These and other similarly ‘macro-social’ factors are very visible, especially from a distance. They can be, and often are, imagined to operate with general uniformity across entire social groups. This then invites the use of similarly general demographic measures to prove both the reality of the independent variable and its efficacy in accounting for the dependent variable – the rise of new churches and/or conversion to them.

Résumé

La guérison de leur maladie: la situation des individus et le choix de religions chez les zoulouphones à Durban, Afrique de Sud

Dans cet article on aborde le problème de la grande variété de nouvelles religions africaines en discutant deux exemples— un centre de guérison nativiste et une secté pentecostale. Tandis que les rites et les croyances de ces deux religions sont tout à fait en opposition l'analyse de donnees tirees de questionnaires sur les membres des deux groupes révelé que ceux-ci se ressemblent à la plupart des égards — zoulouphones d'une région champêtre, éducation chrétienne, sur un pied d'égalité quant à la durée de leur enseignement.

Pour bien comprendre cette situation il faut chercher la clef critique dans la correspondance entre les attitudes des deux religions envers la ville et les decisions différentes prises par les membres avant leur conversion au sujet de la permanence de leur séjour dans la ville. Les données des questionnaires montrent que la plupart des convertis au centre nativiste sont des emigrants qui demeurent parmi des étrangers dans des appartements loues et qui ont l'intention de rentrer à leurs maisons dans les regions rurales, tandis que les convertis à la secte pentecostale sont en majeure partie des immigrants qui habitent leur propre maison urbaine et qui ont l'intention d'y rester.

On explique l'opposition entre les articles de foi des deux religions en tenant compte des contextes sociaux distinctifs de ces deux groupes de convertis. On soutient que les activités de l'une ou de l'autre de ces religions fournissent des solutions aux problémes particuliers qui se présentent a l'égard des occupations réciproques de la vie urbaine et de la vie de campagne sans parler des engagements opposés pris avec la ville par les membres des deux groupes.

Type
Research Article
Information
Africa , Volume 52 , Issue 2 , April 1982 , pp. 77 - 89
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 1982

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