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NEO‐PENTECOSTAL URBAN INFRASTRUCTURES IN LAGOS, NIGERIA: Ontology, Politics, Poetics

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  • Gareth Millington
  • David Garbin
  • Simon Coleman

Abstract

This article examines how the urban fabric of Lagos is being transformed by neo‐Pentecostal forms of Christian religiosity—a transformation not only of inner, ‘private’ lives but also of urban infrastructures and their provision. Neo‐Pentecostal churches in Lagos now provide a range of infrastructures such as roads, bridges, electricity, water, healthcare, plus banking and educational facilities as well as a range of residential options. Church emblems are common features of the Lagos streetscape and can be found on buildings, vehicles and advertisement hoardings. In addition to their symbolic, moral and aesthetic register, Pentecostal urban infrastructures can be understood as a response to the crisis of social reproduction in Lagos, within the context of a postcolonial state that has adopted a position of entrenched neoliberalism. Critical questions remain, however, regarding whose interests are served by this arrangement. The article aims to understand (1) the ontological status of neo‐Pentecostal infrastructures, taking seriously the production and delivery of material infrastructures that are understood by some users to also be spiritual; and (2) the novel relations between church, state, market and citizen articulated by these infrastructures. Our arguments are based on qualitative data collected in Lagos between 2018 and 2022.

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  • Gareth Millington & David Garbin & Simon Coleman, 2024. "NEO‐PENTECOSTAL URBAN INFRASTRUCTURES IN LAGOS, NIGERIA: Ontology, Politics, Poetics," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 48(3), pages 365-385, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:ijurrs:v:48:y:2024:i:3:p:365-385
    DOI: 10.1111/1468-2427.13242
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Neil Brenner & David J. Madden & David Wachsmuth, 2011. "Assemblage urbanism and the challenges of critical urban theory," City, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 15(2), pages 225-240, April.
    2. Asonzeh Ukah, 2011. "God Unlimited: Economic Transformations of Contemporary Nigerian Pentecostalism," Research in Economic Anthropology, in: The Economics of Religion: Anthropological Approaches, pages 187-216, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    3. Stephan Lanz & Martijn Oosterbaan, 2016. "Entrepreneurial Religion in the Age of Neoliberal Urbanism," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 40(3), pages 487-506, May.
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