IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gig/afjour/v35y2000i3p293-312.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Privatizing the millenium. New protestant ethics and the spirits of capitalism in Africa, and elsewhere

Author

Listed:
  • Jean Comaroff
  • John Comaroff

Abstract

The authors examine - following Max Weber - the new religious spirit that seems to accompany the rise of global capitalism. The paradox of simultaneous homogenization and difference, the increase in both wealth and poverty, and the rise of new forms of chauvinism and exclusion amidst a discourse of laissez faire are some widely remarked features of this "new world order". Less often noted is the exuberant spread, at a time of hyper-rationalization, of prosperity-gospels and fee-for-service religions, of occult practices and pyramid schemes; i.e. of the enchantments of a distinctly neoliberal economy, whose increasingly inscrutable speculations seem to conjure novel specters in their wake. The authors seek to interrogate the reasons and new aspects of these events. With specific reference to examples from postcolonial Africa, the authors explore the characteristic ways in which neoprotestant movements try to encourage an age-old messianic spirit with the singular signs and values of neoliberal enterprise.

Suggested Citation

  • Jean Comaroff & John Comaroff, 2000. "Privatizing the millenium. New protestant ethics and the spirits of capitalism in Africa, and elsewhere," Africa Spectrum, Institute of African Affairs, GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies, Hamburg, vol. 35(3), pages 293-312.
  • Handle: RePEc:gig:afjour:v:35:y:2000:i:3:p:293-312
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Kohnert, Dirk, 2008. "Ausgrenzung und Entfremdung statt Integration: Afrikas Neuer Nationalismus in Zeiten der Globalisierung [Exclusion and alienation instead of inclusion: Africa's new Nationalism in times of globaliz," MPRA Paper 10529, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Kohnert, Dirk, 2011. "Cultures of Innovation of the African Poor – Common roots, shared traits, joint prospects? On the articulation of multiple modernities in African societies and Black Diasporas in Latin America," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, pages 241-262.
    3. Kohnert, Dirk, 2019. "L'éthique de l'intégration régionale et continentale africaine [The ethics of African regional and continental integration]," MPRA Paper 95579, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Dirk Kohnert, 2009. "New Nationalism and Development in Africa," Africa Spectrum, Institute of African Affairs, GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies, Hamburg, vol. 44(1), pages 111-123.
    5. Kohnert, Dirk, 2019. "The ethics of African regional and continental integration," EconStor Preprints 205257, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics.
    6. Kohnert, Dirk, 2007. "Common roots, shared traits, joint prospects? On the articulation of multiple modernities in Benin and Haiti," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, pages 151-173.
    7. Kohnert, Dirk, 2009. "New Nationalism and Development in Africa: Review Article," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 44(1), pages 111-123.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gig:afjour:v:35:y:2000:i:3:p:293-312. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Andreas Mehler (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/dueiide.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.