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

Gareth Millington, David Garbin and Simon Coleman

International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 2024, vol. 48, issue 3, 365-385

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.

Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-2427.13242

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:ijurrs:v:48:y:2024:i:3:p:365-385

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.blackwell ... bs.asp?ref=0309-1317

Access Statistics for this article

International Journal of Urban and Regional Research is currently edited by Alan Harding, Roger Keil and Jeremy Seekings

More articles in International Journal of Urban and Regional Research from Wiley Blackwell
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().