Frahm-Arp, Kaethe Maria (2006) Women of valour : professional women in South African Pentecostal churches. PhD thesis, University of Warwick.

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Abstract

Rapid social change has become a hallmark of post-apartheid South Africa and
part of this process has been the expansion of a middle class amongst previously
disadvantaged people. My thesis contributes to our understanding of this upward
mobility by investigating the role of two Pentecostal-Charismatic Christian
churches in helping young, professional, previously disadvantaged women
(re)shape their identities and negotiate the various networks of social, economic
and political power they encounter as they strive towards socio-economic
advancement.
The thesis details His People and Grace Bible church and gives an explanation of
Pentecostal-Charismatic Christianity in South Africa. In contrast to Latin
American studies it is argued that within both churches there was a
masculinization, rather than feminization of Christianity, which was attractive to
men and women. Using some of Bourdieu's ideas I have tried to show that a
central contribution these churches make in the lives of some of their members is
to help them develop various social and cultural capital resources, which they felt
they lacked. Through their engagement with these churches women (re)shaped
their identities seeing themselves as having a life purpose and the potential to
realise it. Their identities as mothers, wives and single women were impacted by
the ideal of the nuclear family and wifely submission upheld in both churches and
which the women in this study tried to fulfil. By aligning themselves with this
ideal women found their faith legitimated distancing themselves from their
extended families and the various demands of African cultural practices. Both
churches strove to establish a sanitised, modem, African Christianity, which
promoted individuality and socio-economic success, and offered an alternative to
the hedonistic trends of popular Y culture.

Item Type:	Thesis (PhD)
Subjects:	B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BX Christian Denominations H Social Sciences > HQ The family. Marriage. Woman
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH):	Pentecostal women -- South Africa, Pentecostal churches -- South Africa, South Africa -- Social conditions -- 1994-
Official Date:	July 2006
Dates:	Date Event July 2006 Submitted
Institution:	University of Warwick
Theses Department:	Department of Sociology
Thesis Type:	PhD
Publication Status:	Unpublished
Supervisor(s)/Advisor:	Beckford, James A.
Sponsors:	Commonwealth Scholarship Commission in the United Kingdom ; University of the Witwatersrand
Extent:	x, 336 leaves
Language:	eng

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