New Pentecostal urbanities in Harare: landscapes of everyday life and visions of the future.

At the height of Zimbabwe’s multi-layered crisis, emerged several Pentecostal-Charismatic Churches (PCCs). Led by youthful charismatic ‘prophets’, these PCCs gained significant traction in many urban spaces, especially in Harare, Zimbabwe’s capital, where they have sought to ‘Pentecostalise’ the cityscape. Public spaces in Harare have become saturated with Pentecostal aesthetics, which include, but are not limited to, church-branded stickers on vehicles, huge religious billboards at strategic spaces, impressive megachurch buildings, and spectacular public displays. This remarkable growth of PCCs saw them venturing into huge real estate projects that have dramatically reshaped the urban landscape. Through these projects, PCCs are creating ‘cities within cities.’ Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in Harare, I examine how two PCCs have reconfigured urban landscapes through their projects, activities, and rituals. In addition to a focus on the quotidian dimension of urban life, I also focus on how these projects enable congregants and residents to reimagine the possibilities of a different kind of future and life in the city. Interestingly, the power of the ascendant PCCs is such that they are becoming de facto urban planners themselves and thus their vision for the urban future is creating new ways of relating to the present in the growing city. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]