Evangelical Churches in Dakar: Urban Implantation, Faith Commodification, and Proselytism
Abstract
Pentecostal evangelical expansion in Dakar raises a central question about how a religious minority establishes durable social and spatial presence within a Muslim-majority urban environment. Focusing on the interaction between urban implantation, ritual practice, biblical authority, and material exchange, the analysis examines how congregations negotiate restricted access to land while developing practices that attract, organize, and sustain participants. Olivier Roy’s framework of deterritorialization and reterritorialization guides a qualitative case study based on nine semi-structured interview and focus-group sessions involving 21 pastors, congregants, imams, and local residents, together with observations in twelve churches conducted in 2016. The findings show that congregations respond to difficulties in obtaining sites and permits by purchasing private property and converting rented houses into worship spaces. Their consolidation also depends on healing and deliverance prayers, thematic Bible teaching, organizational differentiation, social assistance, and offerings framed as acts of worship connected to divine blessing. Rather than treating commodification as the simple sale of religion, the analysis shows how spiritual value and material circulation become intertwined within congregational life. Evangelical implantation therefore emerges as a combined process of spatial adaptation, ritual efficacy, institutional organization, and practical responsiveness through which transnational Pentecostal formations acquire locally embedded relationships in Dakar. The case contributes to debates on religious movements by showing that expansion depends on negotiated infrastructures as much as missionary proclamation.
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Copyright
Copyright Holder: Alassane Sow
Copyright Year: 2026
License: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License