Performing Power in Nigeria: Identity, Politics, and Pentecostalism by Abimbola A. Adelakun

Abstract

Power sits at the center of Adelakun’s rich analysis of Nigerian Pentecostalism. Its forms, functions, and influence weave throughout the book’s topics and themes. Adelakun argues that Nigeria’s social environment has been fundamentally transformed in recent decades by the way in which Pentecostals perform their identities as “people of power.” The book holds in tension two modes of power—the social construction of identity enacted by those in power (who seek to cohere and spread dominant narratives) and marginalized people’s demand for rights through radical performances (which raise counter-narratives about established norms). Adelakun demonstrates these competing spheres across an impressive succession of chapters, which use different sources to explore variable expressions of power and performance related to topics such as ethnic identity, gender expectation, fiscal legitimacy, comedy, familial identification, and COVID-19. The book shows how Pentecostals’ attention to, and discourses about, power have infused not only their community but also wider public spheres. The study provides more than insights into a religious group; it comments on the shape and animating forces at the heart of modern Nigerian society.Scholars looking for explicit discussion of interdisciplinary developments in studies of Pentecostalism or Nigeria will not find it in this book. In her introduction, Adelakun writes forcefully in support of performance studies as “the best methodology” for exploring features of religious aesthetics, actions, and politics (8). She positions her work primarily in relationship to recent intersections of religion and performance studies, generalizing other fields’ work on African Pentecostalism as missing the creative dimensions of religious life that shape production, reception, and ultimately identity construction. At odds with this seeming rejection of interdisciplinary framing, however, are the book’s chapters, which represent more dynamic, interdisciplinary cases than the introduction portends. In fact, despite Adelakun’s somewhat dismissive characterization of “anthropology, history, religious studies, and political science” in favor of performance studies (7), most of the book is fundamentally interdisciplinary. It reflects roots in African studies, a field that has brought together multiple disciplines since its beginning, often at the leading edge of methodological innovation.After the introduction, the book offers a multifaceted landscape in which a variety of sources and methods come into play. Adelakun analyzes a wide range of materials, from television dramas to financial campaigns, social-media movements to naming rituals drawing from interviews, ethnographic observations, visual analyses, and an array of media sources. For example, Chapter 3 explores expressions of the global #MeToo movement leveled against prominent Nigerian pastors. The case study brings together theological principles, gendered analysis of social respectability, visual analysis of social-media accounts, and discussion of the fetishized role of pastors’ images (literally posted on billboards or paraded on Instagram) as tools for fashioning power. Other chapters deal in nuanced ways with the democratic potential of internet communities, the role of comedy in producing worldviews, and ongoing interpretations of traditional practices, like naming.At its core, this book is not historical in focus. The first chapter with analysis lays out something of the history of Nigerian Pentecostalism, but it focuses more on exploring the role of theatrical activities in boosting congregants’ faith and commitment. The heart of Adelakun’s interest is clearly presentist. She is more interested in charting a discursive landscape than in exploring cause and effect or change over time. Similarly, her intellectual agenda is almost exclusively devoted to illuminating the contributions of performance studies to understanding the development and impact of Pentecostal identity in Nigeria. Readers interested in how she draws from other fields will need to go searching for them in her footnotes and text.Although Adelakun’s book does not immediately situate itself as a work of interdisciplinary history, those willing to engage with her chapters and content will find challenging material about the ways that attention to performance can deepen our analysis of historical problems.