The abstinence campaign and the construction of the Balokole identity in the Ugandan Pentecostal movement

Abstract

Based on fieldwork data collected since 2005 in Uganda, the paper explores the connections between young Pentecostals' involvement in HIV prevention programs, with a particular attention to the “abstinence campaign”, and the process of identity construction within the movement itself. I show how the rise of the AIDS epidemic contributed in a decisive way to shaping the construction of meaning, and thus the action, of the Balokole (“the Savedees”) movement in Uganda. Theoretically, the article aims at contributing to fill the gap in the analysis of social movements in Africa, especially addressing the specificity of believers' participation in church activities and in evangelical faith-based organizations (FBOs) by exemplifying how the collective identity of the born-again and their mobilization to fight AIDS are reciprocally related. The identity/participation connection clarifies how the feeling of belonging to a strongly connected and partially closed group, that of the “saved” Christians, is pivotal in pushing the Balokole to become active.