The Church, the State, and Transformations in Maternal Healthcare in Nigeria

Abstract

Religious conversion has long paralleled and often intersected development schemes in Africa with reproductive health interventions being a particularly dense node of interaction. Recently the rapid expansion of Pentecostalism in Nigeria has come into confrontation with state maternal health programs in ways that call for renewed thinking around secularization theories and the changing role of religion in the modern state. For aid communities, achievements in reproductive health often serve as markers of development and a step toward modernization. While hundreds of millions of dollars have been put to the task, little progress has been made in Nigeria. This stagnation has been linked to a protracted process of secularization as many deliver in mission homes, which are run by Pentecostal churches, shun biomedicine and use prayer alone to assist childbirth. This paper, based on ethnographic fieldwork in southwestern Nigeria, examines Pentecostal encounters with a state attempting to develop through interventions in maternal healthcare. I explore how contemporary transformations in religiosity are shaping the care of pregnant and birthing women in a predominantly Christian region of Nigeria. What constellation of services, logics, forms of reason make mission homes desirable? I also discuss state efforts to both arbitrate over and assimilate mission homes and the implications these conflicted confrontations have on the reproductive lives of women. Finally, I reflect on the figure of the religious fanatic in healthcare settings.