PhD Defence: Marten van den Toren
The faith of migrants travels with them. It faces new challenges and opens up new possibilities as it migrates to a new environment. In his dissertation, Marten van den Toren, a PhD student at the PThU, delved into the spirituality of Pentecostal migrant communities in Madrid.
About the dissertation
In the dissertation titled Pray for the City: Researching Pentecostalism, Migration and the Public Sphere I present research conducted among Pentecostal communities in Madrid with substantial connections with Latin America through migration, media, or transnational networks of religious leaders. I was specifically interested in gaining an insight into how such Pentecostal communities engage with the Spanish public sphere, considering the predominance of theologies of the Holy Spirit and the demonic.
This dissertation is the result of transdisciplinary research across anthropology and theology, in the borderlands of both disciplines. Such a transdisciplinary methodology enabled me to recognise a Pentecostalism of the borderlands. I discover Pentecostal communities living across and dwelling within a multitude of borderlands, challenge hegemonies, challenging how contemporary global spaces are constituted, what and who constitutes the political, and what is perceived as being religiously significant. And yet, I also discover that such borderlands are often dangerous and potentially cause profound anxieties for the researched Pentecostal communities.
