Apostolic healing practices and everyday peacebuilding in northern Zimbabwe

Résumé

This article examines how African Independent (Apostolic) churches contribute to peacebuilding in contexts of ongoing political violence, focusing specifically on Bindura South in northern Zimbabwe. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork conducted over 6 months, including in-depth interviews, participant observation, and life histories, the study analyses how Apostolic practices of healing and deliverance, such as public confession, prophecy, fasting, all-night prayer vigils, and ritual cleansing, function as mechanisms of reconciliation and social repair. The findings demonstrate that these religious practices create alternative moral and social spaces in which both victims and perpetrators of violence can articulate suffering, assume moral responsibility, and rebuild fractured social relationships. In a context where state-led peacebuilding initiatives are absent or compromised, Apostolic churches emerge as key sites of “everyday peacebuilding,” facilitating culturally grounded processes of healing and coexistence. The article contributes to debates on the “local turn” in peacebuilding by foregrounding embodied religious practices while critically engaging its limits including risks of depoliticization, reinforced impunity and uneven burdens of forgiveness.

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