Grounded Theory: Application and Challenges in Investigating Emerging Christian Kinship Structures in African Urban Pentecostalism

Abstract

Despite the Covid-19 global pandemic, the expectations on research outputs still hold for
universities and research institutions. From July 2021, myself and a team of five members, we
embarked on a qualitative and ethnographic research to explore and understand the ‘emerging
Christian kinship structures in African Pentecostalism’. As a team we have been in the process of
collecting non-numerical data such language, attitudes, feelings and human behaviours from
three Christian communities (Christ is the Answer Ministries Valley Road, Jesus Celebration
Centre Parklands, and Kenyatta University Christian Union). The purpose of the research is to
understand how an individual subjectively perceives and gives meaning to their Pentecostal
urban reality. In other words, we are out to study ordinary theology listen to it and looking for it
in the words and lives of ordinary believers. Kinship has long been recognized as a foundational
aspect of African religion and culture. Kinship forms the anchor of society upon which other
elements hang. As often stated in reference to African communality, “I am because we are and
because we are, therefore, I am.” The maxim illustrates the centrality of social bonds in
buttressing the communality intrinsic in the philosophical presuppositions of African society.
However, urban life has been described as a centre of alienation, individuality and
commercialization of human interactions. Thus, one wonders how communality as expressed in
kinship has implications in the lived theology of urban African Pentecostalism. This research
underscores the application and significance of grounded approach by bringing theology and
social sciences together to investigate aspects of this communality within the lived theology of
African urban Pentecostalism in the context of Covid-19 pandemic.
Keywords: Kinship, Pentecostalism, Urban, Theology, Communality, Grounded Theory