Religion and Ghanaian Women Entrepreneurship in South Africa

Abstract

The paper demonstrates that migration is not just a physical event in the life of the migrant but that it impacts enormously on ways in which migrants renegotiate their beliefs, practices, attitudes and personal and social identities in the country of destination. Attention is paid here on the effect of the religious beliefs, practices and customs of these migrant women on their personal lives, attitudes, expectations, hopes and, not least, their business practices. I have described the intensive involvement of the migrant women in Ghanaian Pentecostal-type churches in Durban and how their payment of tithes and generous personal donations to their churches is understood by these women to be the pivotal reason for their success in business and in their private lives. There is a general consensus among these women that unless they create a vital connection between their entrepreneurial activities and their religious lives, they will fail to receive God’s blessing and will therefore fail to prosper in business. These women also generally dedicate their businesses to the service of God by making their business premises a locus for religious proselytizing, which, in their terms, means being able to “reach people with the gospel of Jesus Christ”. Some the migrants strongly regard their evangelical activities as a means of fulfilling God’s will in their lives. It is for this reason that they regularly say prayers in their salons and tune their radios to gospel channels so that those women who come to have their hair dressed may (involuntarily) hear religious messages and perhaps be moved to make further inquiries about Pentecostal Christianity.