Presenter: Dr Brian Murahwa
Title: Hearing the City: Pentecostalism, Urban Soundscapes and the Politics of Audibility in Johannesburg’s Inner City
Discussant: Carina Tenewaa Kanbi
Date: Wednesday, 17 June 2026
Time: 12:30 – 13:30 (GMT+2)
Venue: ACMS Seminar Room (2163), Solomon Mahlangu House (2nd floor), East Campus, Wits University (directions)
Zoom link: https://tinyurl.com/3dwkccpp, Meeting ID: 957 8662 4514, Passcode: 012731
RSVP: Email Jaclyn.Modise@wits.ac.za

Abstract:
This article examines Johannesburg’s inner city as a complex auditory landscape where religious actors, informal economies, transport systems, and street life intersect, creating overlapping acoustic territories. Sound influences spatial order, social interactions, and belonging. Over the past two decades, the city has integrated new ‘sounds’ from Pentecostal Churches, whose growth has surged amid rising urban insecurity and uncertainty. The use of high-powered sound systems in Pentecostal churches has elicited mixed reactions – joyous for Pentecostals and an affront to other urban actors. Based on extensive ethnographic fieldwork, this article argues that the use of boisterous sound systems by Pentecostal Churches should not be dismissed as mere nuisances or ‘noise’, but rather, should be understood as forms of spatial production embedded within broader urban struggles over visibility, audibility, legitimacy, and survival. This study proposes ‘sonic justice’ as an alternative framework to the prevailing noise governance systems – a shift from the ‘acoustics of control’ to the’ acoustics of coexistence’, where sonic diversity is acknowledged as an inherent aspect of urban life.

About the researcher/presenter:
Brian Murahwa is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the African Centre for Migration and Society (ACMS). An interdisciplinary urban researcher, his interests lie at the intersection of theory and practice in the fields of urban planning and management; mobility and social cohesion; socio-spatial transformations; religious urbanism; and sustainable cities. He holds a PhD in Urban and Regional Planning and a Masters in Labour Policy and Globalisation, both from the University of Witwatersrand, and a BA in Sociology from the Great Zimbabwe University.