ABSTRACT
The article aims to show how the presence of the AIDS epidemic contributed to give shape to the collective identity of Pentecostals in Uganda who, due to the particular historical conditions, in the middle of the 1980s were still a marginal presence in the country.3 The parallel history of Pentecostalism and HIV/AIDS in Uganda is of particular interest as it shows how an external, unpredictable circumstance (the rising of the AIDS epidemic) can contribute in a decisive way to shaping the construction of meaning, and thus the action, of a social movement. With reference to literature concerning the formation of identities in social movements, the paper demonstrates the way Pentecostals’ engagement in HIV/AIDS programs – and mainly in the “abstinence campaign” – has contributed to defining the collective identity of the young people involved to the movement, and to the building of moral borders between the Balokole and the others, with a stress on the common belonging to a new group, based not on biological birth, but on spiritual rebirth.
