Religions and Development
Religions and Development

Author: Emma Tomalin

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2013-07-03

Total Pages: 305

ISBN-13: 1136827471

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Religion has been excluded from development studies for decades. Religious traditions have contributed greatly towards development work, yet major international players have tended to ignore its role. Recent years have shown a noticeable shift in development policy, practice and research to recognize religion as a relevant factor. This text provides a comprehensive insight into different approaches towards the understanding the relationships between religions and development studies, policy and practice. It guides readers through current debates, presenting, explaining and critically evaluating a broad range of literature and locating it within a theoretical context. The text explores the role of religion within development, from positive contributions, such as the important role that many ‘faith-based organizations’ play in education or health care, to more complicated and contested notions of impact, such as religiously inspired violence or gender inequality. The book begins with three background chapters, outlining the relevance of religions for development studies, policy and practice, and introducing the reader to the study of ‘development’ and of ‘religions’. Following these, the focus then shifts to examine a number of thematic areas, including religion, gender and development, and the implications of the ‘rise of religion’ for mainstream development studies, policy and practice in the 21st century. Each chapter contains a range of features to assist undergraduate learning, including learning objectives for each chapter, discussion of key concepts, summaries, discussion questions, further reading and websites. The book also contains over sixty boxed case studies to provide further definition, explanation, and examples of the interactions between religions and development globally. This innovative text presents religions as something that can both obstruct and aid development, encouraging readers to engage critically with the multiple ways that religion impacts on both the conceptualization of development as well the resulting project interventions. This will be of interest to undergraduate, postgraduate students and scholars interested in religious studies, development studies, and the broader study of societies and cultures.

Religious Voices in the Politics of International Development
Religious Voices in the Politics of International Development

Author: Paul J. Nelson

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2021-04-15

Total Pages: 234

ISBN-13: 3030689646

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This first study of faith-based development NGOs’ (FBOs) political roles focuses on how U.S. FBOs in international development educate and mobilize their constituencies. Most pursue cautious reformist agendas, but FBOs have sometimes played important roles in social movements. Nelson unpacks those political roles by examining the prominence of advocacy in the organizations, the issues they address and avoid, their transnational relationships, and their relationships with religious and secular social movements. The agencies that educate and mobilize U.S. constituencies most actively are associated with small Christian sects or with non-Christian minority faiths with historic commitments to activism or service. Specialized advocacy NGOs play important roles, and emerging movements on immigration and climate may represent fresh political energy. The book examines faith-based responses to the crises of climate change, COVID-19, and racial injustice, and argues that these will shape the future of religion as a moral and political force in America, and of NGOs in international development.

Encyclopedia of Religious and Spiritual Development
Encyclopedia of Religious and Spiritual Development

Author: Elizabeth M. Dowling

Publisher: SAGE

Published: 2006

Total Pages: 553

ISBN-13: 0761928839

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Focuses on the developmental process of religion and spirituality across the human life span.This encyclopedia joins a recent trend in research and scholarship aimed at better understanding the similarities and differences between world religions and spiritualities, between expressions of the divine and between experiences of the transcendent.

The Science of Children's Religious and Spiritual Development
The Science of Children's Religious and Spiritual Development

Author: Annette Mahoney

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2021-08-31

Total Pages: 75

ISBN-13: 9781108812771

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This Element provides a comprehensive yet concise account of scientific research on children's religious and spiritual (RS) development. After providing a historical sketch of definitional issues in the science of RS, the first section reviews basic descriptive information on children's RS development as well as wholistic theoretical models and measures of children's RS development. The second section covers evidence about links of child and parental RS to children's psychosocial adjustment, and highlights the need for more research that discriminates specific positive and negative manifestations of RS for children's development. The third section summarizes evidence about the robust influence of parents on their children's RS development and parents' perceptions of their role in this process. The fourth section focuses on cognitive-developmental research on children's cognitions about God/deities and prayer. The Element concludes with a synopsis of key themes and challenges that researchers face to advance the science of children's RS development.

Adapting Gender and Development to Local Religious Contexts
Adapting Gender and Development to Local Religious Contexts

Author: Romina Istratii

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2020-10-01

Total Pages: 264

ISBN-13: 1000195139

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This book provides a critical and decolonial analysis of gender and development theory and practice in religious societies through the presentation of a detailed ethnographic study of conjugal violence in Ethiopia. Responding to recent consensus that gender mainstreaming approaches have failed to produce their intended structural changes, Romina Istratii explains that gender and development analytical and theoretical frameworks are often constructed through western Euro-centric lenses ill-equipped to understand gender-related realities and human behaviour in non-western religious contexts and knowledge systems. Instead, Istratii argues for an approach to gender-sensitive research and practice which is embedded in insiders’ conceptual understandings as a basis to theorise about gender, assess the possible gendered underpinnings of local issues and design appropriate alleviation strategies. Drawing on a detailed study of conjugal abuse realities and attitudes in two villages and the city of Aksum in Northern Ethiopia, she demonstrates how religious knowledge can be engaged in the design and implementation of remedial interventions. This book carefully evidences the importance of integrating religious traditions and spirituality in current discussions of sustainable development in Africa, and speaks to researchers and practitioners of gender, religion and development in Africa, scholars of non-western Christianities and Ethiopian studies, and domestic violence researchers and practitioners.

Born Believers
Born Believers

Author: Justin L. Barrett

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2012-03-20

Total Pages: 303

ISBN-13: 1439196575

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Infants have a lot to make sense of in the world: Why does the sun shine and night fall; why do some objects move in response to words, while others won’t budge; who is it that looks over them and cares for them? How the developing brain grapples with these and other questions leads children, across cultures, to naturally develop a belief in a divine power of remarkably consistent traits––a god that is a powerful creator, knowing, immortal, and good—explains noted developmental psychologist and anthropologist Justin L. Barrett in this enlightening and provocative book. In short, we are all born believers. Belief begins in the brain. Under the sway of powerful internal and external influences, children understand their environments by imagining at least one creative and intelligent agent, a grand creator and controller that brings order and purpose to the world. Further, these beliefs in unseen super beings help organize children’s intuitions about morality and surprising life events, making life meaningful. Summarizing scientific experiments conducted with children across the globe, Professor Barrett illustrates the ways human beings have come to develop complex belief systems about God’s omniscience, the afterlife, and the immortality of deities. He shows how the science of childhood religiosity reveals, across humanity, a “natural religion,” the organization of those beliefs that humans gravitate to organically, and how it underlies all of the world’s major religions, uniting them under one common source. For believers and nonbelievers alike, Barrett offers a compelling argument for the human instinct for religion, as he guides all parents in how to effectively encourage children in developing a healthy constellation of beliefs about the world around them.

Development, Civil Society and Faith-Based Organizations
Development, Civil Society and Faith-Based Organizations

Author: G. Clarke

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2007-11-28

Total Pages: 300

ISBN-13: 0230371264

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This book examines the role of faith-based organizations in managing international aid, providing services, defending human rights and protecting democracy. It argues that greater engagement with faith communities and organizations is needed, and questions traditional secularism that has underpinned development policy and practice in the North.

The Psychology Of Religion
The Psychology Of Religion

Author: Bernard Spilka

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2019-05-20

Total Pages: 295

ISBN-13: 0429964463

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Theory in the psychology of religion is in a state of rapid development, and the present volume demonstrates how various positions in this field may be translated into original foundational work that will in turn encourage exploration in many directions. A number of new contributions are collected with previously published pieces to illustrate the