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- Convenors:
-
Marloes Janson
(SOAS, University of London)
Hansjörg Dilger (Freie Universität Berlin)
Felician Tungaraza (University of Dar es Salaam)
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- Stream:
- Religion
- Location:
- Chrystal McMillan, Seminar Room 4
- Sessions:
- Thursday 13 June, -
Time zone: Europe/London
Short Abstract:
By combining a view of the moral, material, and political dimensions of religious organizations, and analysing the connections between global, national, and local dynamics, this panel explores how religion intersects with different notions of development in African urban settings.
Long Abstract:
As argued by many authors, religion will increasingly determine the future and trajectories of Africa's cities in the twenty-first century. Indeed, since the late 1980s religious organizations have invested heavily in - and partially profited from - both development activities and urban restructuring plans. By stepping into the vacuum that was left by the retreating state and the failing urban infrastructure, religious entrepreneurs actively engage the social and material worlds they help to create. By means of a series of ethnographic case studies of religious organizations involved in education, healthcare, and social service provision, this panel asks what the role of faith, the interconnectedness with local, national and transnational donors, and the contingency of urban living is in binding these diverse organizations into moral communities. In this spirit, the case studies shed light on the processes whereby faith is conjoined to broader projects of economic and social transformation and the (re)making of moral life in urban Africa. Presenters are asked to address the question of how religious entrepreneurs make material progress morally acceptable - thereby considering that development always also has a flipside: disruption or even failure. When does religion as a motor for development turn into a brake on perceived progress? By combining a view of the moral, material, and political dimensions of religious organizations, and analysing the connections between global, national, and local dynamics, this panel aims to explore how religion intersects with different notions of development in African urban settings.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Thursday 13 June, 2019, -Paper short abstract:
The paper will dwell on the dimensions of connectivity of Pentecostal churches in Luanda in relation to development. The analysis will show how religious imaginations, discourses and practices inscribe in, go along or transcend secular development frames, establishing proper development models.
Paper long abstract:
In relation to religious framings of development the paper will consider the dynamics of the new socio-spatial changes occurring in Luanda as well as the new understanding of the city space, the new models of citizenship and belonging that are embedded in Luanda spatiality, the emergence of the middle class faith based development models that combine with the Angolan neoliberal urban governance model. The analysis will ruminate in particular on the churches' networks and connections, both within the national and the transnational frames. Here, the socio-spatial connections with such European capitals as Lisbon and London will be presented as well as links with the neighboring countries like the Democratic Republic of Congo. I will show how different religious imaginaries and discourses move along these connections establishing a conquering religion based development formats that are embedded in Luanda city space. Special focus will be given to the role of such connections in creating and/or changing social spaces, political altitudes, moral ethos and visions of the future.
The analysis will focus on case studies, based on extensive fieldwork conducted principally in Luanda, Lisbon and London as well as in several cities in Cape Vert, of two different Pentecostal churches: the Assembly of God of Maculusso (AGM) and the Bom Deus Church (BD). Both have started as missionary churches in Luanda, coming from two different spatial, social and theological backgrounds. The AGM is an outcome of the activity of Portuguese missionaries and the BD is rooted in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Paper short abstract:
Against the background of an increasingly stratified and competitive educational market in the multi-religious city of Dar es Salaam, this paper explores practices of moral learning among female students at a Gülen Movement school for girls.
Paper long abstract:
Since the end of the 1990s the Gülen Movement (GM) has become an important global player in the field of education, charity, business and healthcare in around 140 countries around the world. Inspired by the ideas of the Muslim preacher Fethullah Gülen, his followers, who mostly originate from Turkey, actively shape the educational landscapes of many African cities: As "religious entrepreneurs", they translate Fethullah Gülens vision of an ideal education that combines moral values and scientific knowledge into successful marketed schools.
This is also the case for Feza Girls' Secondary and High School in Dar es Salaam (Tanzania). The school's slogan "Be better educated" is not only referring to the academic skills but also to the moral formation the students are hoped to attain through education at Feza.
In this paper I explore how female students of diverse socio-religious backgrounds learn and embody moral values within the ethical framework of GM schools and against the backdrop of larger histories of religious-social differences and inequalities in Tanzania (Dilger 2013). I explore the practices and interactions at school which are envisioned to form a moral habitus as well as practices of ethical self-formation among female students that sometimes conflict with the GM notion of moral education. Thus, with this paper I aim to contribute to an understanding of moral learning as well as of the moral landscapes in religiously-oriented schools within the larger framework of an increasingly stratified and competitive educational market in the multi-religious city of Dar es Salaam.
Paper short abstract:
This paper explores how faith-based organizations understand violence against women as a moral issue that should be addressed from a moral perspective.
Paper long abstract:
There is a great deal of violence against women in Cape Town, South Africa. The State and most Non-Governmental Organizations understand violence against women as a legal issue which requires legal reforms, FBOs in Cape Town take a different perspective. Going beyond legal reform, FBOs propose religiously and culturally informed interventions. Violence is viewed as a sign of moral degeneration of the society, thus, addressing it becomes a moral duty. This paper aims to explore the core values of selected faith-based organizations in Cape Town to depict how they understand addressing violence as a moral obligation. Although FBOs acknowledge the importance of other interventions, they are motivated by the ineffectiveness of laws and policies that were put in place in South Africa to end violence against women. The South African government put in place the Domestic violence Act of 1998 and the Sexual Offences Act of 2001, yet cases of violence continue to increase. It is against this background that religious organizations promote the use of interventions that aim to uphold moral values, given their understanding of violence as a moral issue.
Paper short abstract:
The provisions of health care services by FBOs contain religious belief, values, experiences, identities, emotions and practices that can best serve as resources for responding to changing circumstances of the moral issues in the urban context.
Paper long abstract:
In recent years, the highly integration of faith based organisations into health care has been embedded in the wider reconfiguration of Tanzania's social welfare system from the early 1980s' onward, shaped by the decline of the postcolonial welfare state, the growing privatization and "NGOization" of the health sector. Furthermore, the development of urbanisations, globalization, modernity and the values of urban life has resulted into the weakening of moral values and ethical aspect in the contemporary society. Using ethnographic case study of African Muslim Agency and Efatha Ministry in Urban Dar es Salaam, I argue that Faith Based Organisations have been engaged in the Provisions of health care service that address the moral issues "intersubjectively". I further argue that, the provisions of health care services by Faith Based Organisations in Urban Dar es Salaam sharpen both religious and professional values of its health care workers while at the same time influencing on the cultural and religious acceptable moral of its beneficiaries about health issues. In addition to that, I further argue that, belief, values, experiences, identities, emotions and practices embodied in religious traditions can best serve as resources for responding to changing circumstances of the moral issues. Lastly, I argue that, although the moral aspect of the FBOs health care resemble with the secular guidelines largely, but the two has minor differences.