Chairs and coordinators: Päivi Hasu, Development Studies, Department of Political and Economic Studies, University of Helsinki (paivi.hasu[at]helsinki.fi) and Elina Vuola, Faculty of Theology, University of Helsinki (elina.vuola[at]helsinki.fi)
Room: 405 (Thursday & Friday)
The centre of gravity of Christianity in its different forms has increasingly moved to the global South. Consequently, the cultural, political and religious context of Christianity has changed dramatically. The rapid growth of Pentecostalism in Asia, Africa and Latin America, the changing role of Islam in Asia and Africa, different forms of indigenous and liberation theologies as well as the growth of various concrete development projects by faith based organizations are some of these changes. Besides Christianity, also other religious traditions face new challenges.
This interdisciplinary working group invites papers on various issues regarding the role of religion in the global South, especially as it relates to development, such as:
- the historical and the contemporary forms of missionary work
- new religious phenomena in the global South
- changes in the traditional religious landscape in the global South
- faith based organizations and development
- development studies and study of religion, theoretical issues and challenges
- development cooperation and religion
We welcome papers from different fields, including development studies, anthropology, religious studies, theology and history.
PRESENTATIONS
(1) Religion and Development: An Overview
Elina Vuola, University of Helsinki, (elina.vuola[at]helsinki.fi)
This is an introductory paper to the themes of the working group.
(2) Preliminary Fieldwork Report – a Case Study of the Role and Meaning of Faith Base in the Development Work of a Finnish Faith Based NGO
Hannu Niemelä, University of Helsinki (hannu.niemela[at]helsinki.fi)
The presentation is based on a preliminary fieldwork report of the qualitative case study that examines the role and meaning of faith base and religious values in the development work of a Finnish faith-based NGO, Fida International. The data was collected from one particular humanitarian intervention project CAAF (Children Affected by Armed Forces) in Uganda from April until July 2011 by using ethnographic methods. The study recognized the intrinsic methodological challenges involved in the research setting and the topic. The initial findings of the study indicate that the role of faith base and religious values has been important, though complex in the project under study. The faith base of Fida came best visible through its various partners that conducted both the official implementation of the project and special spiritual counselling for the beneficiaries. Personal faith of the project staff (both Finnish and local) rendered to high motivation and commitment to the work. In the minds of beneficiaries, the Christian base was seen as natural and necessary in order to help them. Due to their multiple traumas, the children expressed the need for spiritual comfort in addition to other means of rehabilitation.
(3) Volunteer Tourism in a Children’s Home – Ethnographic Study
Oona Timonen, University of Helsinki (oona.timonen[at]helsinki.fi)
This paper presents my ongoing Master’s thesis on volunteer tourism in a Zambian Children’s home run by a faith-based organisation. The former research of the volunteer tourism has mainly focused on clarifying the motivational basis of the volunteering individuals and their experiences. In contrast, my focus is on the interaction situations between the locals and the foreign volunteers. The purpose of the study is to find out what happens in the encounters of foreign volunteers and a local worker or a child, and what effects do the volunteers have in the receiving community. My method is based on ethnographic participant observation and I make use of Norman Long’s concept of encounters in development interfaces.
In my presentation I will elaborate on my preliminary findings. The analysis shows that the relationship with Christianity stand out as a major theme in the encounters. Other themes that arise are the freedom of volunteers to choose their tasks and the effects of such freedom as well as the form of attachment between children and volunteers.
(4) Religion and Development; Perspectives from the Tswana Context
Mari Pöntinen, Finnish Missionary Society, mari.pontinen@mission.fi
From a distant Botswana seems as one of the shining examples of democracy in Africa. However, most of the citizens are poor in otherwise wealthy nation. This paper deals with contemporary crises in Botswana and draws from the rich religious and cultural inheritance of the people. According to Bishop Moenga from the Lutheran Church in Botswana, the basis of the development in the country has been relying on the Western capitalism in such a degree that it has lost its connection to people, batho. He suggests that the Tswana culture needs to be inculturated, thus been born anew in the modern society. This is possible if the political actions and development takes into account botho, the humanity principle. The paper deals with this cultural principle in the context of modernization. It evaluates the ontology of humanity which differs from the Western ideas, since it considers the self in the contextual manner and draws from cultural communalism. It deals with positive cultural myths that could serve political and social development in the country but at the same time speaks of such negative myths that hold the status quo in Botswana society.
(5) Politics of Spiritual Warfare – Contestation of Power between Pentecostal and Muslim Leaders in Tanzania
Päivi Hasu, University of Helsinki, paivi.hasu@helsinki.fi
The paper examines the politics of spiritual warfare between Pentecostal and Muslim leaders in the context of the Tanzanian General Election of 2010. It is suggested that the religious and the political should be examined as elements of the same complex and not as two separate institutional spheres. The paper first locates Pentecostal demonic discourse socially and historically in Tanzania in order to lay out the ground from which these particular discourses emerge. It then examines religious governance in a political context through the notion of the demonic and spiritual warfare by analyzing Pentecostal and Muslim debates ahead of the democratic elections. Through the concept ‘political spirituality’ it is argued that religious leaders seek to strengthen their spiritual power and their influence over the democratic process by making use of secular political events.
(6) Faith Communities and Poverty in Africa
Auli Vähäkangas, University of Helsinki, auli.vahakangas@helsinki.fi
Vähäkangas examines the role of volunteers as an aspect of the African communality of serving the poor in two Lutheran communities in Tanzania. The first study will be conducted in northern Tanzania where the focus is on the Selian Hospice and Palliative Care Programme which began in 1999 and was the first hospice in Tanzania. This is referred to as the “Tanzanian model” and is famous for its success and multidisciplinary approach in serving dying patients. The Selian Hospice and Palliative Care Program is run jointly by the Selian Lutheran Hospital and the Diocese in the Arusha Region of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Tanzania (ELCT) and covers the whole region with a multidisciplinary team consisting of medical, social and religious personnel. This programme uses trained volunteers who make regular home visits and help to provide day care. Training volunteers is therefore part of the work of the professional team. Vähäkangas has conducted field research on the project in 2005 and in 2009 and these previous studies raised a need to focus more closely on volunteers and poverty. The second programme, which Vähäkangas studies, is a new planned initiative among the urban poor in Dar es Salaam. This programme is a joint venture of the Eastern and Coastal Diocese of the ELCT and the Helsinki Deaconess Institute. Vähäkangas will search for the answers to the following questions:
• How does the experience of social capital influence the volunteers in Tanzania?
• What motivates volunteers to serve the poor in their communities?
• How is African communality linked to the volunteering in urban Tanzania?
(7) Community and Communion – Uses of Evangelical Radio in a Brazilian Favela
Andrea Medrado, Royal Holloway University of London, andrea.medrado@rhul.ac.uk
This paper is based on an ethnographic study of community radio in the everyday life of one favela, Pau da Lima, located in Salvador, Brazil. During the fieldwork period, it soon emerged that the favela’s urban environment and set of airwaves were saturated with religious sounds and programmes. According to academics and regulators, Evangelical and community radio belong to different sectors. Yet, this research indicates that the two are often one and the same. The community radio stations would frequently broadcast Evangelical programming, whilst other local stations would appeal to a ‘pan-Evangelical’ listenership. Thus, the aims of this article are twofold: firstly, to explore the strong yet neglected linkages between Evangelical and community radio; and secondly, to analyse the listening experiences of people who tune in to Evangelical programmes, asking why and how they listen to these. By doing this, the ‘communion’ uses of radio are unveiled as radio represents an important channel to connect listeners to not only ‘God’, but other listeners as well. However, this intertwining of community and communion functions is not without its difficulties, as Evangelical radio is used in ways which contradict some of the principles of community media as agents of social change.
(8) Christianity, Individuality and Modernisation in Indigenous Amazonia
Minna Opas, University of Turku, minna.opas@utu.fi
Since Weber’s days, the relationship between Christianity and modernity has been much debated in social sciences. The basic question has been whether Christianity is to be understood as an inevitably modernising force when introduced to new cultural locations, or not. In this paper, I shall approach this question from the point of view of the notion of individuality. There exist a number of cases – such as the uncritical employment of the universal declaration of human rights (of individuals) in the decision making on indigenous issues – showing how in relation to different processes of modernisation indigenous people are faced with the so called western view of the individual, and how in such processes indigenous conceptualisations of the individual may, or may not change. Here, I wish to explore Christianity’s role in altering people’s understandings of individuality, and thus advancing western type of modernity, among indigenous Amazonians. In particular, I shall concentrate on indigenous Christian views of the salvation of the individual: how, if at all, do people’s readings of the Bible on this issue challenge their customary understandings of individuality? What are the possible consequences of such contradictions for people’s everyday social lives?