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Religion and NGOs: Archive
Religion and NGOs
Produced by R. Michael Feener
Produced by R. Michael Feener
Series overview:
Since the turn of the twenty-first century, there has been a remarkable surge of interest among both academics and policy makers in the effects that religion has on international aid and development. Within this broad field, the work of ‘religious NGOs’ or ‘Faith-Based Organisations’ (FBOs) has garnered considerable attention. This series of podcasts for The Religious Studies Project seeks to explore how the discourses, practices, and institutional forms of both religious actors and purportedly secular NGOs intersect, and how these engagements result in changes in our understanding of both ‘religion’ and ‘development’. These interviews with leading scholars working on the topic across diverse contexts in Asia (and beyond) have been conducted by Dr. Catherine Scheer & Dr. Giuseppe Bolotta of the National University of Singapore’s Asia Research Institute. Our work on this has been generously supported by a grant from the Henry Luce Foundation.
Since the turn of the twenty-first century, there has been a remarkable surge of interest among both academics and policy makers in the effects that religion has on international aid and development. Within this broad field, the work of ‘religious NGOs’ or ‘Faith-Based Organisations’ (FBOs) has garnered considerable attention. This series of podcasts for The Religious Studies Project seeks to explore how the discourses, practices, and institutional forms of both religious actors and purportedly secular NGOs intersect, and how these engagements result in changes in our understanding of both ‘religion’ and ‘development’. These interviews with leading scholars working on the topic across diverse contexts in Asia (and beyond) have been conducted by Dr. Catherine Scheer & Dr. Giuseppe Bolotta of the National University of Singapore’s Asia Research Institute. Our work on this has been generously supported by a grant from the Henry Luce Foundation.
Click on the title of each podcast or written response to access the full content.
Christian evangelical organisations in global anti-trafficking networks with Elena Shih
American evangelical Christian organizations comprise a significant contingent of the global anti-trafficking movement, and mobilize considerable financial resources around a moral objection to prostitution and sex trafficking. In this interview, we talk with Elena Shih about her ethnography of missionary vocational training rehabilitation projects that train sex workers in Beijing and Bangkok to make jewelry that is sold in the United States, and what this can show us about transnational dynamics of religious activism and non-governmental organizations enacted through the corollary motives of salvific evangelism and social entrepreneurship.
Muslims, NGOs, and the future of democratic space in Myanmar with Melissa Crouch
The critical situation of the Rohingyas has cast a shadow over Myanmar’s process of democratization and drawn attention to some aggressively un-civil sectors of this Buddhist majority country’s Muslim minority population. In this interview with Melissa Crouch, we will talk about her recent research on Myanmar’s Muslim population and about the role played by the international community – and by religious NGOs in particular – in relation to the escalation of violence targeting the Rohingyas.
Buddhists and the future of democratic space in Myanmar
A response to Melissa Crouch on “Muslims, NGOs, and the future of democratic space in Myanmar” By Paul Fuller
Beyond ‘Faith-Based Organizations’: Religion and NGOs in comparative perspective with Erica Bornstein
Religious NGOs play significant roles in service delivery, community organization, advocacy and mediating flows of information and resources across the globe. Their religious inflections can both enhance the effective reach of particular projects and complicate the already fraught policy environment in which NGOs operate.While policy frameworks influence the kinds of activities that religious NGOs are able to undertake and aim to govern practice, the way this takes place in context is an empirical question. In this interview, we talk with Erica Bornstein about her studies of religious giving and social activism in India and Africa, and what the results of her research contribute to our understanding of the complex configurations of ‘Faith-Based Organizations’ across diverse religious contexts.
Tangential Thinking about “Faith-Based Organizations”
A Response to Erica Bornstein on “Beyond ‘Faith-Based Organizations’: Religion and NGOs in Comparative Perspective” By Chika Watanabe
Muslim NGOs and civil society in Indonesia with Robert Hefner
While the service provision activities of some religious NGOs complement and enhance systems of low state capacity, in others they compete with state services and in still others service delivery by religious NGOs is associated with political parties and forms part of their electoral strategies. Across diverse engagements, then, religious NGOs depend on their ability to elude, enrol, and subvert the state institutions – while states themselves adjust to the impact of these new actors in turn. In this interview with Robert Hefner about his research on Muslim NGOs in the Javanese city of Yogyakarta, and what his findings can show us about Islam and civil society in contemporary Southeast Asia.
Muslim NGOs and Civil Society in Morocco
A response to “Muslim NGOs and Civil Society in Indonesia: An Interview with Robert Hefner” by John Thibdeau