Venue

Room 1.1.12, City Campus, University of Copenhagen
Øster Farimagsgade 5, 1353 Copenhagen K

Course credits

3 ECTS when participating with a presentation.
1 ECTS when participating without a presentation.

Organisations, development and religion

Traditionally, the study of religion and the study of development have been two separate fields of research with little or no overlapping concerns, focusing on entirely different theories, methods and themes. However, recent years have witnessed an increasing rapprochement between the two fields, prompted by a number of factors.

In development studies, for instance, the former understanding of development as economic progress and modernisation has been challenged by new approaches, (including e.g. human development and rights-based approaches) emphasising the importance of non-economic factors in development processes, and thereby opening up for a consideration of the  role of religion in these processes. Likewise, while sociological studies of religion have traditionally paid little attention to questions of development, focusing instead on other aspects of religious collective action, new trends, in particular within social movement theory and social capital theory, have started exploring the relations between religion and development.
This emergent research field, exploring aspects of the religion-development nexus from different angles, poses a number of conceptual, methodological, and analytical challenges to scholars, irrespective of their disciplinary point of departure. It is some of these challenges, and opportunities for general scientific progress, which are the focus of this Ph.D. course.

Particularly relevant in this respect are the following themes:

Organisations

Within the field of religion and development, organisations and social institutions such as NGOs, social welfare associations and churches are some of the most important actors. But this kind of collective actors, situated at a meso-level somewhere in between the individual, the family and the state, constitute a relatively under-researched area, leaving a number of questions to be considered. For instance, how to analyse these organisations and institutions in relation to other social actors? How to analyse the relations between global organisations and institutions ­ such as the Catholic Church or international NGOs ­ and their local manifestations? What constitutes the legitimacy and authority of various organisations, and how do organisations integrate new types of authority e.g. a church that becomes engaged with development work? How to balance individual (heterogeneous) and institutional (homogenous) views for analysis at organisational level?

Religious discourses and practices

Whereas the analysis of the religious organisations and institutions involved in development processes may in many respects be similar to analyses of non-religious collective actors, their religiosity does set them apart from these in important ways. But how to analyse the function and meaning of these actors¹ religious structures, activities, values, and  beliefs without falling into reductionism or instrumentalism? What, if anything, can the Weberian recognition of religious ideas as motivation for action bring to the field? How to study and conceptualise religion and religious action? Is it religion when faith-based organisations provide food for Tsunami victims or build schools in post-conflict areas? How to further the analysis of religious leaders as development actors beyond theories of entrepreneurship and social capital?

Lecturers

Peter Mandaville (to be confirmed)

Associate Professor, Co-director of Center for Global Studies, George Mason University, Washington, United States. Author of Global Political Islam, 2007.

Research interests: Translational linkages between progressive Muslim social movements; Islam in Europe; alternative conceptions of political community and Œgrassroots cosmopolitanism¹; globalisation and critical development studies.

Leif Manger (to be confirmed)
Professor, Head of the Department of Social Anthropology, Bergen University, Norway. Editor of Muslim Diversity. Local Islam in Global Contexts, 1999.
Research interests: East Africa, the Middle East and the Indian Ocean; ecological anthropology; trade, communal labour and socio-cultural processes of Arabisation and Islamisation.

David Maxwell
Professor of African History, School of Humanities, Keele University, England. Author of African Gifts of the Spirit: Pentecostalism and the Rise of a Zimbabwean Transnational Religious Movement, 2007.
Research interests: The social history of African religions;  the history of Southern and Central Africa; transnational religious movements and religious globalisation;  Protestant fundamentalism and Pentecostalism; the twentieth century missionary movement; imperialism and empire.
Emma Tomalin
Coordinator, Religions and Development Research Programme, and Lecturer in Religious Studies, University of Leeds, England. Author of Bio-divinity and Biodiversity: The Limits of Religious Environmentalism for India, 2007.
Research interests: The Bhikkhuni Movement and women¹s empowerment in Thailand; the relations between values and beliefs, societies, states and development; religion and education.

Discussants

Benjamin Jones
Lecturer, Center for Civil Society, Department of Social Policy, London School of Economics, England. Author of Beyond the State in Rural Uganda, 2008.
Research interests: Patterns of political development and social differentiation in Nigeria; institutions and their significance in processes of development and change; new organisational structures and older mechanisms of insurance and social obligation.

Niels Kastfelt
Director, Center for Africa Studies, University of Copenhagen, Denmark. Editor of Scriptural Politics. The Bible and the Koran as Political Models in the Middle East and Africa, 2003.
Research interests: The religious and social history of modern Nigeria; ethnographic and archival research methods; Danish missionary societies; comparative studies of Islam and Christianity.

Catharina Raudvere
Professor, History of Religions Section, Department of Cross-Cultural and Regional Studies, University of Copenhagen, Denmark. Author of The Book and the Roses. Sufi Women, Visibility and Zikir in Contemporary Istanbul, 2003.
Research interests: Islam in Turkey and the Balkans; Sufism; Muslim ritual, religion and politics; the uses of history in contemporary cultural narratives; religious entrepreneurship; religious intellectuals in Central and South East Europe and community, authenticity and origin.
Michael Whyte
Associate Professor, Department of Anthropology, University of Copenhagen, Denmark. Co-editor of Beyond Territory and Scarcity: Exploring Conflicts over Natural Resource Management, 2005.
Research interests: East Africa; cultural rationality and economic behaviour; literacy and development; labour migration, family structure and marriage patterns; cultural organisation and kinship behaviour; AIDS and ARV medicine.

Participants

Ph.D. candidates from non-Danish universities are welcome to participate in the course. Unfortunately, we cannot offer to finance transport, accommodation or other expenses.

Registration and submission of papers

Please register by e-mail to Marie Juul Petersen (mariejuul@hum.ku.dk) or Catrine Christiansen (catrine.christiansen@anthro.ku.dk). In you e-mail, include information about university affiliation, discipline and the topic of your PhD research. If you want to participate with a presentation, please include a 500 word abstract. Deadline for registration and submission of  abstracts is 15 September 2008.
 A reading list of about 500 pages will be sent to the course participants together with the final programme and practical information no later than 1 December 2008.

Call for Papers

Presentations should address one of the following four topics:
* The study of religious organisations and institutions
* Social movement theory and religious activism
* Religion as social capital
* Religious ideas and social action
Rather than presenting full-fledged conference papers, Ph.D. students are encouraged to prepare presentations that focus on methodological, analytical or theoretical problems and questions, thereby opening up for constructive comments and feedback as well as discussions at a general level.