Religious Dimension in Development Studies

2011 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 44-51
Author(s):  
Nathan Loewen

Religion, spirituality and faith are themes gaining interest and prominence in the field of development studies. This “religious turn in development” (Pearson and Tomalin 2008, 49) has gone largely unnoticed by religious studies scholars. The range of current publications on the topic is not produced by self-identified religion scholars. I wish to give an overview of this nascent topic for study in order to suggest how the acumen of religious studies scholars might engage it. I will first make some remarks about the field of international development in order to locate challenges within the ‘religious turn’ within the current IDS discourse. I wish to conclude with some proposals for studying the religious dimensions of international development.

1999 ◽  
pp. 63-74
Author(s):  
T. Dlinna

The key concept of our study is "religiosity". In scientific literature, it is most often correlated with an individual or a social group, a community and understands a set of certain attributes that are inherent to them and which find expression in faith and worship of supernatural both at the level of consciousness and at the level of behavior. The object of our study is the Ukrainian people (ethnos). It should be noted that religious studies in Soviet times did not take into account the fact that human existence is possible only in the conditions of a certain ethnic community, an individual is, above all, a certain ethnotype, and, moreover, it does not study the religious dimensions of the ethno-national being of that another people. Religion itself, if considered as a special, long-standing state of consciousness, as a certain system, which is a set of elements (ideas, representations) that interact with each other and with the environment, form a stable integrity, can be considered an integral part of ethno-national mentality. According to M.Kostomarov, folk religiosity is a special view that the people have in their religion and that it does not constitute any kind of whole religion, nor a certain sect. Today it is universally accepted that the national type of religiosity exists on the ordinary level of consciousness, is a complex syncretic entity. The history of its formation does not coincide with the history of the doctrine of a certain denomination. However, it is clear that the religiosity of Ukrainians, posing an integral part of the mentality and spirituality of the people, has a history of its formation. It is a consequence of the influence of a complex of factors that predetermined the way of life of the Ukrainian people in a certain natural geographic and cultural-historical space.


2015 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 100-113 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Copestake

This paper contributes to an ongoing conversation between development studies (DS) and social policy (SP) as academic fields, particularly in the UK. Using Andrew Abbott's analysis of the social sciences as an evolving system of knowledge lineages (KLs), it reflects on the status of DS and its relationship with SP. Defining DS as a distinctive KL centred on critical analysis of ideas and projects for advancing human well-being, I suggest that it has lost coherence even as research into international development thrives. Indeed it is easy to envisage its gradual assimilation into other KLs, including SP. The two increasingly overlap in their analysis of the causes of relative poverty and injustice, and what can be done to address them, within countries and globally. Strengthening links between the two fields can be justified as a political project, even at the risk of some loss of plurality and plenitude across the social sciences.


2010 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 54-75 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon C. Darnell

Sport is currently mobilized as a tool of international development within the “Sport for Development and Peace” (SDP) movement. Framed by Gramscian hegemony theory and sport and development studies respectively, this article offers an analysis of the conceptualization of sport’s social and political utility within SDP programs. Drawing on the perspectives of young Canadians (n = 27) who served as volunteer interns within Commonwealth Games Canada’s International Development through Sport program, the dominant ideologies of development and social change that underpin current SDP practices are investigated. The results suggest that while sport does offer a new and unique tool that successfully aligns with a development mandate, the logic of sport is also compatible with the hegemony of neo-liberal development philosophy. As a result, careful consideration of the social politics of sport and development within the SDP movement is called for.


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