[URBANTH-L]CFP - Faith-based development

[Keri V Brondo (kbrondo)]

Please share the following CFP with interested colleagues.

Developing Community / Developing People: Intersections of Faith and Development in Local-Global Contexts

Organizers - Keri Brondo, Tara Hefferan, and Robert Connolly

There is a significant and growing literature on faith-based initiatives to the underserved from rural areas of the developing world to urban centers of the West, and a growing focus on how such initiatives serve as alternative development models. Our session seeks to engage with the question: Can faith-based development constitute an alternative to conventional top-down development paradigms, including those of governmental social services and models based on trickle down corporate investment.  Papers in this session present case studies of alternative national and international faith-based development and the perceptions of their success through the lenses of the actors involved.


Possible specific themes to which individual papers might address:

*         What are the measures of "success" in faith-based development? (from infrastructure improvements and health indicators to building awareness or true twinning possibilities, etc.)

*         How do the actors involved in faith-based initiatives perceive of such endeavors as spaces to negotiate and contest social and economic injustices?

*         To what extent do the individuals involved in faith-based development see a linkage between the provision of social, medical, and economic support service and evangelicalism?

*         How are faith-based models shaped by the specific cultural contexts in which they emerge and evolve?



If you are interested in participating in this panel, please send an email to Keri Brondo (kbrondo at memphis.edu<mailto:kbrondo at memphis.edu>) by Friday, September 19, 2008.  Abstracts will be due October 1, 2008.


_____________________________
Keri Vacanti Brondo, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Department of Anthropology
University of Memphis
304 Manning Hall
Memphis, TN 38152
901.678.3289