WOMEN AND FAITH-BASED DEVELOPMENT:
MIXING MORALITY AND MONEY

International Gender Studies Centre Workshop
Queen Elizabeth House, Dept of International Development, Oxford University, UK

September 21-22, 2007

Convenors:  S.  Ardener, D. Bryceson,  A. Coles, J. Davies, , P. Heinonen,
M. Jaschok, J. Reynell

Recent geo-political events have placed religious issues centre stage.
This has led faith based-organizations and issues to feature prominently
in development debates. There is, nevertheless, inadequate understanding
of the complex inter-relationship between religion and development at the
state, agency and community level. What is clear is that assumptions about
gender identity and roles underline much of the debate about the moral and
material meaning of development goals. This workshop is devoted to
exploring the intersection between faith-based development organizations,
donor recipients, and gender relations.

What are the implications of faith-based development projects for the
agency of women as opposed to men in a given local community? How does
faith-based development work contrast with secular development in terms of
the implicit or explicit gender roles accorded to donor and recipient? How
is development work related to religious activism and what implications
does this have for local, gendered power hierarchies? How do local
community-based projects' gender agendas relate to those of the state?
What are the gender implications of transnational development projects
within specific religious traditions? These are some of the questions to be
addressed via three proposed panels in this multi-disciplinary workshop.
We welcome papers with a theoretical-conceptual bias as well as those
which favour a more empirical and/or ethnographic approach.

This is the second call for abstracts. We would like to thank those who
have already sent theirs in. Please note that we have added a new panel on
children and faith based development.  We now have received a seed grant
and are in the process of applying for funds to cover travel expenses, for
those who cannot raise their own money, and for student bursaries.  We
still need papers for theme 2.

Any one who is doing relevant research in this area is invited to send in
an abstract (250 words) by the end of November 2006, to the relevant panel
coordinator or post to: IGS/Conference-QEH, 3 Mansfield Rd, Oxford OX1 3TB,
UK.

THEME 1 - Maria Jaschok
Maria.Jaschok@qeh.ox.ac.uk

INDIGENISING RELIGIONS, POSTCOLONIAL SENTIMENT AND WOMEN DRIVING ALTERNATIVE DEVELOPMENT
The growing membership of religious organizations, the prominence of women
in all of them, the privatisation of the welfare state and more liberal
state policies concerning international funding raises crucial questions
in many countries. Could gendered, religious notions of development be seen
as 'alternative', or even 'subversive', to state sponsored development
ideology? Is there a clash of objectives between the 'development for
women', and the 'development of religion'? To what extent are
transnational religious organizations becoming more influential in
religious-based development projects and what is the impact on gender
relations locally? These questions will be explored through case studies
of local women's initiatives and international feminist networks as well
as NGOs and international donor agencies in various countries.

THEME 2 - Josephine Reynell,
josephine.reynell@lmh.ox.ac.uk

GENDER AND THE ORGANIZATION OF AID IN DIASPORIC RELIGIOUS COMMUNITIES
Recent humanitarian disasters across the world, caused by war and
environmental factors have revealed how diasporic religious communities,
and particularly informal organizations of women, mobilise to collect both
money and goods to help populations who often, but not invariably, share
the same religious faith or country of origin. This panel will examine the
gendered consequences of such projects for both recipient and donor
communities, and the impact of the resultant trans-national links on the
nation state in both the donor and recipient countries.

THEME 3 - Deborah Bryceson
dfbryceson@bryceson.net

COMPASSION AND MORAL RIGHTEOUSNESS:  FAITH- BASED DONOR ASSISTANCE FOR AIDS-AFFECTED COMMUNITIES
The devastating impact of AIDS in local communities has encouraged people
to seek solace in religion.  Faith based organizations of virtually every
major religious denomination as well as numerous Pentecostal and other
religious sects have offered spiritual and material support, assisting
AIDS orphans, and instructing their followings on sexual morality, gender
relations and the role of women in society.  This panel will examine the
range and nature of various faith-based interventions, consider their
impact on local communities and ask how such interventions have influenced
gender hierarchies.

THEME 4 -  Paula Heinonen

BEHIND AND BEYOND THE RHETORIC: YOUNG LIVES AND

FAITH BASED DEVELOPMENT
Notions of 'progressive narrative' (i.e. progressive first world and
oppressed third world) continues to infuse current development discourses.
Children and youth, as part of the 'vulnerable' categories of people whose
apparent plight require international attention, have become yet another
focal point for social and material development concerns.  Paradoxically,
this has contributed to their institutional segregation within development
agencies. Practically all the major religions in the world make provisions
for helping the poor within the community, presumably not as part of the
'progressive narrative'. This panel will explore and contrast religious
activism (battle for the soul) and development projects (battle to save
young lives) within local and transnational faith-based religious
organizations.

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