Connecting-Africa | Find publications

Advanced search

Find:


Title Religion and Sustainable Development: The 'Secular Distinction' in Development Policy and Its Implication for Development Cooperation with Religious Communities
Full text http://edoc.hu-berlin.de/18452/23725; http://dx.doi.org/10.18452/22962
Date 2020
Author(s) Öhlmann, Philipp; Hunglinger, Stefan; Gräb, Wilhelm; Frost, Marie-Luise
Abstract Development policy and research increasingly recognize the potential contribution of religious communities to sustainable development. The emerging discourse on religion and development, however, is contingent on Western discursive contexts that operate on the basis of a 'secular distinction' between the religious and the secular. Development is located in the secular sphere and the resultant approach to religion is functional. We show this for the case of German development policy by investigating key policy documents on religion and development. The secular notion of development stands in contrast to the perspective of development by religious communities in 'developing countries', which we highlight using the example of African Initiated Churches. In these churches' view, people's spiritual and material needs are intertwined, and sustainable development as outlined in the Sustainable Development Goals cannot be separated from religious dimensions of life. Notions of development, we hence argue, constitute forms of situated knowledge dependent on their discursive contexts. If development cooperation is to engage with religious communities at the level of values, ideas and beliefs, it must also engage with their notions of development as ends of mutual partnership.
Subject(s) 200 Religion; ddc:200
Language eng
Publisher Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
Type of publication bookPart; doc-type:bookPart; acceptedVersion
Format application/pdf
Rights http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Identifier 9783030413880; 9783030413873; 10.1007/978-3-030-41388-0_8; urn:nbn:de:kobv:11-110-18452/23725-7
Repository Berlin - Humboldt University of Berlin
Added to C-A: 2021-07-14;10:26:13