Faith-based development organizations have become a central part of the lives of the women of rural Rajasthan, and have come to represent an important aspect of both individual and collective identities.And yet, religious teachings continue to be used to exclude women from public decision making forums and render them vulnerable to increasing levels of domestic violence In a unique, multi-disciplinary approach, combining a range of subjects, Tamsin Bradley provides a unique study of the role of development organizations and faith organizations in the lives of women in rural Rajasthan. Faith and religion emerge as being able to afford a space within which women are able to interact with one another and create an identity for themselves. However, faith proves not just to be a positive sphere in which women are able to assert themselves. Its ambiguity becomes clear as the author explains that religious women often find their visions of social justice and equality marginalised by the dominance of male leadership. Nevertheless, Bradley also look at how religious women challenge male dominance drawing on their beliefs and practices in creative and innovative ways. Thus a complex picture emerges, and including insights from gender studies and anthropology, Bradley argues that religion can both empower and disempower local communities, and the women who live within them. By analysing development through the prism of gender studies, Bradley highlights the complex nature of power relationships that are at the very heart of development agendas and organizations, and offers an invaluable contribution to the understanding of the nexus of varied disciplines in the analysis of women and religion in Rajasthan. This book will be of interest to students, reseachers and policy makers involved in various fields, including those of Development Studies, Religion, Gender Studies and Social Anthropology.

This book illuminates the intersection of religion and gender within the development sector, exposing challenges in both policy and practice and suggesting implementable solutions. This book argues that a better understanding of the religion–gender nexus is needed by development sector practitioners, especially at a time when religious arguments are being used around the world to justify gender inequality and violence against women. The book draws on extensive qualitative research with senior gender personnel, religion advisors, and implementation partners from across the largest bilateral development agencies. The nexus is considered from the grassroots level up to donor country politics and across key themes, such as gender-based violence, reproductive rights, unpaid care and domestic work, and women’s participation in leadership roles. The book concludes by offering implementable solutions for practitioners to address the religion-gender nexus in a more meaningful way. Bridging the gap between academic theory and day-to-day development practice, this book is an important reference for development practitioners, and for researchers from across development studies, gender studies, and religious studies.

This book provides a critical and decolonial analysis of gender and development theory and practice in religious societies through the presentation of a detailed ethnographic study of conjugal violence in Ethiopia. Responding to recent consensus that gender mainstreaming approaches have failed to produce their intended structural changes, Romina Istratii explains that gender and development analytical and theoretical frameworks are often constructed through western Euro-centric lenses ill-equipped to understand gender-related realities and human behaviour in non-western religious contexts and knowledge systems. Instead, Istratii argues for an approach to gender-sensitive research and practice which is embedded in insiders’ conceptual understandings as a basis to theorise about gender, assess the possible gendered underpinnings of local issues and design appropriate alleviation strategies. Drawing on a detailed study of conjugal abuse realities and attitudes in two villages and the city of Aksum in Northern Ethiopia, she demonstrates how religious knowledge can be engaged in the design and implementation of remedial interventions. This book carefully evidences the importance of integrating religious traditions and spirituality in current discussions of sustainable development in Africa, and speaks to researchers and practitioners of gender, religion and development in Africa, scholars of non-western Christianities and Ethiopian studies, and domestic violence researchers and practitioners.

This Handbook provides a cutting-edge survey of the state of research on religions and global development. Part one highlights critical debates that have emerged within research on religions and development, particularly with respect to theoretical, conceptual and methodological considerations, from the perspective of development studies and its associated disciplines. Parts two to six look at different regional and national development contexts and the place of religion within these. These parts integrate and examine the critical debates raised in part one within empirical case studies from a range of religions and regions. Different religions are situated within actual locations and case studies thus allowing a detailed and contextual understanding of their relationships to development to emerge. Part seven examines the links between some important areas within development policy and practice where religion is now being considered, including: Faith-Based Organisations and Development Public Health, Religion and Development Human rights, Religion and Development Sustainable Development, Climate Change and Religion Global Institutions and Religious Engagement in Development Economic Development and Religion Religion, Development and Fragile States Development and Faith-Based Education Taking a global approach, the Handbook covers Africa, Latin America, South Asia, East and South-East Asia, and the Middle East. It is essential reading for students and researchers in development studies and religious studies, and is highly relevant to those working in area studies, as well as a range of disciplines, from theology, anthropology and economics to geography, international relations, politics and sociology.

Millions of pounds of international development funds are invested annually in social protection programmes to tackle poverty. Poverty is perpetuated by risk and vulnerability, much of which is gendered. Despite this, little attention has been paid to gender-sensitive policy and programme design and implementation. Gender and Social Protection in the Developing World introduces a much-needed gender lens to these debates. Drawing on empirical evidence from poor households and communities in Africa, Asia and Latin America, the book provides rich insight into the effects of a range of social protection instruments. It concludes that with relatively simple changes to design and with investment in implementation capacity, social protection can contribute to transforming gender relations at the individual, intrahousehold and community levels. With a foreword by Stephen Devereux.

With eighty percent of the world's population professing religious faith, religious belief is a common human characteristic. This fascinating and highly unique Handbook brings together state-of-the-art research on incorporating religion into development studies literature and research. The expert contributors illustrate that as religious identity is integral to a community's culture, exclusion of religious consideration will limit successful development interventions; it is therefore necessary to conflate religion and development to enhance efforts to improve the lives of the poor. Issues addressed include: key tenets, beliefs and histories of religions; religious response to development concerns (gender, environment, education, microfinance, humanitarian assistance); and the role of faith based organisations and missionaries in the wider development context. Practical case studies of countries across Africa, Eastern Europe and the Pacific (including Australia) underpin the research, providing evidence that the intersection between religion and development is neither new nor static. By way of conclusion, suggestions are prescribed for extensive further research in order to advance understanding of this nascent field. This path-breaking Handbook will prove a thought-provoking and stimulating reference tool for academics, researchers and students in international development, international relations, comparative religion and theology.

This collection explores the complex links between social and economic development and religious and spiritual belief. Writers explore the scope for promoting women's rights and needs offered by religious belief and practice and analyse feminist responses to fundamentalist regimes which use religious doctrine to justify women's oppression.

As the movement to end all forms of violence against women and girls (VAWG) gains momentum around the world, this provocative new work applies an innovative theoretical lens to gendered violence across a wide variety of countries and contexts. Global Perspectives on Violence against Women and Girls engages with VAWG in the UK and across the global South, including case studies from India, Pakistan and South Sudan. Considering various forms of violence including harmful cultural practices such as FGM to Early Child Marriage, dowry and bride price related harassment, stranger rape, work-based harassment, Intimate Partner Violence and other forms of domestic violence, this important volume creates an original critical lens by combining the ecology model, the intersectional approach and a spectrum designed to identify the range of different forms of VAWG in a given context. Arguing for a greater understanding of the local political and cultural contexts in which VAWG is allowed to flourish, Global Perspectives on Violence against Women and Girls is one of the few works to give due prominence to local women's organizations in the global South and beyond, who it argues must ultimately play the leading role in ending VAWG. At a time when the fight against violent misogyny finds itself at a critical turning point, this volume makes a substantial and timely contribution towards the ultimate goal of ending VAWG.

ÿ ?[It] reflects original research and contributes to new developments in the field of theology and religion with regard to its developmental role within a transformation context. The book may easily stand out in future as seminal in the way that it promoted the social development debate of the church and its organisational structures from an interdisciplinary focus.? ? Prof Antoinette Lombard Department of Social Work and Criminology University of Pretoria

India's endemic gender-based violence has received increased international scrutiny and provoked waves of domestic protest and activism. In recent years, related studies on India and South Asia have proliferated but their analyses often fail to identify why violence flourishes. Unwilling to simply accept patriarchy as the answer, Tamsin Bradley presents new research examining how different groups in India conceptualise violence against women, revealing beliefs around religion, caste and gender that render aggression socially acceptable. She also analyses the role that neoliberalism, and its corollary consumerism, play in reducing women to commodity objects for barter or exchange. Unpacking varied conservative, liberal and neoliberal ideologies active in India today, Bradley argues that they can converge unexpectedly to normalise violence against women. Due to these complex and overlapping factors, rates of violence against women in India have actually increased despite decades of feminist campaigning. This book will be crucial to those studying Indian gender politics and violence, but also presents new data and methodologies which have practical implications for researchers and policymakers worldwide.