Religious Reform, Faith-Based Development and the Public Sphere in Sub-Saharan Africa (Lagos, Dar es Salaam and Cape Town)

随着20世纪80年代末撒哈拉以南非洲一党统治结束后的新自由主义改革和政治转型，宗教开始发挥突出的公共作用：这在主要植根于城市地区的新宗教组织如雨后春笋般涌现中表现出来，这些组织依靠不断扩大的大众媒体部门帮助他们与更广泛的社会联系。宗教组织将传教活动与人道主义和/或发展援助结合起来，是在非洲发展最快的宗教组织之一。由于全球支持和地方行动之间的纠缠，这些主要是基督教和穆斯林的组织已经成长为重要的政治参与者。然而，到目前为止，fbo的话语、实践和社会文化影响在社会科学文献中得到的关注很少。为了解决fbo研究的缺乏问题，本项目从民族志上探讨了最近基于信仰的倡议（包括正式的和非正式的）如何融入到撒哈拉以南非洲公共领域的更广泛的重构中，以及宗教在全球的复兴。为了研究信仰与发展的关系，我们提出了三个大都市的跨国基督教和穆斯林fbo的案例研究：拉各斯（尼日利亚）、达累斯萨拉姆（坦桑尼亚）和开普敦（南非）。这些大都市之间的比较特别有趣，因为它们在以下几个重要方面存在差异：1)宗教在公共领域的作用：穆斯林占多数（拉各斯），基督徒和穆斯林平均分配（达累斯萨拉姆）或基督教占多数（开普敦）；2)考虑到国家和民间社会的作用，如何在当地组织发展；3)基督教和穆斯林fbo与跨国网络的联系方式。通过结合fbo的物质、道德和政治层面的观点，并分析全球、国家和地方动态的相互关系，案例研究研究了fbo及其受益者如何根据跨国发展引发的话语、实践和机会重新定位自己。在这门课程中，我们对fbo的关注使传统的理解变得复杂，趋向于渐进的宗教/经济鸿沟。此外，fbo的跨国影响力及其日益增长的政治和经济重要性质疑了现成的二元对立，包括国家与公民社会、私人信仰与公共生活、基督教与伊斯兰教作为两种不同的传统。因此，拟议的项目迫使我们重新思考现代化理论的失败范例，其对世俗发展的狭隘解释和宗教与公共领域的分离，忽视了宗教作为发展资源的潜力和撒哈拉以南非洲援助政治的现实。

With the neo-liberal reforms and political transformations that followed the end of one-party rule in sub-Saharan Africa in the late-1980s, religion came to play a prominent public role: This became manifest in the mushrooming of new religious organizations, rooted in primarily urban areas, which rely on the expanding sector of mass media that helps them to connect with the wider society. Faith-based organizations (FBOs) combine proselytizing activities with humanitarian and/or development aid and are among the religious organizations that have expanded fastest in Africa. Because of the entanglement between global backing and local action, these mostly Christian and Muslim organizations have grown into important political actors. Nevertheless, up till now the discourses, practices and socio-cultural effects of FBOs have received only scant attention in the social-science literature. In an effort to address the scarcity of studies on FBOs, this project explores ethnographically how the recent integration of faith-based initiatives (both formal and informal ones) into development is embedded in the wider reconfigurations of the public sphere in sub-Saharan Africa and the global resurgence of religion. To investigate the conjuncture of faith and development, we propose the case studies of transnational Christian and Muslim FBOs in three metropoles: Lagos (Nigeria), Dar es Salaam (Tanzania) and Cape Town (South Africa). A comparison among these metropoles is particularly interesting, as they differ in important ways in 1) The role of religion in the public sphere in contexts that are Muslim-majority (Lagos), evenly divided between Christians and Muslims (Dar es Salaam) or Christian-majority (Cape Town); 2) How development is organized locally by taking into account the roles of the state and civil society; 3) The ways Christian and Muslim FBOs link up with transnational networks. By combining a view of the material, moral and political dimensions of the FBOs and analysing the interrelation of global, national and local dynamics, the case studies examine how both FBOs and their beneficiaries reposition themselves in relation to the discourses, practices and opportunities triggered by transnational development. Taking this course, our focus on FBOs complicates conventional understandings toward a progressive religious/economic divide. Furthermore, the transnational reach of FBOs and their increasing political and economic importance questions ready-made binary oppositions including state versus civil society, private faith versus public life and Christianity versus Islam as two distinct traditions. As such, the proposed project forces us to rethink the failing paradigms of modernization theory, with its narrow interpretations of secular development and the separation of religion from the public sphere, which neglect the potentiality of religion as a resource for development and the reality of the politics of aid in sub-Saharan Africa.