Negotiating Religion and Development

Identity Construction and Contention in Bolivia

Arnhild Leer-Helgesen

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• eBook ISBN: 9780429688416
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Peace & Global Development
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This book argues that relationships between religion and development in faith-based development work are constructed through repeated processes of negotiation. Rather than being a neat and tidy relationship, faith-based development work is complex and multifaceted: an ongoing series of negotiations between theological interpretations and theories of human development; between identities as professional practitioners and as believers; between different religious traditions at local, regional and international levels; and between institutional structures and individual agency.

In particular, the book draws on a deep ethnographic study of Christian faith-based development work in the Bolivian Andes. The case study highlights the importance of seeing theological interpretations as being firmly embedded in local religious and cultural systems involved in a constant process of identity construction. Overall, the book argues that religion should not be seen as homogeneous, or either 'good' or 'bad' for development; instead, we must recognise that institutional faith-based identities are constructed in many ways, formal, theological and interpersonal, and any tensions between 'religious' and 'development' goals must be worked through in an ongoing recognition of that complexity.

This book will be of interest to researchers working in development studies and religious studies, as well as to practitioners and policymakers with an interest in faith-based development work.

1 Introduction

Introduction

Several years ago, I was present at an event in a school in the immigrant city of El Alto in Bolivia. An evangelical non-governmental organisation (NGO) arranged a day with celebration and focus on children’s rights. In the city of El Alto, marked by a high percentage of poverty, children’s rights are violated far too often. Family violence is a huge challenge. The leader of the NGO, a pastor, opened the celebration by giving a message. He read a verse from the Old Testament in the Bible and focused on the importance of honouring your parents by being obedient. Through this, he said, you honour God. In a crowd with children on children’s day, many of them living in situations of family violence and abuse, the pastor chose this theological focus. For me, it became an important experience that inspired the topic of this book. How can relationships between religion and development be understood?

Religion and development

Neither ‘development’ nor ‘religion’ are terms with a single universally accepted definition. A current widely accepted concept of human development refers to people’s well-being, which ‘involves wide distribution of the benefits of economic growth; access to assets, livelihood and services; and physical and economic security. Improvements to well-being imply not just increased material resources and incomes, but also realization of rights, access to opportunities, and the capacity to make the most of them’ (Rakodi, 2012, p. 638). This understanding dominates mainstream discourse in international development cooperation and is also underlying the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). However, it is subject to critique and alternatives from among others religious and Latin American traditions. One of the key issues addressed in this book is how the understandings and practices of faith-based development in local contexts relate to mainstream development discourses on a global level.

Religion is likewise a disputed and complex concept, which this book will illustrate. For now, I refer to the understanding of Carole Rakodi, who has written extensively on how to research the link between religion and development: ‘Essentially, religion is said to be a set of core beliefs and teachings that among other things specify (or suggest) how to live in accordance with the principles of the faith tradition and how society should be ordered’ (2012, p. 640). This definition is open enough to include the multiple foci and perspectives needed to address religion’s role in development, yet it clarifies the relevance of the concept in relation to development thinking and practice. It addresses both discourses (‘core beliefs and teachings’), as well as practices (how these discourses are embodied as actual practices).

The role of religion in international development work has been widely recognised and debated over the last 15 years, both from within various academic disciplines as well as among policy and practice actors. Religious leaders and faith-based organisations (FBOs) are important actors in development, and religion is important for the great majority of people in the regions towards which international development work is directed (Deneulin and Rakodi, 2011; Rakodi, 2015; Swart and Nell, 2016). FBOs have played a significant role in international development from the days of the early missionaries and are currently among the biggest and most influential NGOs in the field (Clarke, 2006). Understanding the religious dimension is therefore essential to grasping the meaning of the values and perspectives in faith-based development work.

The story from El Alto of the theological message chosen on ‘children’s day’ raises questions of how individuals and institutions construct relationships – or non-relationships – between spheres related to religion and to development. The main question dealt with in this book is how relationships between religion and development are constructed in faith-based development institutions.¹ I argue and demonstrate that a fruitful and new angle to answering this question is to look at processes of negotiation on various levels. The discussion and arguments depart from a multiple case study of Christian discourses and practices of international development in the Andes region in Bolivia. In Bolivia, critical debates on religion and development challenge, and propose alternatives to, global discourses of development. The two cases are institutions which both define their work as ‘diaconal’ and work among the Aymara people in the highlands of the Andes. Diakonia is both a theological term of biblical origin (the Greek term is also used in English) and a concept used to describe Christian social practice. According to the Dictionary of the Ecumenical Movement, it is defined as ‘the responsible service of the gospel by deeds and by words performed by Christians in response to the needs of people’ (White, 2002, p. 305). One of the cases, Iglesia Evangélica Luterana de Bolivia (IELB), is a national Lutheran church formally established in 1959 as a result of missionary work from the USA. The second case, Misión Alianza de Noruega en Bolivia (MAN-B), is a Bolivian Christian NGO initiated in June 1978 as a result of Norwegian missionary work.

Despite the focus on the two national Bolivian institutions, this book presents discussions of issues relevant beyond faith-based development in Bolivia. I relate to key debates from the extensive amount of research done in the field of religion and development in recent years to demonstrate this. Comparisons with other contexts illustrate that what I name ‘unresolved tensions’ are found at a global level in faith-based development work. At the same time, references to ogther studies will clearly show how particular contexts – cultural, religious, social and political – determine how relationships between religion and development are constructed on a national, local and individual level. A critical perspective on power underlies the discussion of this book and brings to light multiple and dynamic processes of influence among involved actors on all levels.

Negotiating religion and development

Relationships between religion and development are fruitfully understood as negotiations situated in a field marked by unresolved tensions. Faith-based institutions mediate between religious and development discourses on international, national and local level. Institutions are collectives with a certain level of structure that delimits the actors involved. At the same time, institutions are constituted by individual actors who interpret, reflect and act.² Hence, constructions of relationships between religion and development must be understood as negotiations both at an institutional as well as individual level. Within an institutional frame, individual staff members negotiate between theological modes of interpretation and theories of human development. Their personal identities – as development professionals, as believers and as individuals with specific cultural backgrounds – play a major role in these negotiation processes. The same aspects influence how identity is constructed at an institutional level. The context of international faith-based development work is marked by different religious traditions at local, regional and international levels, which are also negotiated. Individual staff in faith-based development work are constantly challenged and manoeuvre their agency within institutional and cultural structures marked by both religion and development.

Faith-based institutions of development are influenced by their networks, and power relations is a key issue treated in this book. While power in international development is often considered to ‘follow the money’, I will show that the local communities exercise important influence on daily practices of faith-based development work. As Bolivian institutions IELB and MAN-B are constituted and formed by their relations to both international networks and the people at the local level towards whom they direct their actions (right-holders in the communities).³ MAN-B is supported through a bilateral channel from Norway (the Norwegian Mission Alliance, NMA) and IELB receives support from the Lutheran World Federation (LWF) as well as from other international institutions. They both work with local communities in rural parts of the Andes. National faith-based institutions are in a position where they need to negotiate between on one side international theological currents and theories of development, and on the other local interpretations and practices of both religion and development.

I argue that a focus on negotiations and unresolved tensions enriches the understanding of faith-based development work far beyond the Bolivian cases. Three in-depth studies are particularly fruitful to show how my conclusions from the case studies in Bolivia are relevant for Christian-based development work in general. Erica Bornstein’s study The Spirit of Development (2003) provides an analysis of two Protestant NGOs involved in international development cooperation in Zimbabwe. Laura Occhipinti’s study from the North of Argentina, Acting on Faith (2005), discusses the view of development found in two Catholic NGOs engaged in indigenous communities. In the third book, Cement, Earthworms and Cheese Factories, Jill DeTemple (2012) explores how religion and development intersect and are negotiated in rural communities in the Ecuadorian Andes. The differences and similarities between the faith-based institutions and places studied by Bornstein, Occhipinti, DeTemple and myself bring to light common tensions and how these are negotiated in each specific context. I use the four in-depth studies to demonstrate that local faith-based development work involves mediations within the frame of international and national structures marked by different theological discourses, views of development and international networks.

Religion, spirituality and development in Bolivia

Questions of relationships between religion and development are particularly interesting to discuss in the current Bolivian context, yet little research is done. The Andean ecumenical institute of theology ISEAT (Instituto Superior Ecuménico Andino de Teología) is one of few actors in the debate. They posed the following questions in a research project in 2007 and 2008:

To what extent do religion and spirituality contribute to or present limitations to people’s development? To what extent do development projects take religious and spiritual factors into consideration in their designs and goals?

(ISEAT 2008, p. 9)⁴

ISEAT focuses on religion, theology and society in a country marked by a variety of cultural traditions and social and political challenges.⁵ The following will briefly introduce how the concepts of religion and development are debated and resisted in Bolivia, both from a perspective of post-development as well as of theology.

The terms ‘development’ and ‘religion’ have been at the centre of both political and academic debates in Bolivia since the indigenous President Evo Morales Aima and his party Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS) took power in 2006. There has been a shift from ‘Western thinking’ to consciously putting emphasis on indigenous philosophy and knowledge as the fundament for constructing a new society. Academics and politicians have engaged in the decolonialisation of religion and development, which are seen as ‘Western’ and as not taking the philosophy and knowledge of the indigenous majority into consideration (Arnold, 2008; Estermann, 2007).

Political documents and academics now use indigenous terms to describe the goals and aims of the society (Farah and Vasapollo, 2011; ISEAT and Bread for All, 2013; Wanderley, 2011). In the Bolivian Andes, ‘development’ is replaced with the concept suma qamaña in the indigenous language Aymara, or vivir bien in Spanish. Suma qamaña as a concept refers not only to material aspects, but also spiritual conditions for living a good life in harmonious relations with nature, the spiritual world and fellow human beings. The concept of ‘religion’ is equally discussed and criticised as a ‘Western’ concept. While the former Constitution and political documents before 2009 used the term ‘religion’ exclusively, the current political discourse uses both ‘spiritualities’ and ‘religion’.

The fundamental critique of development and the new language seen in Bolivia in recent years have engaged scholars in a debate on alternative discourses of development and their significance for political and social change. Post-development scholar Arturo Escobar asks if the discourse of vivir bien and its political consequences can be considered as ‘alternative modernization, post-liberalism, or post-development’ (Escobar, 2010, p. 1). He considers the ‘crisis of the neo-liberal model’ and the ‘crisis of modernity’ as the background for the transformations seen in Bolivia in recent years. The first crisis points to the actual historical situation in which neo-liberal politics weakened the human conditions for the majority in Bolivia. The ‘crisis of modernity’ refers to a struggle between different ontologies, one ‘modern’ in the sense of Eurocentric and liberal, and another indigenous and relational. Relational indigenous ontologies challenge the dualistic ‘modern’ world view. ‘Modern’ ontology is based on the primacy of humans over non-humans and on hierarchical structures. The freedom of the individual person is given priority and seen as separated from the community. The division of reality into spheres, e.g. seeing economy and religion as independent realms of social practices, is also particular for ‘modern thinking’. The relational ontology of indigenous peoples in Bolivia challenges this ‘modern’ world view, Escobar argues. This is but one example of how alternative discourses to development in Bolivia have inspired new analysis within the field of international development studies. Escobar avoids terms such as ‘spirituality’ and ‘religion’ and only briefly mentions relations to the ‘transcendent’. In this book, I pay particular attention to religion and address how the faith-based actors interpret development in a context that can be described as marked by ‘alternative modernization, post-liberalism, or post-development’ (Escobar, 2010).

Challenging ‘development’ from a theological perspective

Theological interpretations of ‘development’ are fundamental in faith-based development work. Latin American theologians have contributed with critique of definitions and projects of development, and from t...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title Page
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgements
• 1 Introduction
• 2 Theoretical perspectives on religion and development
• 3 Religion and development in Bolivia: resistance and decolonisation
• 4 Constructing a faith-based identity
• 5 Theological frameworks for understanding development
• 6 Faith-based discourses of development
• 7 Practising integral development
• 8 Unresolved tensions in faith-based development
• 9 Conclusion: negotiations and contentions of religion and development
• Appendix
• Index