Abstract

Since the early 2000s an increasing number of publications has led to the emergence of a new research field: religion and development. Much of the literature focuses on defining and classifying faith-based organizations, and attributes distinctive characteristics and comparative advantages to religious actors in contrast to their secular counterparts. In line with more empirically oriented research, this article examines how eight Belgian NGOs perceive the importance of incorporating religion in their own development practice. The NGOs’ narratives highlight a number of benefits and drawbacks related to their own religious profile and/or taking into account religious aspects of the context in which they work. While these narratives generally correspond with benefits and risks mentioned in the literature, their ground-level detail adds nuance and questions the validity of a clear-cut dichotomy between faith-based and secular NGOs, and the instrumentalizing language of comparative advantages. To achieve insight into the various, complex and specific ways in which religion is present in development, a deeply empirical, contextualized approach is needed.

摘要

自2000年代初以来，越来越多的出版物导致出现了一个新的研究领域：宗教与发展。许多文献着重于对基于信仰的组织进行定义和分类，并且将宗教行为者与世俗组织相比，赋予了鲜明的特征和比较优势。与更注重实证的研究相一致，本文考察了八个比利时非政府组织如何认识到将宗教纳入其自身发展实践的重要性。非政府组织的叙述着重指出了其自身宗教信仰和/或考虑到其工作背景中宗教方面的诸多利弊。尽管这些叙述通常与文献中提到的收益和风险相对应，他们在地面上的细节增加了细微差别，并质疑基于信仰的非政府组织与世俗的非政府组织之间明确的二分法的有效性，以及比较优势的工具化语言。为了深入了解宗教在发展中的各种，复杂和特定的方式，需要一种深入的经验化，情境化的方法。