Religion And Inequality In Africa

Author : Ezra Chitando
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN 13 : 1350307394
Total Pages : 305 pages
Book Rating : 4.91/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Religion and Inequality in Africa written by Ezra Chitando and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2023-01-12 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume reveals how religion interfaces with inequality in different African contexts. Some contributors undertake detailed analyses of how religion creates (and justifies) different forms of inequality that holds back individuals, groups and communities across the continent from flourishing, while others show how religion can also mitigate inequality in Africa. Topics addressed include gender inequality, economic inequality, disability, ageism and religious homophobia. Specifically focusing on the United Nation's Sustainable Development Goal 10 to reduce inequality within and among countries, this book highlights the extent to which Africa's 'notoriously religious' identity needs to be taken into account in discourses on development.

Author : Ezra Chitando
Publisher : University of Bamberg Press
ISBN 13 : 3863097351
Total Pages : 504 pages
Book Rating : 4.56/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Religion and Development in Africa written by Ezra Chitando and published by University of Bamberg Press. This book was released on 2020-06-09 with total page 504 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "What is development? Who defines that one community/ country is "developed", while another community/ country is "under-developed"? What is the relationship between religion and development? Does religion contribute to development or underdevelopment in Africa? These and related questions elicit quite charged reactions in African studies, development studies, political science and related fields. Africa's own history, including the memory of marginalisation, slavery and exploitation by global powers ensures that virtually every discussion on development is characterised by a lot of emotions and conflicting views. In this volume scholars from various African countries and many different religions and denominations contribute to this debate."--

Author : H. Jurgens Hendriks
Publisher : AFRICAN SUN MeDIA
ISBN 13 : 1920338772
Total Pages : 192 pages
Book Rating : 4.70/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Men in the Pulpit, Women in the Pew? written by H. Jurgens Hendriks and published by AFRICAN SUN MeDIA. This book was released on 2012-07-01 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Men in the pulpit, women in the pew? Addressing gender inequality in Africa is that rarest of gems ? a work that takes a fresh look at familiar biblical teachings, and cause us to question what we have been accepting as a matter of course for so long.

Author : Busani Mpofu
Publisher : Berghahn Books
ISBN 13 : 1789201772
Total Pages : 288 pages
Book Rating : 4.72/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Rethinking and Unthinking Development written by Busani Mpofu and published by Berghahn Books. This book was released on 2019-03-27 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Development has remained elusive in Africa. Through theoretical contributions and case studies focusing on Southern Africa’s former white settler states, South Africa and Zimbabwe, this volume responds to the current need to rethink (and unthink) development in the region. The authors explore how Africa can adapt Western development models suited to its political, economic, social and cultural circumstances, while rejecting development practices and discourses based on exploitative capitalist and colonial tendencies. Beyond the legacies of colonialism, the volume also explores other factors impacting development, including regional politics, corruption, poor policies on empowerment and indigenization, and socio-economic and cultural barriers.

Author : J.M. Vorster
Publisher : AOSIS
ISBN 13 : 1928396232
Total Pages : 338 pages
Book Rating : 4.39/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Togetherness in South Africa written by J.M. Vorster and published by AOSIS. This book was released on 2017-11-24 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Race and inequality have always been sensitive topics in South African society due to its colonial past, diverse social composition and apartheid legacy of legal discrimination against people on the basis of their skin colour. Racial tensions seem to be escalating in South African society and disturbing racialised rhetoric and slogans are re-entering the political and social landscape. Another disturbing phenomenon has been violent incidents of xenophobia against African immigrants. The question probed by this book is: What perspectives can theology offer in addressing the roots of racism, inequality and xenophobia in South Africa and how can it and the church contribute to reconciliation and a sense of togetherness among South African citizens? Various methodologies and approaches are used to address this question. In chapter 1, Theuns Eloff employs a historical and socio-analytical approach to describe the social context that has given rise, and is still giving impetus to racism and other forms of intolerance in South African society. Nico Vorster approaches the issue of distorted racial identity constructions from a theological-anthropological perspective. Utilising various empirical studies, he attempts to provide conceptual clarity to the concepts of racism, nationalism, ethnocentrism and xenophobia, and maps the various racisms that we find in South Africa. His contribution concludes with a theological-anthropological discussion on ways in which theology can deconstruct distorted identities and contribute to the development of authentic identities. Koos Vorster provides a theological-ethical perspective on social stratification in South Africa. He identifies the patterns inherent to the institutionalisation of racist social structures and argues that many of these patterns are still present, albeit in a new disguise, in the South African social order. Jan du Rand provides in chapter 4 a semantic discussion of the notions of race and xenophobia. He argues that racist ideologies are not constructed on a factual basis, but that racial ideologies use semantic notions to construct social myths that enable them to attain power and justify the exploitation and oppression of the other. Du Rand’s second contribution in chapter 5 provides Reformed exegetical and hermeneutic perspectives on various passages and themes in the Bible that relate to anthropology, xenophobia and the imperative to xenophilia [love of the stranger]. Dirk Van der Merwe’s contribution analyses, evaluates, and compares both contemporary literature and ancient texts of the Bible to develop a model that can enable churches to promote reconciliation in society, while Ferdi Kruger investigates the various ways in which language can be used as a tool to disseminate hate speech. He offers an analytical description of hate language, provides normative perspectives on the duty to counter hate speech through truth speaking and phronesis (wisdom) and concludes with practical-theological perspectives that might enable us to address problematic praxis. Reggie Nel explores the Confessions of Belhar and the Declaration of Accra as theological lenses to provide markers for public witness in a postcolonial South African setting. The volume concludes with Riaan Rheeder’s Christian bioethical perspective on inequality in the health sector of sub-Sahara Africa. This book contains original research. No part was plagiarised or published elsewhere. The target audience are theologians, ministers and the Christian community, but social activists, social scientists, politicians, political theorists, sociologists and psychologists might also find the book applicable to their fields.

Author : Jeffrey Haynes
Publisher : Zed Books
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 284 pages
Book Rating : 4.63/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Religion and Politics in Africa written by Jeffrey Haynes and published by Zed Books. This book was released on 1996 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The impact of religion on the political process has come to the fore in recent years in a wide variety of societies. Yet the significant and varied ways in which the rapidly changing religious context has impacted on the politics of modern Africa is still a relatively neglected field. This book, which is designed to fill this gap in the teaching of African Politics, assembles and analyses an enormous amount of hitherto scattered material on the interaction between politics and religious groups in the post-independence, but also colonial, eras. Dr Haynes focuses on all three of the main organised religious traditions in Africa - Christian, Islamic and 'syncretistic' movements, including the rise of various fundamentalist groups. His thematic and comparative approach embraces all parts of Sub-Saharan Africa, and seeks to locate the role of religion in the African political process in its historical, social and international contexts. In doing so, he illuminates what has often been a profoundly important factor affecting the stability of governments, evolution of civil society and even the development trajectory of many African countries. The author's combination of theoretical context, rich empirical information and thoughtful analysis makes this book ideal as a text for students, as well as commanding a wider interest.

Author : Pieter Coertzen
Publisher : AFRICAN SUN MeDIA
ISBN 13 : 1928357032
Total Pages : 461 pages
Book Rating : 4.32/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Religious Freedom and Religious Pluralism in Africa written by Pieter Coertzen and published by AFRICAN SUN MeDIA. This book was released on 2016-05-22 with total page 461 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ÿAfrica continues to be a region with strong commitments to religious freedom and religious pluralism. These, however, are rarely mere facts on the ground ? they are legal, political, social, and theological projects that require considerable effort to realise. This volume ? compiling the proceedings of the third annual conference of the African Consortium for Law and Religion Studies ? focuses on various issues which vastly effect the understanding of religious pluralism in Africa. These include, amongst others, religious freedom as a human right, the importance of managing religious pluralism, and the permissibility of religious practice and observance in South African public schools.

Author : Melina Raquel Platas Izama
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : pages
Book Rating : 4.64/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Religious Roots of Inequality in Africa written by Melina Raquel Platas Izama and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Compared to Christians, Muslims in sub-Saharan Africa have fewer years of education, are less likely to be literate in any language, and their children are less likely to be in school. This project is the first to provide a quantitative and comparative documentation of this widespread inequality, and addresses two key questions. First, what are the origins of the Christian-Muslim education gap in Africa? Second, what explains variation in its persistence over time? I find that religious demographics play an important role in explaining the origins and persistence of the Christian-Muslim education gap in Africa. Employing case studies of colonial Nigeria and Uganda, I find that the distribution of the Muslim population and the degree of Islamization of political institutions in pre-colonial Africa affected demand for and investment in education in the colonial period through two channels: the religious marketplace and the structure of political power. Within Uganda, the percentage of an ethnic group that is Muslim is negatively correlated with Muslim educational attainment and positively correlated with the magnitude of the Christian-Muslim education gap in the colonial period. Further, Muslim educational attainment during the colonial period is predicted by exposure to missionary schools. There is considerable variation in persistence of educational inequality across countries over time. In some cases, the Christian-Muslim education gap has remained stable or declined, and in other cases the gap has grown. I suggest that part of the persistence of inequality is also related to religious demographics. Muslims in several African countries today continue to have worse educational outcomes, and the Christian-Muslim education gap is larger, where they comprise a local majority. The long-term effect of colonial investments, and particularly physical access to schools, likely explains some but not all of this relationship in the current period. In the case of Malawi, controlling for access, Muslims living as a majority continue to have lower educational attainment than Christians living in the same area and than Muslims living as minority. I conduct a household survey with embedded experiments to investigate a set of mechanisms that may underlie this relationship.

Author : Peter J. Paris
Publisher : Duke University Press
ISBN 13 : 0822392305
Total Pages : 386 pages
Book Rating : 4.09/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Religion and Poverty written by Peter J. Paris and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 2009-11-25 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Ghanaian scholar of religion argues that poverty is a particularly complex subject in traditional African cultures, where holistic worldviews unite life’s material and spiritual dimensions. A South African ethicist examines informal economies in Ghana, Jamaica, Kenya, and South Africa, looking at their ideological roots, social organization, and vulnerability to global capital. African American theologians offer ethnographic accounts of empowering religious rituals performed in churches in the United States, Jamaica, and South Africa. This important collection brings together these and other Pan-African perspectives on religion and poverty in Africa and the African diaspora. Contributors from Africa and North America explore poverty’s roots and effects, the ways that experiences and understandings of deprivation are shaped by religion, and the capacity and limitations of religion as a means of alleviating poverty. As part of a collaborative project, the contributors visited Ghana, Kenya, and South Africa, as well as Jamaica and the United States. In each location, they met with clergy, scholars, government representatives, and NGO workers, and they examined how religious groups and community organizations address poverty. Their essays complement one another. Some focus on poverty, some on religion, others on their intersection, and still others on social change. A Jamaican scholar of gender studies decries the feminization of poverty, while a Nigerian ethicist and lawyer argues that the protection of human rights must factor into efforts to overcome poverty. A church historian from Togo examines the idea of poverty as a moral virtue and its repercussions in Africa, and a Tanzanian theologian and priest analyzes ujamaa, an African philosophy of community and social change. Taken together, the volume’s essays create a discourse of mutual understanding across linguistic, religious, ethnic, and national boundaries. Contributors. Elizabeth Amoah, Kossi A. Ayedze, Barbara Bailey, Katie G. Cannon, Noel Erskine, Dwight N. Hopkins, Simeon O. Ilesanmi, Laurenti Magesa, Madipoane Masenya, Takatso A. Mofokeng, Esther M. Mombo, Nyambura J. Njoroge, Jacob Olupona, Peter J. Paris, Anthony B. Pinn, Linda E. Thomas, Lewin L. Williams

Author : M. Christian Green
Publisher : AFRICAN SUN MeDIA
ISBN 13 : 1928314597
Total Pages : 460 pages
Book Rating : 4.92/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Law, Religion and Human Flourishing in Africa written by M. Christian Green and published by AFRICAN SUN MeDIA. This book was released on 2019-05-19 with total page 460 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A shared interest of law and religion is the advancement of human flourishing, yet there is no common understanding of what it means for humans to flourish and the means by which to attain a flourishing life. The concept of human flourishing is especially important for Africa, where community and national development compete with forces of conflict and scarce resources. In the broadest sense, the concept of human flourishing focuses our attention on having a comprehensively good or worthwhile life, but various religious and legal traditions suggest different norms for measuring the quality of life and designing the institutional structures that could best facilitate and preserve it.