The Place of Faith in Humanitarian Engagement with Displaced Communities

Ager, Alastair; Ager, Joey

doi:10.1057/9781137472144_2

Cited by 5 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 7 publications

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“…Where there is engagement, instrumentalisation is an issue that affects LFAs due to their advantageous qualities. Ager and Ager explain that “The focus is on the physical and social resources of faith communities… This emphasis is evident in the vocabulary that is now frequently adopted to justify humanitarian engagement with religion: religious communities have important ‘resources’, ‘tools’, or ‘outreach capacities’….” (Ager and Ager 2015 , 64-65). They note that such partnerships “undermine the legitimacy and authority of the reasoning and reflection of people of faith in humanitarian contexts” and make for “highly conditional” engagements (Ager and Ager 2015 , 64-65), in which the power is very clearly held by the external, international actor and not the local faith actor.…”

Section: Localisation and Local Faith Actorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Ager and Ager explain that “The focus is on the physical and social resources of faith communities… This emphasis is evident in the vocabulary that is now frequently adopted to justify humanitarian engagement with religion: religious communities have important ‘resources’, ‘tools’, or ‘outreach capacities’….” (Ager and Ager 2015 , 64-65). They note that such partnerships “undermine the legitimacy and authority of the reasoning and reflection of people of faith in humanitarian contexts” and make for “highly conditional” engagements (Ager and Ager 2015 , 64-65), in which the power is very clearly held by the external, international actor and not the local faith actor. International humanitarian actors should start by being careful with their language - partnerships are not about “using” or “leveraging” local assets, but finding ways to equitably partner with and support local capacities.…”

Section: Localisation and Local Faith Actorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Regarding humanitarian action specifically, the literature on the role of faith actors is sparser. Ideas have paralleled some of the work in development studies, underlining that religious beliefs and practices have also been privatised, marginalised, and instrumentalised in the humanitarian system (Ager and Ager 2015 ). As with development, neither is there a clear point at which the humanitarian system was religious and became secular or vice versa; it is instead a story of constant and ever-changing dynamics between religious and secular positions (Wilkinson 2019 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For the past decade or so, critics have drawn attention to the instrumentalisation of faith actors in aid and the limited parameters of acceptability available to faith actors as they participate in this domain (Jones and Petersen 2011 ; Ager and Ager 2015 ; Wilkinson 2019 ). They argued that faith actors had been used by secular international aid for their assets and they had adapted to fit within boundaries defined by the aid system (Jones and Petersen 2011 ; Deneulin and Bano 2009 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Faith in localisation? The experiences of local faith actors engaging with the international humanitarian system in South Sudan

Wilkinson¹,

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Tomalin

et al. 2022

Int J Humanitarian Action

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Localisation, as it aims to shift power in the humanitarian system, will involve the increased inclusion of local faith actors, those national and local faith-affiliated groups and organisations that are often first, and last, responders in crises and have been responding in humanitarian contexts for many years, but often in parallel to humanitarian coordination mechanisms. In primary research in South Sudan with local faith actors and international humanitarian actors, this article aims to examine the inroads and barriers to local faith actor involvement in the humanitarian system and the realisation of localisation with local actors such as these. The research is based on an ethnographic study in which researchers were imbedded in a humanitarian project that aimed to help bridge divides between local faith actors and the international humanitarian system. The findings are based on one-on-one and group interviews with 89 participants from a range of international and local, and faith and secular, organisations. Findings indicate that local faith actors are active in responding to crises and want to be linked to the humanitarian system, but they feel distanced from it and pigeonholed as local faith actors. Formalisation through the appropriate registration systems and then training and networking with the humanitarian system helped them build legitimacy and feel confident to participate in humanitarian coordination. International humanitarian actors can help bridge barriers by understanding and connecting with the local faith actors and challenging their own assumptions about who local faith actors are.

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Section: Localisation and Local Faith Actorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Localisation and Local Faith Actorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Faith in localisation? The experiences of local faith actors engaging with the international humanitarian system in South Sudan

Wilkinson¹,

Logo

Tomalin

et al. 2022

Int J Humanitarian Action

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…Religious traditions have a history of promoting and providing supports for migrants (Ager & Ager, 2015). A number of countries with majority Muslim populations have sought protection for persecuted groups of Muslim refugees, and Islamic principles often motivate efforts to provide relief (Kirmani & Khan, 2008; Krafess, 2005).…”

Section: Conclusion: Enhancing Supports and Understanding Across Relimentioning

confidence: 99%

Religious Coping and Challenges Among Displaced Muslim Female Refugees

Shaw

Peacock

Ali

et al. 2019

Affilia

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With millions of women experiencing forced displacement, attention is needed toward migrant women’s lived experiences. Religion is an understudied but central component of coping for many migrant women. Through the use of qualitative and quantitative methods, an exploratory study was conducted with 36 forced migrant Shia Muslim women residing in a predominantly Sunni Muslim country of first asylum. Using the brief Multidimensional Measure of Religiousness/Spirituality and drawing from feminist theory, intersectionality, and the ecological framework, we describe women’s experience with religion and spirituality across a variety of domains. Open-ended semistructured interviews were analyzed using a thematic analysis approach. Participants were highly religious across all domains measured. Key themes emerged related to how religion helps women manage stress, including: (1) trusting God to solve problems and (2) relying on prayer and other religious practices to cope. Despite these strengths, women also described major challenges to religious practice, where the third identified theme emphasized that fear and persecution limit religious practice. This article builds understanding of forced migrant women’s experiences, with implications for social work practice and immigration policy. Service organizations can recognize and support religious coping, particularly among religious minority refugee women. Additionally, practitioners and policy makers can promote religious tolerance and understanding within diverse host communities.

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Students from humanities and human sciences are basically the same aren’t they? Cultural factors affecting entrepreneurship in Iran

2023

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In a third-generation university, concepts of creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship, help link the university with industry and society. These concepts, however, have not been uniformly distributed across all university disciplines. This paper, reviews the characteristics of a third-generation university, focusing on the capabilities of the humanities faculties to address the challenges and barriers of entrepreneurship. Identification of these notions is important for the development of the humanities in academic entrepreneurship. This research was conducted among 80 Iranian humanities entrepreneurs, using the Hofstede Model of National Culture and Entrepreneurial Tendency and Action questionnaires as data collection tools. Entrepreneurial tendency among those in the human sciences disciplines was greater than those in the humanities. Short-term orientation was only influential in the humanities group. However, individualism–collectivism and short-term orientation were influential to entrepreneurial tendency in both disciplines. While the power distance (high) was influential to entrepreneurial tendency in the humanities. The findings of this study showed significant entrepreneurial tendency differences between students from the humanities and human sciences. The findings also show that entrepreneurial tendency in the humanities is mostly influenced by cultural factors. This research has provided invaluable knowledge of the entrepreneurial differences from a cultural perspective in the third-generation university.

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The Place of Faith in Humanitarian Engagement with Displaced Communities

Cited by 5 publications

References 7 publications

Faith in localisation? The experiences of local faith actors engaging with the international humanitarian system in South Sudan

Faith in localisation? The experiences of local faith actors engaging with the international humanitarian system in South Sudan

Religious Coping and Challenges Among Displaced Muslim Female Refugees

Students from humanities and human sciences are basically the same aren’t they? Cultural factors affecting entrepreneurship in Iran

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