Religion and the Politics of Development

Melissa L. Caldwell, University of California, Santa Cruz, USA Nalika Gajaweera, University of Southern California, USA Kikue Hamayotsu, Northern Illinois University, USA Zoltan Pall, National University of Singapore, Singapore Emma Tomalin, University of Leeds, UK Oscar Salemink, University of Copenhagen, Denmark R. Santhosh , Indian Institute of Technology Madras, India Chika Watanabe, University of Manchester, UK Wu Keping, National University of Singapore, Singapore

• Introduction; Robin Bush, Philip Fountain and R. Michael Feener 1. Religion and the Politics of Development in Asia; Philip Fountain, Robin Bush, R. Michael Feener 2. The Purification, Sacralisation and Instrumentalisation of Development as a Religious Enterprise; Oscar Salemink 3. Gender, Development, and the 'De-privatization' of Religion: Re-framing Feminism and Religion in Asia; Emma Tomalin 4. Islamic Activism and Palliative Care: An Analysis from Kerala, India; R. Santhosh 5. Buddhist Cosmopolitan Ethics and Transnational Secular Humanitarianism in Sri Lanka; Nalika Gajaweera 6. Buddhist and Protestant Philanthropies in Contemporary Southeast China: Negotiating the 'Grey Zone'; Wu Keping 7. Patronage, Welfare Provision, and State-Society Relations: Lessons from Muslim-Dominant Regimes in Southeast Asia; Kikue Hamayotsu 8. Between Ideology and International Politics: The Dynamics and Transformation of a Transnational Islamic Charity; Zoltan Pall 9. Remaking the Russian State fromthe East: The Role of Asian Christians as Civic Activists; Melissa Caldwell 10. The Politics of Nonreligious Aid: A Japanese Environmental Ethic in Myanmar; Chika Watanabe Outlook; R. Michael Feener, Philip Fountain and Robin Bush

"Originating from a conference hosted by an academic powerhouse, the Asia Research Institute (ASI), National University of Singapore, Religion and the Politics of Development is much more coherent than most edited compilations. It combines a sophisticated, questioning editorial vision with ethnographic richness, and substantially expands the existing body of comparative research literature on this topic. The quasi-religious character of supposedly secular movements and institutions is thoughtfully exposed, including those that sacralize 'development', while pro-poor initiatives are shown to be dangerously narrow-minded when they are grounded in a dismissive approach to religion. The reader is left in no doubt about the deficiencies of aid and welfare provision in all the social contexts considered by the twelve contributors, but is reminded that world politics would be in an even worse state without the 'will to improve'." - Jonathan Benthall, University College London, UK