Request and the Gift in Religious and Humanitarian Endeavors

Frederick Klaits is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the State University of New York at Buffalo, USA. He is the author of Death in a Church of Life: Moral Passion during Botswana’s Time of AIDS (2010).

• 1. Introduction: Asking in Time.- 2. The Power of the Gift: Killing and Healing in Northwest Zambia.- 3. Seeking the Wounds of the Gift:  Recipient Agency in Catholic Charity and Kiganda Patronage.- 4. When God Is a Moral Accountant: Requests and Dilemmas of Accountability in U.S. Medical Relief in Madagascar.- 5. How Asking and Giving Beget Distrust in Christian Child Sponsorship.- 6. Funding Meaning on Jewish Service Trips to Post-Katrina New Orleans.- 7. Universal Dignity: Fundraising, Zakat, and Spiritual Exchange.