Having People, Having Heart – Charity, Sustainable Development, and Problems of Dependence in Central Uganda

Author:   China Scherz
Publisher:   The University of Chicago Press
ISBN:  

9780226119670


Pages:   184
Publication Date:   04 July 2014
Format:   Paperback
Availability:   Manufactured on demand   Availability explained
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Having People, Having Heart – Charity, Sustainable Development, and Problems of Dependence in Central Uganda


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Overview

Believing that charity inadvertently legitimates social inequality and fosters dependence, many international development organizations have increasingly sought to replace material aid with efforts to build self-reliance and local institutions. But in some cultures-like those in rural Uganda, whereHaving People, Having Hearttakes place-people see this shift not as an effort toward empowerment but as a suspect refusal to redistribute wealth. Exploring this conflict, China Scherz balances the negative assessments of charity that have led to this shift with the viewpoints of those who actually receive aid. Through detailed studies of two different orphan support organizations in Uganda, Scherz shows how many Ugandans view material forms of Catholic charity as deeply intertwined with their own ethics of care and exchange. With a detailed examination of this overlooked relationship in hand, she reassesses the generally assumed paradox of material aid as both promising independence and preventing it. The result is a sophisticated demonstration of the powerful role that anthropological concepts of exchange, value, personhood, and religion play in the politics of international aid and development.

Full Product Details

Author:   China Scherz
Publisher:   The University of Chicago Press
Imprint:   University of Chicago Press
Dimensions:   Width: 16.50cm , Height: 1.10cm , Length: 22.10cm
Weight:   0.288kg
ISBN:  

9780226119670


ISBN 10:   022611967
Pages:   184
Publication Date:   04 July 2014
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Professional and scholarly ,  Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Manufactured on demand   Availability explained
We will order this item for you from a manufactured on demand supplier.

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Reviews

Having People, Having Heart is a fascinating and original book that unsettles preconceptions--and social science theories--about the evils of charity. Scherz convincingly shows how Ugandan nuns' practices of charity, which center not upon autonomy but on interdependence, are a better fit with the relational ethics of the region than are NGO workers' practices of development. This regional ethics of interdependence prescribes correct (and correctly flexible) relations between patron and client. In such a worldview charity is no insult and independence from others no laudable goal. --Claire Wendland, University of Wisconsin-Madison


Author Information

China Scherz is assistant professor of anthropology at Reed College.

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