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OverviewBelieving 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 DetailsAuthor: China ScherzPublisher: The University of Chicago Press Imprint: University of Chicago Press Dimensions: Width: 16.50cm , Height: 1.10cm , Length: 22.10cm Weight: 0.288kg ISBN: 9780226119670ISBN 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 We will order this item for you from a manufactured on demand supplier. Table of ContentsReviewsHaving 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 InformationChina Scherz is assistant professor of anthropology at Reed College. Tab Content 6Author Website:Countries AvailableAll regions |