Having People, Having Heart
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A01=China Scherz
african
anthropologists
anthropology
Author_China Scherz
care
Category=JKSN1
Category=RNU
catholic charities
catholicism
charitable
charity
conflict
cultural studies
culture
dependence
disagreement
donations
east africa
eq_bestseller
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
ethics
exchange
inequity
international
mercy house
organizations
personhood
philanthropy
poor
poverty
redistributed wealth
relationship
religion
religious
self reliance
social inequality
sustainability
transnational
uganda
value
Product details
- ISBN 9780226119533
- Weight: 397g
- Dimensions: 16 x 23mm
- Publication Date: 04 Jul 2014
- Publisher: The University of Chicago Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
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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, where Having People, Having Heart takes 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.
China Scherz is assistant professor of anthropology at Reed College.
