operationalizing religion
Quote:
Originally Posted by
MSG Proctor
In fragile states circles there is a lot of talk about disaggregating the state...pulling apart all the different functions, practices and belief that make up a sovereignty. This seems to be part of the understanding all the bits of humpty-dumpty so that we can figure out how to put him (back) together again. The discussion is very useful because it has produced a whole bunch of language to talk about the bits and pieces that we find lying around in the places we work..fragments of the state. Second, it is really useful because it stops transfer of cognitive similarity. That is, it used to be when I said state and a guy from Congo said state, I would assume that we were talking about the same thing. We may not be...so our attempts to make things better may be mutually incompatible. The term state, here, is actually an obstacle to communication.
I'm having the same itch with religion. So, I would like to know what, if any, work has been done to pull apart the term 'religion' when we are talking about this stuff.
second
and I want the doc on AKO that Marc wants...(twiddling thumbs waiting patiently)
third
the entire development business is Catholic (http://www.answers.com/topic/catholic) about its secularism. This is dangerous when it isn't short sighted or just plain ignorant. It is very interesting for me to see how the military is trying to recognize this domain. I suppose it is predictable from an institutional perspective that padres would be tagged for the role. In this the military is in some ways fortunate. Padres are believers trained to care for a diverse flock under dire circumstances who are recognized by their institution as having a legitimate domain of competence. In the development business we tend to have a lot of covert missionaries frustrated by their secular workplaces and atheists who think that religion is quaint who work in a language whose express purpose is to render ideological challenges on technical terms that are amenable to the sorts of intervention strategies that donors find convenient.
finally
I have found this thread enormously rich.
thanks to all of those who contributed.