Social Security in Religious Networks

During the last decades, the world has been facing tremendous political transformations and new risks: epidemics such as HIV/Aids have had destabilizing effect on the caretaking role of kin; in post-socialist countries political reforms have made unemployment a new source of insecurity. Furthermore, the state''s withdrawal from providing social security is taking place throughout the world. One response to these developments has been increased migration, which poses further challenges to kinship-based social support systems. This innovative volume focuses on the ambiguous role of religious networks in social security and traces the interrelatedness of religious networks and state and family support systems. Particularly timely, it describes these challenges as well as social security arrangements in the context of globalization and migration. The wide range of case studies from various parts of the world that examine various religious groups offers an important comparative contribution to the understanding of religious networks as providers of social security.

During the last decades, the world has been facing tremendous political transformations and new risks: epidemics such as HIV/Aids have had destabilizing effect on the caretaking role of kin; in post-socialist countries political reforms have made unemployment a new source of insecurity. Furthermore, the state’s withdrawal from providing social security is taking place throughout the world. One response to these developments has been increased migration, which poses further challenges to kinship-based social support systems. This innovative volume focuses on the ambiguous role of religious networks in social security and traces the interrelatedness of religious networks and state and family support systems. Particularly timely, it describes these challenges as well as social security arrangements in the context of globalization and migration. The wide range of case studies from various parts of the world that examine various religious groups offers an important comparative contribution to the understanding of religious networks as providers of social security.

Acknowledgements

Chapter 1. Social Security in religious networks: An introduction
Tatjana Thelen, Carolin Leutloff-Grandits and Anja Peleikis

Chapter 2. When AIDS becomes part of the (Christian) family: Dynamics between kinship and religious networks in Uganda
Catrine Christiansen

Chapter 3. ‘Fight against hunger’: Ambiguities of a charity campaign in post-war Croatia
Carolin Leutloff-Grandits

Chapter 4. Social Security, life courses and religious norms: Ambivalent layers of support in an eastern German Protestant network
Tatjana Thelen

Chapter 5. Longing for security: Qigong and Christian groups in the People’s Republic of China
Kristin Kupfer

Chapter 6. Questioning Social Security in the study of religion in Africa: The ambiguous meaning of the gift in African Pentecostalism and Islam
Mirjam de Bruijn and Rijk van Dijk

Chapter 7. Nuns, fundraising and volunteering: The gifting of care in Czech services for the elderly and infirm
Rosie Read

Chapter 8. ‘Church shopping’ in Malawi: Acquiring multiple resources in urban Christian networks
Barbara Rohregger

Chapter 9. The (re-)making of translocal networks through Social Security practices: The case of German and Lithuanian Lutherans in the Curonian Spit
Anja Peleikis

Chapter 10. Women’s congregations as transnational Social Security networks
Gertrud Hüwelmeier

Chapter 11. Negotiating needs and obligations in Haitian transnational religious and family networks
Heike Drotbohm

Notes on contributors
Index