![Sample our Area Studies journals, sign in here to start your access, latest two full volumes FREE to you for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5922/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Area-Studies.jpg"})
Abstract
‘Religion and development’ is now a well-established research area within development studies. However, reflections on development from within the standpoint of religions remain largely unexplored. Interrogating processes of social change from a certain moral standpoint – whether some are more desirable or worthwhile than others – has been a defining characteristic of development studies throughout its history. The paper argues that, given these normative underpinnings, greater dialogue is needed with ethical frameworks among which reflections on development are conducted within religions. It argues that extending the moral standpoint from which to interrogate processes of social change to include that of religious traditions could contribute to development studies’ ongoing reflections on the concept and meaning of development. The paper focuses on the reflections on development conducted from within the Catholic tradition, particularly Pope Francis’s encyclical Laudato Si’: On Care for Our Common Home, and its implementation in the Synod of Bishops for the Pan-Amazon Region. It argues that these reflections, which have moved the concept of development towards integral ecology, could contribute to broadening the normative basis of development studies more widely, and offer a more integrated approach for thinking about development and how societies should move into the future.
Acknowledgements
I thank Joe Devine for helpful discussions and comments on a previous draft, and two anonymous referees.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1 See also the Routledge Research in Religion and Development Book Series, https://www.routledge.com/Routledge-Research-in-Religion-and-Development/book-series/RRRD.
2 In 2010, the Pew Forum estimated that 84% of the global population identified with a religious group. See http://www.pewforum.org/2012/12/18/global-religious-landscape-exec.
3 Respectively: https://www.partner-religion-development.org; https://wedocs.unep.org/handle/20.500.11822/32295; https://jliflc.com (accessed 15 February 2021).
4 See the address of the Orthodox Patriarch Bartholomew at https://www.weforum.org/events/world-economic-forum-annual-meeting-2020/sessions/a0W0X00000HPXXvUAP (accessed 22 January 2021).
5 See https://www.gov.uk/government/news/cop26-president-welcomes-vaticans-support-to-highlight-faith-leaders-role-on-climate-action (accessed 18 June 2021).
6 For the thorny question of defining religion, see, among others, Deneulin and Bano (2019), Fountain (Citation2013), Tomalin (Citation2013) and the literature therein.
7 The title comes from the Canticle of St Francis of Assisi in Old Italian: ‘Praise be To You’ (Laudato Si’).
8 In 2018, there were an estimated 1.329 billion people baptised in the Catholic Church, or about 18% of the global population; see https://www.laciviltacattolica.com/church-numbers-in-the-world (accessed 5 January 2021).
9 The documents of Catholic Social Teaching up to 2015 can be found at http://www.catholicsocialteaching.org.uk/principles/documents (accessed 19 January 2021). For a discussion on how each document responds to the socio-economic context of its time, see Dorr (Citation2016) and the virtual platform Catholic Social Teaching Gateway at https://virtualplater.org.uk (accessed 22 January 2021).
10 The pursuit of shared prosperity is understood as the increase of the incomes of the bottom 40%; see https://www.worldbank.org/en/publication/poverty-and-shared-prosperity (accessed 8 February 2021).
11 https://www.devstud.org.uk/about/what-is-development-studies (accessed 19 January 2021).
12 See the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, ‘Measuring the Progress of Societies’, at http://www.oecd.org/site/worldforum06/37014829.pdf; and the European Union’s ‘Beyond GDP’ project at https://ec.europa.eu/environment/beyond_gdp/reports_en.html, which includes the Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress in 2009 (accessed 15 February 2021).
13 See Alff and Hornidge (Citation2019) for a discussion on how the inclusion of the sciences, such as oceanographic studies, is leading to a redefinition of development away from a progress-based and linear understanding.
14 The original quote is from Wildcat (Citation2013, 515).
15 For reflections on development within the Protestant tradition as ‘transformational development’, see Cooper (Citation2020), Myers (Citation2011) and Van Zeeland (Citation2016).
16 Papal encyclicals are conventionally titled by their first two words in Latin (or Old Italian from the time of Francis of Assisi under Pope Francis), and cited by their title initials, followed by the relevant paragraph number.
17 See the 2019 report of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) for the scale of biodiversity loss worldwide at https://ipbes.net/global-assessment. See the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change for an assessment of climate change and its consequences at https://www.ipcc.ch.
18 Pope Francis acknowledges that the Christian tradition has not always recognised human life as grounded in relationships to the Earth, and that it has been the culprit, on the basis of an incorrect interpretation of Genesis, of domination and exploitation (LS 67).
19 See Shadle (Citation2018, chapter 13) for a discussion on John Paul II and structures of sin. The concept of structures of sin was articulated by liberation theology in the 1970s. The insights from liberation theology have been incorporated in Laudato Si’ with its structural analysis of the economy, its preferential option for the poor (and for the Earth), and its focus on ecological conversion. For a discussion on how Laudato Si’ takes from liberation theology, see Castillo (Citation2016, Citation2019). For accounts of liberation theology and its influence in Latin America, Africa and Asia, see Gichaara (Citation2005), Gutierrez (Citation2001, Citation2007), Ellacuría and Sobrino (Citation1993), Tombs (Citation2002), Wielenga (Citation2007).
20 See also UNDP (Citation2020, 112) for the need to pay greater attention to people’s inner lives in development studies.
21 The Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew has launched a similar process in the Orthodox Church (LS 7–10), and so has the World Council of Churches; see https://www.oikoumene.org/news/the-wuppertal-call-ecological-conversion-urgently-needed (accessed 11 February 2021).
22 For Pope Francis telling of his awakening to the suffering Earth, see https://lsri.campion.ox.ac.uk/projects/how-pope-went-green-story-behind-laudato-si-franciss-own-words (accessed 12 February 2021).
23 For a further discussion on accompaniment and what it means in practice, see Pope (Citation2019).
25 See the list of participants at http://www.sinodoamazonico.va/content/sinodoamazonico/en.html.
26 The final document is available at http://www.sinodoamazonico.va/content/sinodoamazonico/en/documents/final-document-of-the-amazon-synod.html.
27 Only celibate males had voting rights. This has now changed as a woman has been recently been appointed as under-secretary of the next synod in October 2023, see https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/feb/07/a-door-has-opened-pope-francis-appoints-first-woman-to-senior-synod-post.
28 In his comparison of Laudato Si’ and the Sustainable Development Goals, Sachs (Citation2017) argued that the former provided a much deeper interrogation of processes of social change and diagnosis of the root causes of social and environmental degradation. Sachs (Citation2017) interpreted Laudato Si’ as a ‘variety of post-development’. This paper offers a different interpretation: Laudato Si’ does not reject the concept of ‘development’ but alters its meaning.
29 See the synod’s theme at http://www.synod.va/content/sinodoamazonico/en.html (accessed 18 June 2021).
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Séverine Deneulin
Séverine Deneulin is Associate Professor in international development at the University of Bath. She researches social ethics and the interaction between religious traditions and development theory and practice. She specialises in the works of philosopher and economist Amartya Sen and the Catholic social tradition. Her publications include Human Development and the Catholic Social Tradition (Routledge, 2021), Wellbeing, Justice and Development Ethics (Routledge, 2014), Religion in Development (Zed, 2009), Transforming Unjust Structures (Springer, 2006), and numerous journal articles and book chapters on the capability approach as an ethical framework to address questions raised by global development processes. She works part time at the University of Bath and part time at the newly founded Laudato Si’ Research Institute, Campion Hall, University of Oxford, where she is Director of International Development, researching global challenges at the intersection between the social sciences, natural sciences and theological and spiritual traditions.