Liberating Development: Religious Transformations of Development Discourse
Abstract This article explores the ways in which some faith-based organizations, basing their work on notions of social justice, may offer a model for development that shifts the discourse from one that is narrowly focuses on projects and outcomes to one that considers the fundamental questions of how people live. Drawing on themes from liberation theology, their discourse questions the notion of poverty even as they seek to ameliorate human suffering. Based on field research with two Catholic NGOs in Argentina, this paper considers the ways in which some religious organizations employ a discourse based on a holistic notion of “development.”