Preparing for Social Action: A Case Study from Zambia on the Relationship Between Religious Knowledge and Development

This study is based on two premises: the centrality of knowledge to processes of development and the centrality of spirituality and religion to the lives of the majority of the world’s population. It is through the generation and application of knowledge that communities and societies progress, and for many this change involves “a dynamic coherence between the spiritual and the material” (Tyndale, 2003, p. 23). Religion can be regarded as a system of knowledge, based upon the sacred texts that lie at the heart of the world’s major religions, addressing aspects of spiritual reality. Historically, religious knowledge in development has been marginalised or discredited; secularism has been identified as the normative, rational position. This position has increasingly been challenged over the last decade, which has witnessed a ‘global resurgence in religion’ (Berger, 1999). A growing number of voices are calling for serious engagement with religion in development. This research sets out to explore some of the questions raised in an emerging discourse between religion and development by engaging with religion as a system of knowledge that informs development theory and practice. The work focuses on a Bahá’í-inspired organisation in Zambia as a case study. Inshindo Foundation offers an education for development programme, Preparation for Social Action, that emphasizes harmony between the material and spiritual in processes of development. Over a ten-week period in 2010, I used qualitative methods to investigate the conceptions and experiences of PSA students and tutors in relation to their participation in the programme. The findings highlight the potential role of religious knowledge and spiritual values to inform and motivate individual action for change and sustain commitment and effort to achieve collective goals. This makes an important contribution to understandings of how to promote participatory development. At the level of theory, the findings draw attention to a vision of development based on spiritual values and principles that is fundamentally different from mainstream conceptions.