Routledge Research in Religion and Development
About the Book Series
The Routledge Research in Religion and Development series focuses on the diverse ways in which religious values, teachings and practices interact with international development.
While religious traditions and faith-based movements have long served as forces for social innovation, it has only been within the last ten years that researchers have begun to seriously explore the religious dimensions of international development. However, recognising and analysing the role of religion in the development domain is vital for a nuanced understanding of this field. This interdisciplinary series examines the intersection between these two areas, focusing on a range of contexts and religious traditions.
We welcome book proposals on diverse themes such as faith-based development organisations; religious players in health programming; proselytization and development; religion and the environment; gender, religion and development; religion and post-colonialism; and indigenous communities and development.
To submit proposals, please contact the Development Studies Editor, Helena Hurd ([email protected]).
Series Editors:
Matthew Clarke, Deakin University, Australia
Emma Tomalin, University of Leeds, UK
Nathan Loewen, University of Alabama, USA
Editorial board:
Carole Rakodi, University of Birmingham, UK
Gurharpal Singh, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, UK
Jörg Haustein, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, UK
Christopher Duncanson-Hales, Laurentian University, Canada
Religious Leadership for Family Planning: Insights from Tanzania
1st Edition
By Mohamed Yunus Rafiq
November 28, 2025
Over the last thirty years, religious leaders in Tanzania have increasingly been recruited to participate in sensitive health programs like family planning. This book considers what happens when religious leaders, often envisaged as central to a project’s success, are unavailable. Based on ...
Religious Organisations in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia: Connections to Society and the State
1st Edition
By Carole Rakodi
June 27, 2025
This book explores the links between religion, states, social welfare and social change in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. Building on the author’s previous analysis of how religious beliefs, practices and values influence social behaviour and relationships, especially within families, this book...
Religion, Disability, and Sustainable Development in Africa
1st Edition
Edited
By Chioma Ohajunwa, Kudakwashe ‘AK’ Dube, Ezra Chitando
February 14, 2025
This book investigates the interplay between disability and religion in Africa, and what this means in the context of the Sustainable Development Goals. The importance of meeting the needs of people with disabilities is highlighted specifically in several Sustainable Development Goals, as well as ...
Institutional Logics within Faith-Based Aid: A New Approach to Organising in Development, Humanitarianism and Advocacy
1st Edition
By Nina G. Kurlberg
July 19, 2024
This book investigates what faith means in the actual day-to-day practice of faith-based NGOs working in the development, humanitarian, and advocacy sectors. Faith-based organisations play an extremely prominent role in international aid and development, operating within the same sphere as ...
Faith in Foreign Aid: Religious Organizations’ Engagement with USAID
1st Edition
By Susan Turner Haynes
July 12, 2024
The United States contributes more foreign aid than any other state in the world, and it is often recognized as a leader in engaging religious organizations in aid delivery. Faith in Foreign Aid is the first book to closely examine how the relationship between religious organizations and USAID ...
Religion and Gender-Based Violence: Global and Local Responses to Harmful Practices
1st Edition
Edited
By Brenda Bartelink, Chia Longman, Tamsin Bradley
May 27, 2024
This book takes religion as an entry point for a deeper exploration into why practices of gender-based violence continue and what possible actions might help to contribute to their eradication. International donors are committed to reducing and ending gender-related harm, particularly violence ...
Adapting Gender and Development to Local Religious Contexts: A Decolonial Approach to Domestic Violence in Ethiopia
1st Edition
By Romina Istratii
May 31, 2023
This book provides a critical and decolonial analysis of gender and development theory and practice in religious societies through the presentation of a detailed ethnographic study of conjugal violence in Ethiopia. Responding to recent consensus that gender mainstreaming approaches have failed to ...
Human Development and the Catholic Social Tradition: Towards an Integral Ecology
1st Edition
By Séverine Deneulin
May 31, 2023
This book brings development theory and practice into dialogue with a religious tradition in order to construct a new, transdisciplinary vision of development with integral ecology at its heart. It focuses on the Catholic social tradition and its conception of integral human development, on the one...
The Religion–Gender Nexus in Development: Policy and Practice Considerations
1st Edition
By Nora Khalaf-Elledge
January 09, 2023
This book illuminates the intersection of religion and gender within the development sector, exposing challenges in both policy and practice and suggesting implementable solutions. This book argues that a better understanding of the religion–gender nexus is needed by development sector ...
Development Across Faith Boundaries
1st Edition
Edited
By Anthony Ware, Matthew Clarke
April 16, 2019
Faith-based organisations (FBOs) have long been recognised as having an advantage in delivering programs and interventions amongst communities of the same faith. However, many FBOs today work across a variety of contexts, including with local partners and communities of different faiths. Likewise, ...
Religion and Development in the Asia-Pacific: Sacred places as development spaces
1st Edition
By Matthew Clarke, Anna Halafoff
January 08, 2018
Community development is most effective and efficient when it is situated and led at the local level and considers the social behaviours, needs and worldviews of local communities. With more than eight out of ten people globally self-reporting religious belief, Religion and Development in the ...
Religion, Heritage and the Sustainable City: Hinduism and urbanisation in Jaipur
1st Edition
By Yamini Narayanan
April 11, 2017
The speed and scale of urbanisation in India is unprecedented almost anywhere in the world and has tremendous global implications. The religious influence on the urban experience has resonances for all aspects of urban sustainability in India and yet it remains a blind spot while articulating ...