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
December 08, 2025
Over the last 30 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 extensive ...
Faith in Foreign Aid: Religious Organizations’ Engagement with USAID
1st Edition
By Susan Turner Haynes
November 28, 2025
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 ...
Institutional Logics within Faith-Based Aid: A New Approach to Organising in Development, Humanitarianism and Advocacy
1st Edition
By Nina G. Kurlberg
November 28, 2025
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
International Development and Local Faith Actors: Ideological and Cultural Encounters
1st Edition
Edited
By Kathryn Kraft, Olivia J. Wilkinson
December 13, 2021
This book explores the interplay and dialogue between faith communities and the humanitarian-development community. Faith and religion are key influencers of thought and practice in many communities around the world and development practitioners would not be able to change behaviours for improved ...
Muslim Women in the Economy: Development, Faith and Globalisation
1st Edition
Edited
By Shamim Samani, Dora Marinova
December 13, 2021
This book explores the changing role of Muslim women in the economy in the twenty-first century. Sociological developments such as secular education, female-focused policies, national and global commitments to gender equality as well as contemporary technological advances have all served to shift ...
Nigerian Pentecostalism and Development: Spirit, Power, and Transformation
1st Edition
By Richard Burgess
December 13, 2021
This book examines the contributions, both intentional and unintentional, of Nigerian Pentecostal churches and NGOs to development, studying their development practices broadly in relation to the intersecting spheres of politics, economics, health, education, human rights, and peacebuilding. In ...