CONTACT US: Contact info
|
Citation |
Kaler A, Parkins JR. Br. J. Sociol. 2018; 69(4): 1313-1336. |
|
Copyright |
(Copyright © 2018, London School of Economics and Political Science, Publisher John Wiley and Sons) |
|
DOI |
|
PMID |
unavailable |
|
Abstract |
We investigate ways in which international evangelical Christian humanitarians talk about time as they engaged in humanitarian assistance and development work in South Sudan. Our focus on Christian development work is motivated by a desire to understand how and why people persevere in humanitarian work and reconcile seemingly impossible circumstances and to further elaborate sociological conceptions of time as experienced by people in their own lives. We argue that their faith commitments produce ways of understanding time and causality which make possible their attachment to risky and dangerous work. Our work is based on in-depth interviews with people who work or have recently worked for Christian faith-based organizations in South Sudan (n?=?30). Drawing on Tavory and Eliasoph's () concepts of life narratives and life projects, we treat our participants as culturally competent actors who skilfully construct their stories through drawing on collectively shared faith-inflected ideas about temporality and causation. We argue that these ideas represent an important resource for getting through the risks, challenges and uncertainties of doing humanitarian work in complex crises. |
|
Keywords |
Christianity; Humanitarianism; life narrative; South Sudan; temporality |