Dr Livingstone, I Presume? Evangelicals, Africa and Faith-Based Humanitarianism

Abstract

Humanitarianism is a principal means through which Northern-based Christian groups intervene into sub-Saharan African states. However, current scholarship neglects the agentive roles played by religious actors in the delivery of mainstream aid. This secularises humanitarian governance, “others” religious actors and supports the portrayal of global aid as a technical-rational project, against which faith-based humanitarianism appears inherently suspect. In the post-Cold War period, the Northern-based evangelical community has intensified its support for emergency aid. Professional evangelical relief organisations disproportionately account for the delivery of faith-based humanitarianism. Yet few analyses explore their micro-political and sociological dimensions. Drawing primarily on fieldwork conducted in Juba, South Sudan, I argue that evangelical humanitarianism encompasses overlapping and sometimes competing “religious” and “emergency” imaginaries. Through these, evangelicals are shaped by, negotiate and respond to the structural, normalising and pragmatic pressures of the mainstream humanitarian field. In order to understand how faith-based humanitarianism differs from secular variants—politically, practically, organisationally, ethically—it needs to be analysed as part of the heterogeneous whole of global humanitarianism. I join recent scholarship in arguing for more in-depth analyses of the social dimensions of faith-based aid. Doing so sheds light onto dynamics that cross-cut global humanitarianism in its entirety.