Events

CHAIRPERSON

Assoc Prof Michael Feener, Asia Research Institute and Department of History, National University of Singapore.

ABSTRACT

The Bahá’í Faith, since its early years in Iran in the second half of the 19th century, has placed a strong emphasis on what its scriptures refer to as humanity’s calling to “carry forward an ever advancing civilization” based on spiritual principles and characterized by unity, social justice and prosperity. These efforts have acquired increased intensity and global reach since the mid 1980s, with the establishment of an Office of Socio-Economic Development at the Bahá’í World Centre in Haifa (Israel), the launching of thousands of social service projects around the world and the emergence of several large-scale Bahá’í-inspired development NGOs in Latin America, Africa and Asia. In the course of these efforts, which have led Bahá’ís to work closely with the institutions, funders, NGOs, communities and academic discourses commonly designated as the world of “development”, they have gradually systematized a discourse and practice of development which builds on and yet is critical of both traditional religious conceptions of philanthropy and mainstream secular approaches to development. This talk will sketch the historical evolution of Bahá’í efforts in this field, and discuss current Bahá’í conceptual frameworks and patterns of social engagement, drawing on examples from Colombia, India and Hong Kong and Macau (China). It will conclude by situating these experiences in the context of recent critiques of prevailing models of “development” and of the secular-religious divide.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

David Palmer is an Associate Professor in the department of Sociology at the University of Hong Kong, and Honourary Associate Professor at the Hong Kong Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences. After obtaining his PhD in the Anthropology of Religion at the Institute of Advanced Research (Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, Sorbonne) in Paris, he was the Eileen Barker Fellow in Religion and Contemporary Society at the London School of Economics and Political Science, and, from 2004 to 2008, director of the Hong Kong Centre of the Ecole Française d’Extrême-Orient (French School of Asian Studies), located at the Institute for Chinese Studies at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. He is the author of the award-winning Qigong Fever: Body, Science and Utopia in China (Columbia University Press, 2007), co-author of The Religious Question in Modern China (University of Chicago Press, 2011; awarded the Levenson Book Prize of the Association for Asian Studies), and co-editor of Chinese Religious Life (Oxford University Press, 2011). He has published several articles, journal issues and edited volumes on Chinese religion, modern Daoism, the Baha’i Faith, and modern religious movements. His current research projects focus on local ritual traditions, transnational religious movements, and on faith-based volunteering and NGOs in the Chinese world and Southeast Asia.

REGISTRATION

Admission is free. We would greatly appreciate if you RSVP Mr Jonathan Lee via email: jonathan.lee@nus.edu.sg