Georgetown’s Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, & World Affairs has recently released the latest of a series of five reports on the landscape of “faith-inspired organizations” working in development. In the past, the development world has been wary of working with religious groups and has often turned a blind eye to the influence of religion in the cultures in which they work, but the report investigates the growing nexus of religious actors and development efforts in Southeast Asia. Past reports have explored the same theme in the contexts of Latin America, Europe, Africa, North America, and the Muslim World. The project is overseen by Katherine Marshall, co-chair of the SSRC’s Advisory Committee on Religion and International Affairs and contributor to the forthcoming Religion and World Affairs Handbook, a product of the SSRC’s past work in this area.
Jessica Polebaum is a contributing editor for The Immanent Frame and a J.D. candidate at Georgetown University. A former program and editorial associate at the Social Science Research Council, she holds a B.A. in religion from Middlebury College, where her undergraduate work culminated in a senior honors thesis on ijtihad---a concept from classical Islamic law---and its use in modern reform movements. Upon graduating in 2008, she received the Ann and Edward Meyers Religion Prize for exceptional ability in the understanding, expression, and integration of ideas in the area of religious studies.