Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant: The Sectarian Gift: Piety, Clientalism, and Changing Practices of Giving in Lebanon

Stanford University, Stanford CA

Investigators

Abstract

Stanford University doctoral student Jenna Rice, with direction from Dr. Sylvia J. Yanagisako, will undertake research on the relationship between globalization and local practices of charitable giving. Over the past three decades, there has been a significant worldwide growth of philanthropic foundations, which are shaped by global economic and political processes. But at the local level, giving is also affected by particulars of social structure, community identity, and understandings of civic responsibility. This research will examine the interface between the locally germane prescriptive pressure people may feel to give for religious and political reasons, and international discourses of charity, philanthropy, and international finance. The research will be carried out in Sidon, Lebanon. Lebanon is an appropriate site for this research because sectarian charitable foundations have become increasingly responsible for the provisioning of basic social services. This expansion of politically and religiously motivated sectarian charities will be compared to long-standard neighborhood practices of giving. Research methods will include archival research; intensive observation of a sample of households, stratified by members' age and generation; semi-structured interviews; and media and discourse analysis of the representation and treatment of poverty and charity in popular media. This research is important because it contributes to social science theory of the relationship between international political and economic forces and local sectarian processes of resource pooling and reallocation through charitable giving. Funding this research also supports the education of a social scientist.