The Morality of Development: Pentecostalism and NGOs in Southern Ethiopia

Dena Freeman is a lecturer in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and a fellow of the Truman Institute for the Advancement of Peace. She has a PhD from the London School of Economics (1999) and has been carrying out fieldwork in southern Ethiopia since 1995. She was previously a junior research fellow at Queens College, Cambridge and often works as a consultant for international development NGOs in Ethiopia.

Discussant: Dr Rijk van Dijk 

Since 1991 there has been a rapid growth in both Pentecostal churches and development NGOs in Ethiopia in the context of neoliberal development policies instigated by the government of the EPRDF. In most rural communities, particularly in the south, these churches and NGOs are the new agents of transformation, ushering in a period of rapid change in the Ethiopian countryside. The aim of this seminar is to contrast the workings and impact of these two types of organization - both global in their connections and salvationist in their vision - as they work to change people and societies in rural Ethiopia.