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'You can give even if you only have ten rupees!': Muslim charity in a Colombo housing scheme

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Version 2 2023-06-12, 08:39
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journal contribution
posted on 2023-06-12, 08:39 authored by Filippo OsellaFilippo Osella, Tom Widger
Recent research on contemporary modalities of Islamic or Muslim philanthropy has focused on processes of subjectivation through which givers and recipients of charity are habituated or craft themselves to an ethic of piety, social responsibility and (neoliberal) economic virtuosity. These studies, however, have concentrated almost exclusively on those who give charity, leading to an over-emphasis on the perspectives of givers, and on their role in determining how the poor might deal with their everyday lives and imagined futures. As a result, small-scale gifting relations in which the Muslim poor may also be involved—making the poor simultaneously givers and recipients of charity—have been obscured or erased altogether. In this article we argue that the concerns of the poor might not always or necessarily be those of the wealthy donors of charity. By receiving and giving sadaqa and zakat, poor and working class Muslim in a Colombo neighbourhood imagine inclusion and belonging to the wider Muslim community in Colombo which is not contingent upon the mediation and pedagogical interventions of charitable organizations and (middle-class) pious donors. Importantly, this imagination of inclusion and belonging comes at a time when the Muslim poor are increasingly marginalized by virtue of a (middle class) discourse which by framing charity as a means ‘to help the poor to help themselves’ has turned socio-economic upliftment into an ethical duty, and, consequently, failure to improve oneself has become the symptom of wider moral shortcomings.

Funding

Charity, Philanthropy and Development in Colombo, Sri Lanka; G0705; ESRC-ECONOMIC & SOCIAL RESEARCH COUNCIL; ES/I033890/1

History

Publication status

  • Published

File Version

  • Published version

Journal

Modern Asian Studies

ISSN

0026-749X

Publisher

Cambridge University Press

Issue

1

Volume

52

Page range

297-324

Department affiliated with

  • Anthropology Publications

Full text available

  • Yes

Peer reviewed?

  • Yes

Legacy Posted Date

2017-03-01

First Open Access (FOA) Date

2017-03-01

First Compliant Deposit (FCD) Date

2017-03-01

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