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The gospel of self‐help: Born‐again musicians and the moral problem of dependency in Uganda
Author(s) -
BOYD LYDIA
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
american ethnologist
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.875
H-Index - 78
eISSN - 1548-1425
pISSN - 0094-0496
DOI - 10.1111/amet.12635
Subject(s) - gospel , moral obligation , reciprocity (cultural anthropology) , sociology , obligation , value (mathematics) , ideal (ethics) , dependency (uml) , prosocial behavior , moral economy , work (physics) , economics , social psychology , law and economics , positive economics , law , political science , psychology , social science , politics , theology , philosophy , mechanical engineering , systems engineering , machine learning , computer science , engineering
Churches in Uganda have found success promoting a message of economic self‐sufficiency—a gospel of “self‐help”—that diverges sharply from alternative frameworks of moral‐economic behavior in Uganda that emphasize reciprocity and the social value of dependency. A notable effect of self‐help has been to change what adherents consider socially productive work and who has an obligation to pay for it. As a result, gospel musicians, who make most of their money through patronage and other forms of sponsorship, struggle to make a living. Their difficulties compel us to consider how moral sentiments and religious practices give shape to the terms of market‐based inequality, in part by marking dependent recipients of economic aid and charitable “gifts” as passive, rather than agentive, subjects.