Social Security in Religious Networks

by Leutloff-grandits, Carolin; Peleikis, Anja; Thelen, Tatjana

• ISBN13: 9781845455767
• ISBN10: 1845455762
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2009-06-01
• Publisher: Berghahn Books

Summary

The world has been facing tremendous political change and the emergence of new risks, resulting in profound reconfigurations in social security arrangements. In many countries, epidemics like HIV/Aids have had a destabilizing effect on the caretaking role of kin. In post-socialist countries political reforms have made unemployment a new source of insecurity. Moreover, a withdrawal of the state from the provision of social security is taking place throughout the world. One response to these developments has been an increase in migration, which poses further challenges to kinship- based social support systems. This innovative volume focuses on the ambiguous role of religious networks for social security and traces the interrelatedness of religious networks, state and family support systems. It is particularly timely as it describes situations of new risks as well as social security arrangements framed by the present challenges of globalization and migration. Given the wide range of case studies from various parts of the world as well as from various religious groups, it offers an important comparative contribution to the understanding of religious networks as providers of social security.

Author Biography

Carolin Leutloff-Grandits is a Researcher at the Center for South-Eastern European History at the Karl Franzens University of Graz, Austria. She received her PhD in social anthropology from the University of Martin Luther at Halle/Saale in 2005. Her research in Croatia and Serbia-Montenegro focuses on property and ethnic conflict, forced migration, and social security.

Anja Peleikis is a Researcher at the Institute of Social Anthropology, University of Martin Luther at Halle-Wittenberg. She gained her PhD degree from the University of Bielefeld and worked at the Centre for Modern Oriental Studies, Berlin and the Max-Planck-Institute for Social Anthropology, Halle/Saale, Germany. Her research in Lebanon and Lithuania focuses on questions of memory and heritage politics, transnational migration, roots tourism and social security.

Tatjana Thelen currently teaches Anthropology at the University of Zurich (Switzerland). She received her PhD from the Freie UniversitSt Berlin, completing a comparative work on two settlements in Hungary and Romania. Her recent research focuses on changing social security arrangements in eastern Germany.