Bridging the Gaps

Hefferan, Adkins, and Occhipinti have assembled a rigorous academic collection that fills a real gap: empirical, ethnographic case studies of faith-based organizations working in development contexts shaped by neoliberal economic policy across Latin America and the Caribbean. The volume examines not just what FBOs do, but how religious identity shapes program delivery, how FBOs compare with secular counterparts, and how development work changes the organizations themselves. For researchers and graduate students in anthropology, development studies, or religious studies, it's substantive and well-grounded. The honest limits are that this is a narrow academic work, genuinely inaccessible to general readers, and at over fifteen years old the neoliberal development landscape it analyzes has continued to shift. For its intended scholarly audience, though, it remains a thoughtful contribution to the literature.