Gifts, Surveillance, and Frustrated Imagined Communities: Global Christian Aid and Local Inequalities in Child Sponsorship in the Ecuadorian Highlands

In this paper I examine how an indigenous development organization that works with an international evangelica0l funding agency participates in the ‘government of populations’ through the system of child sponsorship. On the one hand, the indigenous organization is subjected to the verticality of its...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: María Moreno Parra
Format: Article
Language:Spanish
Published: Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales, Sede Ecuador 2014-05-01
Series:Íconos
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Online Access:https://revistas.flacsoandes.edu.ec/iconos/article/view/1274
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Summary:In this paper I examine how an indigenous development organization that works with an international evangelica0l funding agency participates in the ‘government of populations’ through the system of child sponsorship. On the one hand, the indigenous organization is subjected to the verticality of its funding agency through processes of legibility and accountability that ensure the correct operation of child sponsorship. On the other, the indigenous organization is a subject governing specific populations because it controls the children and its families. Furthermore, I explore how practices linked to child sponsorship—such as gifts sent by sponsors and the correspondence between sponsors and children—are intended to build personal connections in a Christian community that transcends geographical, economic, and social boundaries, but end up amplifying inequality, especially at the local level.
ISSN:1390-1249
2224-6983