RELIGION, COMMUNITY RESILIENCE, AND THE POLITICS OF DEVELOPMENTAL PROJECTS: A CASE OF PASHTUN SOCIETY OF PAKISTAN BORDERING AFGHANISTAN
Keywords:
Pashtuns, Development programs,, Clergy, Resilience, Violent extremism, Ex-FATA, PakistanAbstract
The historical legacies, religion, culture, interpretation without contextualisation, conspiracy theory as a religious blik, misinformation, and misconceptions, are factors that lead to community violence against development programs/projects and their workers. For this purpose, a socio-theological approach in this paper is adopted to understand the epistemic worldview, the mindset of the clerics, and the masses who oppose these development programs/projects. A mixed-methods approach with qualitative and quantitative data was adopted for this study, carried out in the Pashtun areas of Northern Pakistan. The findings shows that the success of the development program/project depends on ' 'society's clear perceptions of these projects. These programs cannot achieve their goals if people have misconceptions. In Pashtun society, clerics remain the source and perpetuators of misperceptions about the development projects, exploiting anti-western sentiments, spreading conspiracy theories, questioning the morality of aid programs and workers, and posing these developments as a Trojan horse of weakening the sociocultural values of Pashtuns.
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