Prof Maia Green - research

I work on issues of social transformation in East Africa , mostly in Tanzania, and on issues related to international development as a system of global ordering and as a kind of social practice. My research covers four main areas

• religious change in Africa, including the imapcts of Christianity, ideas of self and embodiment and the place of religion in discourses about Africa.
• the place of witchcraft in social orders, including strategies for dealing with witchcraft, innovations in anti- witchcraft practices and the place of witchcraft in academic and policy knowledges.
• international development as a social practice and its specialised knowledge forms, including policy making, particpatory methods and concepts of agency and the person.
• poverty , social exclusion and destitution as analytcial problems and as outcomes of social ordering internationally.

Much of my work derives from ongoing engagement in the issues I write about through working in the development sector as a social development specialist in Tanzania and internationally. I have expertise in several core social development areas including poverty , social policy, social protection and public sector reform .

TEXT

My current work explores new technologies of social organisation in the form of civil society organisations and participatory institutions in Tanzania and internationally. Some of this work was undertaken as part of the DFID funded Religions and Development Research Programme at the University of Birmingham.