Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: This case study focuses on the interaction of community organizers and their democratic practices with religious congregations. The analysis draws on narratives from in-depth interviews and participant observation to characterize the perspectives of organizers, active laity, and clergy in a community organizing project in Detroit. Their interactions shed light on internal institutional dynamics that affect people’s ability to draw on their community institutions for political action. The research contributes to scholarly debates on the politics of social capital and how bonding social capital can be a resource for democratic politics, especially for marginalized groups.
Existing literature on religious and political participation emphasizes the differences between hierarchical and autonomous congregational structures and highlights the comparative disengagement of Catholics. This study uses interpretive methods to suggest how power relations within congregations may be a resource and/or a limitation for lay empowerment and collective action across denomination. The effects of denomination on congregations’ participation in the organizing project appear to be mediated by how clergy and laity make sense of authority and their own roles within congregations. Participants understand internal roles of authority partly in reference to experiences of inequality in the larger political system. This research suggests the importance of observing roles of authority and how they are manifested in particular settings, in addition to studying the presence or absence of structural hierarchy.