

@mastersthesis {7488,
	title = {Money as water: {A} patron-client approach to mission dependency in {India}},
	year = {2003},
	note = {3087173},
	school = {Trinity Evangelical Divinity School},
	type = {phdPh.{D}.},
	address = {Ann Arbor},
	abstract = {Financial partnerships between Western donors and Indian recipient organizations are sources of practical and theoretical tension. Writers beginning in the mid-nineteenth century and continuing to the present day argue that foreign money creates unhealthy forms of dependency for national ministries. These arguments do not recognize the culturally distinct economic patterns that Indians bring to the process of fund-raising. While three-self advocates continue to oppose foreign subsidy for Indian ministry, the funds are flowing into India at an unprecedented rate. Many used the metaphor of money as water to describe the process of attracting and directing the mysterious flow of Western money into Indian missions. Indian informants were all in favor of foreign funding, when used properly. Ethnographic interviews were conducted with sixty-eight leaders, most from Christian mission organizations in India. This leadership sample was chosen from top and middle levels of management and both from organizations that were mostly foreign funded and that were mostly locally funded. The theoretical framework chosen for the analysis of the data was that of a patron-client economic system. As the traditional economic system of rural India, patronage implies an asymmetrical redistribution relationship between partners who have unequal wealth and power. Analysis of the data revealed the patron-client model was useful for better understanding the dynamics of the mission funding process. In particular the hierarchical leadership patterns were seen to be consistent with patronage. Additionally the deferential patterns that characterize the behavior of fund-raisers toward Western donors and of constituents toward Indian fund-managers were consistent with clientage patterns. Findings suggested causative factors for the prevalence of financial abuse and harmful forms of dependency. The expectations of Indians toward Western donors revealed that the rules of patronage look to the dominant party in an asymmetric relationship of support as primarily responsible to prevent financial abuse. The history of social stratification and colonial oppression laid the groundwork for the eruption of financial abuse and unhealthy dependency as forms of resistance to perceptions of oppression. The patronage model suggests that intentional structures allowing for genuine reciprocity will alleviate much resistance.},
	keywords = {0318:Religion, 0326:Cultural anthropology, 0508:Finance, Cultural anthropology, Finance, Funding, India, Mission dependency, Missionaries, Money, Patron-client, Philosophy, Religion, religion and theology, Social sciences, Studies},
	url = {http://search.proquest.com/docview/305273328?accountid=14270},
	author = {Fox, Frampton F}
}
