This book under review tries to explore the complex relationship between religion and development in two different ways. It questions the modernist assumption that religion is the personalaffair of an individual while development is entirely a matter of secularpublic policy. Examining religion as a sociological category, the book makes a strong claim that the discourse of development, which is often understood in rigid secular terms, is closely linked to social customs, practices and ways of lifeof religious communities. In this sense, the book problematizes the making and remaking of religious communities, and at the same time, it interrogates the production and reception of the discourse of development in different contexts.
This kind of conceptual refinement helps the contributors to ask another relevant question: how to make sense of the contemporary moment, when religion is recognized as a mode of policy intervention in what is called the postsecular world?
Although the contributors approach this question in a variety of ways, through various conceptual frameworks and methodological interventions, this thematic concern offers an interesting sequential coherence to the book.