Moral Interventions in Urban Tanzania: The Role of Contemporary Faith Based Organisations’ Healthcare Activities: The Case of Bethel Revival Temple and African Muslim Agency

Abstract

In recent years, the involvement of Contemporary Faith Based Organisations (CFBO) on Healthcare (HC) activities has been embedded in the Tanzania’s HC reforms from early 1990s. The move is interwoven in the paradigm of globalization, modernity and urbanization that has led into the weakening of moral values and ethical issues. Using ethnographic methods, this article explored how HC activities of these organisations address moral and ethical issues not only of their HC workers but also of HC beneficiaries and the general public. Findings revealed that moral and ethical self-formation of HC employees and beneficiaries is tied to the ideological and institutional frameworks of the CFBOs. This has given rise to distinct forms of moral learning and affective belonging. The learning and appropriation of morals have established a specific relationship between CFBOs HC workers, beneficiaries, management and their socio-economic and religious environments. This study concludes that, the CFBOs’ moral interventions on HC activities are dynamic, adaptive and much alive as they influence and being influenced not only by religious ideas, practices, experiences and meanings, but also by the socio-economic, cultural and political contexts in which they exist.

Keywords: Healthcare, morality, faith-based organisations, Muslims, Christians, Urban