Nicolette D. Manglos-Webber

Nicolette Manglos-Weber is an interdisciplinary sociologist who studies religious community life, focusing on how religion shapes politics and collective wellbeing. She has done research among faith communities in several countries of Anglophone Africa, among migrants to the U.S., and among U.S. young adults facing stress and adversity. She works across scholarly fields of religion, political sociology, global migration, cultural sociology, and social ethics. She has published over a dozen academic articles and a book with Oxford University Press (Joining the Choir: Religious Membership and Social Trust among Transnational Ghanaians, 2018). In her writing and teaching, Dr. Manglos-Weber models an approach to social science research that takes culture and relationality seriously and is deeply reflexive about morality, ethics, and positionality.

Dr. Manglos-Weber is currently studying Christian and Muslim leaders of community-based organizations in Uganda, who provide various types of care for the most vulnerable in their communities. The goal of this project is to highlight the innovative and interfaith nature of their caregiving activity; and show how it radically challenges paradigms of development politics that valorize capital growth, individualism, and one-size-fits-all solutions, both before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. To learn more about this project in Uganda, visit www.ugandacaregivers.com.