Sociology Department Seminar: Constructing Need and Fostering Trust: Grassroots Leaders at the Nexus of Religious and Social Welfare Fields in Uganda

Nicolette Manglos Weber, Assistant Professor of Religion and Society, School of Theology, Boston University, will present her work “Constructing Need and Fostering Trust: Grassroots Leaders at the Nexus of Religious and Social Welfare Fields in Uganda.” This research examines how grassroots leaders caring for community needs in Uganda come to occupy the positions they do, with a focus on how they construct a sense of the need to be addressed and foster trust in their relations to donors and constituents. Dr. Nicolette Manglos Weber employs and extends a field theoretic approach, showing how leaders use their social positioning and practical knowledge acquired in the religious field to be successful within the social welfare field. Her broader offering is a conceptual language for talking about overlapping relations between fields, and exploring other cases of social field overlap; and for seeing the possibilities for transformative agency when persons are positioned across multiple fields.

NIS