Mercenaries and Missionaries

In the last few decades, certain cities in the Global South have transformed into business and finance capitals that attract professionals from their respective regions as well as from across the world. This new transnational professional class includes many who grew up in relatively modest circumstances in India, China, and other developing countries, and who are working for American corporations such as Apple and Google. Sociologist Brandon Vaidyanathan observes that these successful, highly educated professionals inhabit both Americanized workplaces and traditional family commitments stemming from their places of origin. Wanting to understand how religion and capitalism are intertwined, in Mercenaries and Missionaries: Capitalism and Catholicism in the Global South, he investigates how global professionals in emerging economies balance the pursuit of corporate success and its pecuniary rewards as well as seeking faith and belonging in their personal lives. Although there are many recent studies of the transnational professional class, few have examined the role of religion in the lives of this emerging class. Mercenaries and Missionaries is based on Vaidyanathan’s extensive ethnographic research among Catholic professionals in the cities of Dubai and Bangalore. For those who are familiar with Dubai and Bangalore, this might seem an odd choice, given that Islam and Hinduism are the majority religions in the United Arab Emirates and India. But Vaidyanathan argues compellingly that as the religion of a substantial minority in both the Middle East and the Indian subcontinent, Christianity deserves greater attention, and a focus on Christians helps to decenter essentialist Western assumptions about these parts of the world. Moreover, Vaidyanathan’s attention is specifically drawn to Evangelical-Charismatic Catholicism (ECC), which has become popular among the young global professionals in these and other rapidly developing cities around the world.

Capitalism · Christianity · Ethnography · Faith · Hinduism · Islam · Middle class · Political science · Sociology · Theology · Anthropology · Gender Studies · History · Law · Religion, Society, and Development · Religious studies