| Abstrakt: |
Wal-Mart has been accused of: violating labor laws; providing pay and benefits that do not allow workers to escape poverty; and discriminating against workers in terms of hiring, promotion, and occupational duties. Conversely, the company has been praised for: being the largest private employer in the United States; giving donations to community groups neighboring their stores; and having affordable prices. This project takes place in two Christian church communities where leadership has published very different opinions about Wal-Mart stores.I seek to examine how members of fundamental nondenominational Christian communities use their religious ideologies to navigate social problems such as inequality at work, environmental and institutional racism, violence, underemployment and unemployment. Using ethnographic methods, I will analyze how congregation members talk about Wal-Mart, work, and social problems. I hope to illuminate the various ways religious socialization, race, class, gender, age, geographic location, and other categories of difference work together to shape one's perceptions and actions towards social problems and community needs. Often, studies of black churches fail to: acknowledge church members' relationships to the communities in which their churches are housed; compare and contrast congregation's views and activities across rural and urban geographic locations; and provide rich ethnographic descriptions of more than one congregation. Addressing these gaps as well as communities' understanding of Wal-Mart stores is the aim of this study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
