Thesis advisor: James Keenan / Nigeria is richly endowed with an array of natural resources and human capital. It is unarguably the largest economy in Africa, with an estimated 2023 gross domestic product (GDP) of $477.38 Billion. However, the superlative epithets of Nigeria with glaring upside economic potential are marginal vis-à-vis concrete socio-economic and demographic benchmarks such as per capita gross domestic product, life expectancy, Human Development Index (HDI), and the development paradigm of Catholic Social Teaching (CST) such as access to food and potable water, housing, employment, human rights, and security. This dissertation seeks to provide a hermeneutic for understanding Nigeria’s developmental quandaries as well as a solution. Drawing from Catholic Social Teaching (CST), Liberation Theology, and insights from critical realism, it argues that the tripartite concepts of developmentalism, assistentialism, and social structures are key to unraveling the origin and presence of Nigeria’s development challenges. Undergirding the proximate causes of Nigeria’s underdevelopment, such as egocentrism, tribalism, violent conflicts, and corruption, and the remote causes, such as developmentalism and assitentialism, are some impersonal mechanisms that incentivize, condition, sustain, and perpetuate factors of underdevelopment in Nigeria. Additionally, the notion of development that Nigeria adopted shortly after independence put Nigeria on the trajectory of underdevelopment and mis-development, which is evident today. Catholic social teaching, while cautioning against the dangers of a restrictive notion of development, offers a notion of development that is integral and genuine. The anthropological presuppositions of CST make it well-suited for development in the Nigerian context. This work seeks to demonstrate ways in which Catholic Social Teaching, given its interdisciplinary character, provides for a program of integral development in Nigeria through the Catholic Church. While it is the proper function of government to provide a program of development for its citizens, this work will contend that the Catholic Church in Nigeria, but even more so, the Archdiocese of Abuja, given its strategic location within the Federal Capital Territory, its historical relational trust and accountability and equipped with the theological language of CST and Liberation Theology can contribute to the development of Nigeria. / Thesis (STD) — Boston College, 2024. / Submitted to: Boston College. School of Theology and Ministry. / Discipline: Sacred Theology.

Submitted by Aelson Maciera (aelsoncm@terra.com.br) on 2017-06-23T18:22:04Z No. of bitstreams: 1 DissJAS.pdf: 1319246 bytes, checksum: 95fc80202217f3b116a0fa1b57bc1dc7 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Ronildo Prado (ronisp@ufscar.br) on 2017-06-28T08:25:49Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 DissJAS.pdf: 1319246 bytes, checksum: 95fc80202217f3b116a0fa1b57bc1dc7 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Ronildo Prado (ronisp@ufscar.br) on 2017-06-28T08:25:58Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 DissJAS.pdf: 1319246 bytes, checksum: 95fc80202217f3b116a0fa1b57bc1dc7 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-06-28T08:30:15Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 DissJAS.pdf: 1319246 bytes, checksum: 95fc80202217f3b116a0fa1b57bc1dc7 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2017-02-22 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) / This paper aims to bring contributions to studies on Social Assistance in Brazil. The main objective is to analyze the main Social Assistance organizations in the process of identity construction as public policy in the Socio-Social Network of São Carlos / SP, that is, to identify the changes that occurred in Social Assistance of the traditional model (optics by Charity / welfare) to the New Social Assistance (optic of rights / non-contributory) as the organizations of public and private origin were structured, or better structured. Do these places, after 28 years of the institution of Social Assistance as a social right, have been modified / incorporated these new socio-welfare practices, or not? The sketch took place in two phases, in the first phase, through a bibliographical survey about the historical events up to the present of the trajectory of Social Assistance in Brazil, analyzing how these events impacted on the transformations that took place inside the social assistance organizations producing the reality in the Which we live. The second phase, called field research and data analysis, took place in the units of the Reference Center on Social Assistance - CRAS, a unit of Specialized Referral Center in Social Assistance - CREAS, a unit of the Specialized Reference Center for People in Situation Rua - Centro Pop, and in nine regulated social entities in the Municipal Council of Social Assistance of São Carlos. Data collection took place through interviews with the organization's staff: social workers, psychologists and coordinators, as well as observation and documentary analysis. / Este trabalho visa trazer contribuições aos estudos sobre a Assistência Social no Brasil. O objetivo primordial alça-se em analisar na Rede Socioassistencial de São Carlos/SP as principais organizações de Assistência Social em seu processo de construção de identidade como política pública, ou seja, identificar diante das mudanças ocorridas na Assistência Social do modelo tradicional (ótica pela caridade/assistencialista) para a Nova Assistência Social (ótica de direitos/ não contributiva) como as organizações de origem públicas e privadas se estruturaram, ou melhor, estruturam-se. Será que estes locais, após 28 anos da instituição da Assistência Social como direito social, modificaram-se/incorporaram estas novas práticas socioassistenciais, ou não? O esboço ocorreu em duas fases, à primeira fase, através de um levantamento bibliográfico sobre os acontecimentos históricos até os atuais da trajetória da Assistência Social no Brasil, analisando como estes acontecimentos impactaram nas transformações sucedidas no interior das organizações de assistência social produzindo a realidade na qual vivemos. A segunda fase, denominada pesquisa em campo e análise dos dados, ocorreu nas unidades do Centro de Referência em Assistência Social -CRAS, uma unidade Centro de Referência Especializado em Assistência Social- CREAS, uma unidade do Centro de Referência Especializado para pessoas em Situação de Rua- Centro Pop, e em nove entidades sociais regulamentadas no Conselho Municipal de Assistência Social de São Carlos. A coleta de dados sucedeu-se através de entrevistas com a equipe da organização: assistentes sociais, psicólogos e coordenadores, como também houve à observação e análise documental.