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This thesis examines three prevalent models of community engagement in the black churches in the United States of America since the year 2000. It will contribute to existing scholarship by identifying theological motivations for community engagement by the black churches, and assessing the extent to which the black churches address and fulfill criteria for advancing liberation delineated from three generations of scholarship in Black Theology. This shall provide theological insight into the continued social relevance of the black churches. Existing scholarship has shown that the black churches historically have engaged the oppressed communities they have served by addressing their secular and social needs in addition to their spiritual ones, with a sense of mission to affirm human dignity and advance social justice. This praxis of liberation through community engagement was necessitated by the oppressive contexts in which the black churches were founded, and has continued in varied ways in tandem with shifts in social location of black people in America. Black church community initiatives have also been marked among three generations of scholars in Black Theology, who have delineated imperatives for which the black churches might engage their communities to fully continue the praxis of liberation in the present. The interrelated aims of this thesis are to discover the theological motivations of black church community engagement agents, and, to consider the extent to which the community engagement initiatives of the black churches of the twenty-first century address critical theological criteria from Black Theology for advancing liberation; each of which will help to illuminate theological implications for the continued social relevance of the black churches. This project requires an examination of contemporary models of black church community engagement in their own social reality. The models of community engagement that are researched are grass-roots movements where black churchpersons use non-violent direct action to advance particular social justice causes, community development corporations where churches filter grant money from the government to create economic opportunities for their local communities, and megachurch initiatives where congregations use the revenue of their large memberships to effect positive change in their communities. Local examples of each model are examined from a grounded theory approach through interviews with clergy and community workers, observations of worship and program activities, and textual analysis of bulletins, websites, and brochures.

Enbridge has proposed the Line 3 “Replacement” Project, a new pipeline project taking a new route strait through Anishinaabe treaty territory in what is known as northern Minnesota. In the middle of the regulation process, the future remains unclear of how the State of Minnesota will move forward with the permitting process, but Anishinaabe communities, a range of non-profit organizations, and local landowners remain firmly against the line. Rooted in varied frameworks of Native sovereignty, the land, and Indigenous feminism, Anishinaabe communities lead the resistance against a product of ongoing settler colonialism, racial capitalism, and environmental racism. This thesis contextualizes the multi-tactical repertoires of those defending the land in the existing work of Indigenous scholars who write on the necessity for land-based resistance towards the unsettling process of decolonization. Ultimately, the resistance against Line 3 is representative of a long-term battle for Native sovereignty and self-determination in defense of the land and future generations.

This thesis investigated the restoration of mauri (life-force) to Ōkahu Bay, Auckland New Zealand. Ōkahu Bay is part of the land and waters of Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei, a Māori hapū (sub-tribe). Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei has been driving the restoration, restoring Ōkahu Bay based on their worldview, visions, and concerns. This vision and control of the restoration process allows them to bring in the hapū in sustainable engagement and have the long-term vision and commitment necessary for self-determination. However, while there has been progress with projects and improved decision-making authority, hapū members are still not seeing their whānau (family) swimming in and caring for Ōkahu as much as they would like. Interviewees wanted to see an explicit focus on encouraging hapū members to use the bay, such as more educational programs and water-based activities, and continued efforts to improve water quality. Shellfish populations have also not recovered after a decade of monitoring due to structural aspects such as existing stormwater pipes. Changing these requires Auckland City Council to make stronger commitments to supporting Ngāti Whātua’s restoration. Overall, this investigation showed that in this restoration, a clean environment is essential to build community and a community is essential to build a clean environment. This community-driven restoration, while not perfect, has great potential to truly reconnect people with their environments, decolonize the land and the people, and create thriving ecosystems and people that benefit themselves, their communities, and the wider Auckland community.

A transnational network of more than 50 million people, the Chinese diaspora stretches its reach across the globe. As part of their immigrant journeys, many Chinese immigrants have achieved political leadership in their adopted home countries despite monumental barriers. This thesis examines the political attainment of Chinese immigrants by uncovering how institutional factors such as political power sharing between ethnic groups, citizenship acquisition law, and discrimination law affect their pursuit of public office. I first establish a database of 265 politicians I define as Chinese immigrants, whose various levels of political attainment I then use as the dependent variable. Through empirical analysis, this thesis finds that politicians of Chinese descent attain lower levels of political office when institutional discrimination has targeted Chinese immigrants. In contrast, this thesis reveals that politicians of Chinese descent attain higher levels of political office when political power is shared amongst ethnic groups and when citizenship acquisition laws are exclusionary. While the last result is seemingly counterintuitive, the negative relationship between the inclusiveness of citizenship and political attainment can be explained by the intrinsic role exclusionary citizenship acquisition laws play in naturalizing citizens who are deemed to be integrated and electable.

Submitted by Liliane Ferreira (ljuvencia30@gmail.com) on 2018-08-09T11:59:11Z No. of bitstreams: 2 Dissertação - Mariana Torres Uchôa - 2018.pdf: 7519600 bytes, checksum: 0f267ee345ebdece3f4d14551c340e7e (MD5) license_rdf: 0 bytes, checksum: d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Luciana Ferreira (lucgeral@gmail.com) on 2018-08-09T12:23:01Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 2 Dissertação - Mariana Torres Uchôa - 2018.pdf: 7519600 bytes, checksum: 0f267ee345ebdece3f4d14551c340e7e (MD5) license_rdf: 0 bytes, checksum: d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-09T12:23:01Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 Dissertação - Mariana Torres Uchôa - 2018.pdf: 7519600 bytes, checksum: 0f267ee345ebdece3f4d14551c340e7e (MD5) license_rdf: 0 bytes, checksum: d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e (MD5) Previous issue date: 2018-05-03 / Poverty affects about 41% of Africa´s total population and a promising method to reduce such low index is social capital. Social Capital can be measured by the level of institutional confidence and civic engagement, and entrepreneurs are direct contributors to ramp it up within society. Thus, the purpose of this research is to evaluate the influence of entrepreneurs civic engagement in their level of institutional confidence. To support the research´s purpose, the Afrobarometer database from 34 countries and multiple regression analysis has been used. The results show that entrepreneurs´ political and social engagement influence in their institutional confidence; entrepreneurs contribute more to building institutional confidence through civic engagement than non-entrepreneurs; lastly, entrepreneurs out of opportunity contribute more than entrepreneurs out of necessity. / A pobreza afeta cerca de 41% da população total da África e um possível mecanismo de redução desse índice é o capital social, formado, entre outros, pelo nível de confiança institucional e pelo engajamento cívico. Um dos possíveis atores que podem construir esse capital social são os empreendedores. Nesse contexto essa pesquisa teve como objetivo avaliar a influência do engajamento cívico formado pelo engajamento comunitário e político dos empreendedores em seu nível de confiança institucional. Para cumprir com o objetivo, foi utilizado a base de dados Afrobarômetro, constituída a partir de dados de 34 países africanos. E como método foi realizada a análise de regressão múltipla. Os resultados mostraram que tanto o engajamento político quanto o comunitário dos empreendedores influenciam em sua confiança institucional; que o grupo dos empreendedores contribuem mais para a construção da confiança institucional por meio do engajamento civíco do que o grupo dos não empreendedores; assim como os empreendedores por oportunidade que também contribuem mais do que os empreendedores por necessidade.

Ireland is facing a great challenge in meeting renewable energy requirements, where due to past circumstances and decisions, the nation state is now heavily dependent on imported fossil fuels. Given the contribution of these imported fossil fuels to global climate change, price instability and supply insecurity, Ireland is under a pressing need to face up to the dilemma of an unsustainably fueled economy. This thesis explores how the EU policy process is helping Ireland to achieve the goals it has set with the EU and how these are being incorporated into the drivers of wind power development in Ireland. This research sought to uncover the dynamic of this relationship - the goodness of fit - through an assessment of three mechanisms of change, namely: Discourses, Directives and Finances, which were drawn on from the theoretical approach of Europeanisation. By doing a combined assessment of these three channels and their influence, this thesis provides a greater understanding of the ways in which the development of wind power in Ireland is influenced by the EU level. The thesis finishes with a concluding discussion on the importance of the national level in this process, as well as the importance of social and community engagement, which despite being previously seen as important, has to date largely manifested as a tokenistic gesture in Ireland. This thesis reasserts it as a common and crucial thread of the renewable energy transition that continuously arose as being pre-eminent during this study.

This study examines Sustainable Community Development (SCD) in the context of the Baltic Sea Region. The research focuses on understanding a model for SCD piloted in Robertsfors, Sweden. The model is said to be transferable to any community around the world. This study seeks to understand the concepts and tools used in the Robertsfors Model. It also examines whether the model is strategic with regards to sustainability and whether it is successful in engaging the local community around these issues. Considerations for transferability are also addressed, focusing specifically on the Eastern Baltic Sea Region. Opportunities for improving the model are also studied. A combination of secondary research, in the form of literature review and primary research (structured interviews and questionnaires) was used to explore these questions. Propositions about SCD and questions for further research emerged from this study. / Den här magister uppsats berättar on hållbar kommunal utveckling i Blatik havet region. / Postal address: Götgatan 58 11826 Stockholm; mobil: 0734-434149, e-mail: koyurygen1@yahoo.com

Energy systems across the globe are going through a radical transformation as a result of technological and institutional changes, depletion of fossil fuel resources, and climate change. Accordingly, local energy initiatives are emerging and increasing number of the business models are focusing on the end-users. This requires the present centralized energy systems to be re-organized. In this context, Integrated community energy systems (ICESs) are emerging as a modern development to re-organize local energy systems allowing simultaneous integration of distributed energy resources (DERs) and engagement of local communities. With the emergence of ICESs new roles and responsibilities as well as interactions and dynamics are expected in the energy system. Although local energy initiatives such as ICESs are rapidly emerging due to community objectives, such as cost and emission reductions as well as resiliency, assessment and evaluation of the value that these systems can provide to both local communities and the whole energy system are still lacking. The value of ICESs is also impacted by the institutional settings internal and external to the system. With this background, this thesis aims to understand the ways in which ICESs can contribute to enhancing the energy transition. This thesis utilizes a conceptual framework consisting of institutional and societal levels in order to understand the interaction and dynamics of ICESs implementation.  Current energy trends and the associated technological, socio-economic, environmental and institutional issues are reviewed. The developed ICES model performs optimal planning and operation of ICESs and assesses their performance based on economic and environmental metrics. For the considered community size and local conditions, grid-connected ICESs are already beneficial to the alternative of solely being supplied from the grid, both in terms of total energy costs and CO2 emissions, whereas grid-defected systems, although performing very well in terms of CO2 emissions reduction, are still rather expensive. ICESs ensure self-provision of energy and can provide essential system services to the larger energy system. This thesis has demonstrated the added value of ICESs to the individual households, local communities and the society. A comprehensive institutional design considering techno-economic and institutional perspectives is necessary to ensure effective contribution of ICESs in the energy transition. / Energisystem över hela världen går igenom en radikal omvandling till följd av tekniska och institutionella förändringar, utarmning av fossila bränsleresurser och klimatförändringar. Följaktligen växer lokala energiinitiativ fram och ett ökande antal affärsmodeller fokuserar på slutanvändarna. Detta förutsätter att de nuvarande centraliserade energisystemen omorganiseras. I det här sammanhanget utvecklas integrerade samhällsenergisystem (ICES) som en modern utveckling för att omorganisera lokala energisystem som möjliggör samtidig integration av distribuerade energiresurser och engagemang från lokala samhällen. Med framväxten av ICES nya roller och ansvarsområden samt interaktioner och dynamik förväntas i energisystemet. Även om lokala energiinitiativ som ICES snabbt framträder på grund av samhällsmål, såsom kostnad och utsläppsminskningar samt resiliens, bedömning och utvärdering av det värde som dessa system kan ge till både lokala samhällen och hela energisystemet saknas fortfarande. Värdet av ICES-värden påverkas också av de institutionella inställningarna internt och externt för systemet. Med denna bakgrund syftar denna avhandling till att förstå hur ICES kan bidra till att förbättra energiövergången. Denna avhandling använder en konceptuell ram som består av institutionella och samhälleliga nivåer för att förstå samspelet och dynamiken i ICES-genomförandet. Nuvarande energitrender och de därtill hörande tekniska, socioekonomiska, miljömässiga och institutionella frågorna ses över. Den utvecklade ICES-modellen utför optimal planering och drift av ICES och bedömer deras prestanda baserat på ekonomiska och miljömässiga mätvärden. För den ansedda samhällsstorleken och lokala förhållandena är nätanslutna ICES redan fördelaktiga jämfört med alternativet att endast försörjas från nätet, både när det gäller totala energikostnader och koldioxidutsläpp, medan nät-defekterade system, även om de fungerar väldigt bra i termer av minskningen av koldioxidutsläppen fortfarande är ganska dyra. ICES garanterar självförsörjning av energi och kan tillhandahålla viktiga systemtjänster till det större energisystemet. Denna avhandling har visat mervärdet av ICES till de enskilda hushållen, lokalsamhällena och samhället. En omfattande institutionell utformning med hänsyn till de tekno-ekonomiska och institutionella perspektiven är nödvändigt för att säkerställa ett effektivt bidrag från ICES i energiövergången. / Los sistemas energéticos en todo el mundo atraviesan una transformación radical como resultado de cambios tecnológicos e institucionales, el agotamiento de combustibles fósiles y el cambio climático. Por consiguiente, las iniciativas locales de energía están surgiendo y los modelos de negocio se centran cada vez más en los usuarios finales. Esto requiere la reorganización de los actuales sistemas energéticos centralizados. En este contexto, los sistemas integrados de energía comunitaria (ICES, por sus siglas en inglés) están emergiendo como un desarrollo moderno para reorganizar los sistemas energéticos locales, permitiendo la integración simultánea de los recursos energéticos distribuidos y la participación de las comunidades locales. Con la aparición de ICESs se esperan nuevos roles y responsabilidades, así como interacciones y dinámicas, en el sistema energético. Aunque las iniciativas locales en materia de energía, como las ICESs, están surgiendo rápidamente debido a los objetivos de la comunidad, tales como la reducción de costos y emisiones, así como la resiliencia, y la evaluación, siguen careciendo del valor que estos sistemas pueden brindar tanto a las comunidades locales como a todo el sistema energético. El valor de los ICESs también se ve afectado por los entornos institucionales tanto internos como externos al sistema. Con este trasfondo, esta tesis pretende comprender las formas en que los ICESs pueden contribuir a mejorar la transición energética. Esta tesis utiliza un marco conceptual que consiste en niveles institucionales y sociales para comprender la interacción y dinámica de la implementación de los ICESs.  Además, esta tesis revisa las tendencias actuales de energía y los problemas tecnológicos, socioeconómicos, ambientales e institucionales asociados. La tesis desarrolla un modelo que optimiza la planificación y el funcionamiento óptimos de ICESs y evalúa su funcionamiento basado en métricas económicas y ambientales. Para el tamaño de la comunidad y las condiciones locales consideradas, los ICESs conectados a la red ya son beneficiosos tanto en términos de costos totales de energía como de emisiones de CO2 comparado con la alternativa de ser suministrados únicamente desde la red, mientras que los sistemas aislados y desconectados de la red, aunque desempeñándose muy bien en términos de reducción emisiones de CO2, siguen siendo bastante más costosos. Los ICESs garantizan el autoabastecimiento de energía y pueden proporcionar servicios esenciales al resto del sistema energético. Esta tesis demuestra el valor añadido de los ICESs a los hogares individuales, las comunidades locales y la sociedad. Un diseño integral que considere las perspectivas tecno-económicas e institucionales es necesario para asegurar la contribución efectiva de los ICESs en la transición energética. / Energiesystemen over de hele wereld gaan door een radicale transformatie als gevolg van technologische en institutionele veranderingen, uitputting van fossiele brandstoffen en klimaatverandering. Bijgevolg komen lokale energie-initiatieven op en richten steeds meer verdienmodellen zich op de eindgebruikers. Dit vereist dat de huidige gecentraliseerde energiesystemen opnieuw worden georganiseerd. In deze context komen geïntegreerde energiegemeenschapssystemen (ICESs) op als een moderne ontwikkeling om lokale energiesystemen te reorganiseren, welke gelijktijdige integratie van lokale energiebronnen en betrokkenheid van lokale gemeenschappen mogelijk maakt. Het wordt verwacht dat de opkomst van ICESs zowel nieuwe rollen en verantwoordelijkheden met zich meebrengt. Hoewel lokale energie-initiatieven zoals ICESs snel opkomen door de  doelstellingen van de gemeenschap, zoals kosten- en emissiereducties en veerkracht, schort het nog steeds aan beoordeling en evaluatie van de waarde die deze systemen kunnen hebben voor zowel de lokale gemeenschappen als het hele energiesysteem. De waarde van ICESs wordt ook beïnvloed door de institutionele kenmerken binnen en buiten het systeem. Met deze achtergrond beoogt dit proefschrift te begrijpen op welke manieren de ICESs kunnen bijdragen aan de verbetering van de energietransitie. Dit proefschrift maakt gebruik van een conceptueel raamwerk bestaande uit institutionele en maatschappelijke niveaus om de interactie en dynamiek van de implementatie van de ICES te begrijpen. De huidige energietrends en de bijbehorende technologische, sociaal-economische, milieu- en institutionele problemen worden beoordeeld. Het ontwikkelde ICES-model voert optimale planning en gebruik van ICESs uit en beoordeelt hun prestaties op basis van economische en milieu-indicatoren. Voor de beschouwde gemeenschapsgrootte en lokale omstandigheden zijn  op het net aangesloten ICESs al voordelig ten opzichte van het alternatief waarbij uitsluitend vanuit het net wordt geleverd, zowel wat betreft de totale energiekosten als de CO2-uitstoot, terwijl de grid-defected systemen, hoewel heel goed presterend in termen van CO2-emissiereductie, nog steeds vrij duur zijn. ICESs zorgen voor zelfvoorziening van energie en kunnen essentiële systeemdiensten leveren aan het grotere energiesysteem. Dit proefschrift heeft de toegevoegde waarde van ICESs voor de individuele huishoudens, lokale gemeenschappen en de samenleving aangetoond. Een uitgebreid institutioneel ontwerp met inachtneming van techno-economische en institutionele perspectieven is nodig om de effectieve bijdrage van de ICESs in de energietransitie te waarborgen. / <p>QC 20170911</p> / Sustainable Energy Technologies and Strategies