This research aims to explore and identify essential elements of community engagement in the public sector, including library services. Previous research has highlighted public libraries objectives in undertaking community engagement, in terms of tackling social exclusion, promoting democracy and contributing to social/cultural/human capital. However, it is also apparent that there is a lack of shared vision and strategy for community engagement in public libraries. Furthermore, little systematic research has examined the community engagement process in practice. Hence there is a need for a systematic, comparative and empirical investigation into essential elements of community engagement in public libraries. The study was qualitative, involving three case studies in England. Research methods employed to gather data included semi-structured interviews, direct observation and document analysis. Both the viewpoints of service providers and service users were captured. Essential elements of community engagement were initially identified in case specific contexts. The discussion of the relationships between elements then identified two key underlying variable drivers (i.e. influence of authority and willingness to learn ) that had a fundamental impact on community engagement. Influence of authority was defined as the extent that the initiative was led by the service or the community. Willingness to learn was defined as the extent that the service was willing to embrace a community-driven approach or a library-based approach for implementing community engagement. The empirical investigative results identified the essential elements of community engagement as comprising of: accountability , belonging , commitment , communication , a flexible approach , genuineness , relevance and sustainability . The significance of this research is the identification, based on empirical data, of arguably the essential elements of community engagement in the public library context. However, it is likely that these elements are key to forms of community engagement both within and outside the public sector. Recommendations are made in conclusion for the promotion of genuine community engagement, where the community-driven approach and the organic nature of the community engagement process are seen as being paramount to engagement.

This thesis examines women’s participation in community groups, in order to investigate the concept of ‘social capital’ and its implications for women’s mental well-being. Its aim is to examine the concept of social capital, and the ways it is linked with health, in a way that is attentive to gender and class inequity. For the purposes of this thesis, social capital is broadly defined as social relationships between people and the individual or community level ‘resources’ that can arise from these social relationships. Two different conceptualisations of social capital were considered in this study: the ‘communitarian’ approach associated with Robert Putnam, and the more ‘critical’ conceptualisation associated with Pierre Bourdieu. This research adopted a critical stance towards social capital, and focused upon four research questions: Firstly, what was the nature of participation in community groups among women who live in metropolitan Adelaide? Secondly, what were the personal outcomes that were perceived to arise from women’s community group involvement? Thirdly, what were the differences in the nature and perceived outcomes of women’s community group participation, according to social and economic factors? Finally, how did the nature and perceived outcomes of women’s participation in community groups relate to the ways they experienced their mental health and well-being? This study used qualitative and quantitative methods to investigate these questions. The quantitative analysis provided a preliminary investigation to complement the qualitative study, and involved the analysis of questionnaire data from 968 women in two contrasting areas of Adelaide. This analysis considered sociodemographic differences in the type and frequency of women’s involvement. The qualitative research involved the analysis of in-depth interviews with 30 women. The interviews explored the participants’ experiences of community group involvement; the personal outcomes that they felt arose from their involvement, their ‘lay accounts’ of their mental health, and how they felt community group involvement was connected with their mental well-being. This study found that women’s participation was shaped by gender and aspects of economic, cultural and ‘informal’ social capital. The qualitative data illustrated that women’s involvement was influenced, motivated and constrained by the gendered nature of their roles and responsibilities. These findings also highlighted contrasts among the participants in the types of involvement they undertook, and the personal outcomes of their involvement, according to their levels of material, financial and social advantage. This was supported by the quantitative findings, which revealed that the respondents’ participation in community groups, the type of group involvement they undertook, and the frequency of their involvement varied according to sociodemographic measures. The qualitative findings also identified how community group participation could lead to both positive and negative outcomes for individual women. Many participants reported the ways in which they felt their involvement enhanced their mental well-being. The qualitative data also illustrated how involvement could detract from mental well-being. In some instances, the negative consequences of participation had a severe and detrimental impact upon mental health. The findings of this study offer support to feminist criticisms of communitarian approaches to social capital, and to Bourdieu’s critical approach to understanding the concept. The study concludes that Bourdieu’s conceptualisation offers greater potential for considering how community group participation and ‘social capital’ can be used as a strategy to promote women’s health and mental well-being.

The efficacy of decentralised local governance to transform rural communities into vibrant modern communities has often been highlighted. The Constitution of Ghana lends a strong hand to decentralised local governance as key to achieving rural development and poverty reduction. Achieving the above is however premised on the basis that local authorities would function effectively; promote effective community participation; and are functionally autonomous. However, some conceptual and practical challenges appear to limit the achievement of the stated benefits of local governance in Ghana. This thesis seeks to examine the nature of local governance and how its function translates into rural community development. It responds to pertinent questions central to Ghana’s decentralisation. It questions the local community development initiatives implemented by local government institutions, by exploring perspectives on the usefulness of these initiatives to local communities. Further it explores how the participation of local communities is engaged in executing these initiatives; and thirdly, it investigates institutional capacities to effectively carry out the decentralised community development initiatives. The thesis sought answers by conducting in-depth and semi-structured interviews with 134 participants drawn from 32 local communities within three District Assemblies, and a variety of stakeholders including key local government actors, individuals, and groups from three Districts in Northern Ghana. The thesis argues that political, administrative and systemic deficits challenge effective local government function in Ghana. For instance, recent evidence points to the fact that regimes since December 2000 dwell on political gerrymandering to bolster their political fortunes, which further weaken existing local governments rather than facilitate their effective and efficient function. Further that, local governments are observed to work within a chaotic community development environment where initial development strategies where overly influenced by exogenous forces, which made them unrealistic to rural community development. Again, the findings suggests a history of decentralised local governance full of a continual tinkering and halfhearted implementation of the decentralisation process since colonial times. This is mostly to achieve well orchestrated political goals. This historical legacy stifles local governments’ capacities over time and also leaves mostly ineffective structures replete with opportunities for political favour and rent seeking behaviours. Evidently however, this has tendered to percolate present day systems and processes where local political elites seek to, and prosecute the political agenda of the national government instead of dealing with local needs. On the development strategies implemented by local governments, a penchant tendency to transplant national development plans as local development strategies on central governments’ insistence was discovered. Though a contradiction to the laid down local government development planning and implementation process, local governments follow through with this practice. Further, a historical legacy of powerful external multi-lateral stakeholders’ grips or influence of the local development agenda appears a paramount reason for the above, and this in real terms leads to a de-emphasises of home grown local development strategies. The implication is that unrealistic rural community development strategies perpetuate. This further leads to noted planning incongruence at the local level. Aside this, there is also an overbearing local political and administrative interferences, and manipulations which leads further to a ‘filtering’ of development strategies to meet national politically motivated strategies or interests. This notwithstanding, local communities have strong faith in local governments as viable community development agents. The findings further suggest local governments’ acknowledgement of the critical roles of active community participation in the local community development agenda. Yet again they struggle to apply the national development planning Act 1994, (Act 480), which holds the greatest promise to directly translate to effective participation. In the least, local governments preferred to consult and inform local community members. In the same vain, central governments some times implement community development initiatives within local government jurisdictions without consulting them. A chief factor which appears to work against direct local level influence of the development planning process is the existence of penurious institutions at the local level. Consequently an exercise of tokenism is thus promoted to satisfy requirements for effective local community participation. In most cases ultimate development decisions are taken by the management and political leadership and not in direct consultation with local communities. Notwithstanding the above, it appears that local governments’ institutional capacities to effectively deliver on their mandate appear potentiated when viewed from the extent of supporting legal and institutional frameworks which gives credence to local governance. Local governments possess a powerful list of constitutionally sanctioned guiding frameworks which should necessarily inure to their smooth operation. Ironically there are noted deliberate systemic and political processes which tend to constraint this smooth function. In the least central government deliberately keeps a functionally dependent relationship with local governments. One direct result of the subjection of local government within this perpetual highly dependent functional relationship is a continual blurring of roles. Local governments appear to be perpetually subjugated to functional obscurity by central governments through incomplete decentralisation, strained internal relationships, and unhealthy ‘politicking’ between District Assembly members and administrative staff to say the least. Although most decentralised departments appear to have competent technical staff, their function is limited because of numerical insufficiency as well as limited material and logistical support.

Submitted by Cássia Santos (cassia.bcufg@gmail.com) on 2014-09-19T13:25:59Z No. of bitstreams: 2 Dissertacao Karla Alves de Araujo França Castanheira.pdf: 1046570 bytes, checksum: 1332a52eb51aad033954fca94401575d (MD5) license_rdf: 23148 bytes, checksum: 9da0b6dfac957114c6a7714714b86306 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Luciana Ferreira (lucgeral@gmail.com) on 2014-09-19T13:30:34Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 2 Dissertacao Karla Alves de Araujo França Castanheira.pdf: 1046570 bytes, checksum: 1332a52eb51aad033954fca94401575d (MD5) license_rdf: 23148 bytes, checksum: 9da0b6dfac957114c6a7714714b86306 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2014-09-19T13:30:34Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 Dissertacao Karla Alves de Araujo França Castanheira.pdf: 1046570 bytes, checksum: 1332a52eb51aad033954fca94401575d (MD5) license_rdf: 23148 bytes, checksum: 9da0b6dfac957114c6a7714714b86306 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2013-10-29 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior - CAPES / Dell Hymes‘s Ethnography of Communication states that sociolinguistic studies must be based on the speech community and the uses it makes of the language. Based on that we followed the activities and actions of a civil society organization in Pirenópolis, Goiás, named ―Guaimbê – espaço e movimento criativo‖, an entity that is a part of A public politic called ―Ação Griô‖ and committed to community education and revitalization of values and knowledge of oral tradition. Their practices, their ways of acting sustains a worldview that directed our attention to their acts of nominate, the meanings constructed by it and uses they do of those meanings. This study aims to discuss the nomination used as a strategy of resistance and social change through it´s interference that generates in the realities available, providing other possible realities. Therefore, we argue in this study that Guaimbê constitutes itself as a community of participation in which the participants are involved for the construction of the community, i.e., to build a feeling of community, identity and belonging. Feelings that the concept of community establish. This construction has as one it´s core strategies acts of naming that are seen as a way to give life to the entity. That entity is the central element of the community and the acts of naming are a way to position itself in face of the power relations in which it operates and in order to establish, within her and to her, new identity relations. / A partir dos pressupostos da Etnografia da Comunicação, de Dell Hymes, pela qual os estudos sociolinguísticos devem partir da comunidade de fala e dos usos que ela faz da língua, acompanhamos as atividades e ações de uma organização da sociedade civil em Pirenópolis, Goiás, a Guaimbê – espaço e movimento criativo, entidade vinculada à Ação Griô Nacional e comprometida com a educação comunitária e com a revitalização de valores e saberes da tradição oral. Suas práticas, suas formas de atuação e a visão de mundo que as sustenta direcionaram a nossa atenção aos seus atos de nomeação, aos significados construídos por ela e aos usos que ela faz desses significados. Este estudo se propõe a discutir, a partir disso, como a nomeação pode ser utilizada como estratégia de resistência e de mudanças sociais, por meio da interferência que gera nas realidades disponíveis, fornecendo outras realidades possíveis. Para tanto, argumentamos, neste estudo, que a Guaimbê se constitui como uma comunidade de participação, com a qual os participantes se envolvem para a construção da própria comunidade, ou seja, para a construção dos sentimentos de coletividade, identificação e pertencimento que o conceito de comunidade institui e que esta construção possui, como uma de suas estratégias centrais, os atos de nomeação que atuam como forma de dar existência à entidade, elemento central da construção comunitária; como forma de posicionar a comunidade diante da disputa de forças em que se insere e como forma de estabelecer, dentro dela e para ela, novas relações identitárias.

Magister Artium (Development Studies) - MA(DVS) / The Constituency Development Fund (CDF) is a type of decentralised government funding that is supposed to deliver goods and services directly to constituents by providing additional funds for local community development, outside line ministries. It is predominantly a developing country policy that is intended to meet the immediate social needs of local communities. In countries where it is operational, CDF is appropriated by Parliament within a country’s national budget. CDF in Zambia was introduced in 1995 for the implementation of community based projects which would in the long term improve the socio-economic wellbeing of the constituents. The stated objective of the CDF in Zambia is to provide Members of Parliament and their constituent communities with the opportunity to make choices and implement (MPs) projects that maximise their welfare in line with their needs and preferences. However, questions have been raised over whether CDF actually represents efforts to spur local development and consequently national development, or whether it is primarily a political project aimed at benefitting MPs by providing them with the resources to help them gain popularity with the electorate. The study aims to assess the effectiveness of CDF as a tool for community development. This has been done through a case study of Katuba Constituency in the Central Province of Zambia, using qualitative research methods. The study seeks to gain insight into of the impact of CDF projects in relation to the goals espoused by the CDF as laid down in Zambia’s Guidelines for the Utilisation and Management of the Constituency Development Fund.

This study has investigated the biblical and historical relevancy of doing theology of pastoral ministry in rural Zambia .After a meticulous examination of essential distinctives of pastoral ministry, the study brought to the fore the fact that the role of the faith community among other things is to engage the community in a practical and relevant way by creating an enabling environment that promote dialogue. Social communication and cohesion are important imperatives especially in the context of rural Zambia where life thrives on informal social support networks which are the lifelines of rural Zambia thus the need to empower rural pastors with relevant skills and training to sustain a healthy hermeneutical dialogue. The study further examined the validity of three-fold theological perspectives namely: biblical, historical and cultural. The investigation revealed that these are important pastoral imperatives that should not be seen as an end but a means in a theological process. Therefore, this study calls for a re-examination of how the pastoral ministry engages in Rural Zambia in light of scripture and the social economics. The researcher has argued that most pastors, who engage in ministry within the Zambian rural context, do not fully understand the fact that for pastoral ministry to be effective it has to engage the community holistically. Many models appropriated in the Zambian rural context focuses on the salvation of the person “soul” with no due concern for the communities “social salvation”. With all the complications and implications that go with application of genuine pastoral ministry practice, this study has formulated and proposed a model that would be effective to rural Zambia. More research still need to be done to address adequately all the impediments identified through this study. Copyright / Dissertation (MA(Theol))--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Practical Theology / unrestricted

In this thesis I investigate the impact of donor organizations on NGOs’ efforts to foster local community participation in environmental projects, by analyzing how conditions on project funding affect a sample of South African NGOs. Numerous NGOs take environmental justice as a key tenet of their work. Yet, promoting environmental justice is not an easy task to perform. Aside from cultural, political and social contingencies peculiar to specific contexts, there are external constraints that can help or hinder NGOs’ efforts, among which resource-dependency dynamics stand out as particularly relevant. In fact, donors hold power over NGOs, who must stick to specific conditions to secure their support. My aim is to understand what conditions and what type of donors facilitate or hinder community participation —a basic condition for achieving environmental justice— in environmental projects, where hindrances are exemplified by the presence of NGOization dynamics. I analyze donors’ guiding principles, eligibility criteria and monitoring and evaluation standards, delving into the provisions of five different funders that financially support local environmental projects in South Africa, classified according to their core values and organizational settings. Data are collected, coded, and analyzed with the help of NVIVO through a content analysis of calls for grants, project proposals, project reports, and semi-structured interviews to donors and NGO professionals. In this study, I argue that donor organizations can facilitate community participation and avoid NGOization dynamics by acknowledging the existence of unequal power relations between them and the NGOs they fund and by taking measures to respond to NGOs demands. This study highlights the importance of long-term engagement and a relationship based on trust between donors and NGOs as key to creating alternative funding models that help secure the goals that local communities define. Moreover, this study also claims that donors’ upward accountability has a weight in determining conditions on funds and eligibility criteria, and that many of the donors’ virtuous practices originate from their independence from upward accountability measures.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-08-03T12:29:46Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 SuelenSilva.pdf: 2077152 bytes, checksum: 73b1fe798a6302213d0c5c51e48bfb20 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2013-03-18 / Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico / Study on the Brazil House Project in your whole by checking their origins and current panorama, as well as emphasize the experiences of Community Communication present in the Brazil House Imbariê.The research aims general to rescue the historical context of Brazil House Project and its current status as public policy and its relationship to Community Communication.Through a bibliographical research constitutes itself a whole theoretical base, especially with regard to Community Communication as power booster to communicate. The method used was the cartographic, made possible through the following techniques: documentary research, semi-structured interviews and participant observation. It is concluded that the Community Communication was provided for Brazil House Project guidelines, but as a concept and practice is a missing category in most units, because the party political and private interests outweigh the public interest, what appears to be a structural problem in the project itself.But despite the Brazil House Imbariê not take the ownership of Community Communication concept, appropriates it in practice, because the experiences developed by its users serve as an instrument of popular participation in the exercise of citizenship and promotes, in parts, the articulation of the community. . / Estudo sobre o Projeto Casa Brasil no seu conjunto verificando suas origens e panorama atual, além de enfatizar as experiências de Comunicação Comunitária presentes na unidade Casa Brasil Imbariê. A pesquisa tem como objetivo geral resgatar o contexto histórico do Projeto Casa Brasil e sua situação atual como política pública e sua relação com a Comunicação Comunitária. Por meio de pesquisa bibliográfica constitui-se toda uma base teórica, principalmente no que se refere a Comunicação Comunitária como potencializadora do poder de comunicar. O método utilizado foi o cartográfico, viabilizado por meio das seguintes técnicas: pesquisa documental, entrevistas semiestruturadas e a observação participante. Conclui-se que a Comunicação Comunitária estava prevista nas diretrizes do Projeto Casa Brasil, porém como conceito e prática é uma categoria ausente na maioria das unidades, pois os interesses privados e político-partidários sobrepõem-se ao interesse público, o que aparenta ser um problema estrutural no próprio projeto. Mas, apesar da Casa Brasil Imbariê não se apropriar da Comunicação Comunitária como conceito, se apropria dela na prática, pois as experiências desenvolvidas pelos seus usuários servem como um instrumento de participação popular no exercício da cidadania e promove, em partes, a articulação da comunidade.

The work deals with constructing of participatory spaces in the process of urban development planning. The topic of involving citizens into planning is viewed from the point of planners. A concept of participation in this text is conceived in the sense of invented spaces built from above. The research perspective is an interpretative one, anchored in the constructivist epistemology. Therefore the main question is: How do planners reflect involving citizens in the planning? Firstly, the authoress demonstrates the importance of her topic by putting it into the context of wider social dynamics related to the crises of representative democracy and emerging of sub-politics. She reveals that the trend of building participatory opportunities is strengthening. The important question is formulated: How is the role of public in the strategic planning constructed? On the base of analytical induction of semi-structured interviews with planners, the authoress creates her own typology of ideal-type approaches to participation. These types of approaches came out from a distinction of the extent and the aim of spaces of participation. The involvement of citizens can be seen either as building of community, activation of elites, mapping of public preferences or as consultation with local experts.