This research started as a quest to understand better the ethics of doing Theatre for Development/Applied Theatre with under-served, marginalized and vulnerable populations especially in post-conflict zones in the Global South. As a theatre practitioner-researcher from Africa who has lived and worked in post-conflict zones, I was interested in fostering appropriate ethical protocols for arts-based practices for social engagement, advocacy and social justice. Thus, in this dissertation, I focus on two concepts in applied theatre practice: participation and ethics. I examine how participation can be re-conceptualized in applied theatre practice and focus on the ethics around conducting research among vulnerable populations especially on refugees and internally displaced persons. On participation, I use existing case studies from various fields to argue that participation in community engagement and socially-engaged art practices can become a tool to reposition voices on the margin to the centre in order to unsettle centres of power. However, for this to happen, participation needs to engage a communicative action that is both epistemic and ontic in its approach. An epistemic discourse provides a way of seeing the world while an ontic discourse provides people with a way of being in the world. The former is a ‘theoretical’ discursive practice that is fundamentally epistemological, and the latter is an ‘embodied’ praxis that is fundamentally ontological. I examine the famous Ngugi wa Thiongo’s Kamiriithu Community Theatre project in Kenya and Michael Balfour et al’s refugee project in Australia to foreground this new thinking on verb-oriented and noun-oriented notions of participation. On ethics, I raise a series of critical questions around interventionist or humanitarian performances. It is hoped that these questions will deepen discourses in applied theatre practice and further challenge practitioners to rethink why we do what we do. Using narrative inquiry, I glean lessons from my field research facilitating drama workshop among secondary school students who have been internally displaced due to an ongoing socio-political crisis in Nigeria. I also reflect on my other applied theatre experiences in Canada and Sudan. I propose an ethical practice that is built on relational interaction. In the context of working in post-conflict zones or in places of war, I argue that precarity becomes a determining factor in framing the ethics of practice. The questions around ethics are raised to also draw attention to decolonizing ethical practices. Finally, I articulate the connection between participation and ethics in that participation becomes a tactic to ensure that applied theatre researchers/practitioners conduct their work in ethical ways. This is because through participation, concerned communities can challenge unethical practices and transform the research to create outcomes that are beneficial. Thus, as an example of reflective practitioner research, the projects in this dissertation offer opportunities to examine critically how participation has been conceptualized and the need for a decolonizing understanding towards ethics in applied theatre practice especially in post-conflict zones. / Graduate

<p>This dissertation extends our knowledge of digital affordances in communicating complex scientific information by building and testing a climate change adaptation website for the Colombian coffee sector, <a href="http://www.climaycafe.com/">www.climaycafe.com</a>. This project offers both a practical component (scholarship of engagement) and theoretical component (extension of our understanding of the objective/subjective nature of affordances). Practically, it seeks to create a collaborative and tailored science communication solution for improved information access to support climate change adaptation. Theoretically, it extends our understanding of affordances in a digital environment through a qualitative assessment, specifically how occupational identity influences the subjective nature of affordances. Data is gathered through an iterative qualitative assessment of users’ interpretation of the perceived affordances on the website. The results demonstrate that occupational identity has an influence on perceived digital affordances, particularly influenced by (1) Perceived Social Status of Occupation, (2) Perception of Value Based on Occupational Demands, (3) Occupational Influence on Perceived Reliability and (4) Usability Preferences Based on Occupation. We additionally found that as creators we can set general goals for digital tools and achieve general success in obtaining them, but ultimately the users will dictate their needs within this broader framework. Lastly, there is a self-identified need for more practical knowledge and information access for coffee farmers in these regions of Colombia around climate change adaptation.</p>

Thesis (PhD. (Education)) --University of Limpopo, 2016 / This study reports on an exploration of a conceptual framework for service-learning in order to provide a shared and common understanding necessary for guiding best practice of service-learning at the heart of two-rural-based universities in South Africa. The key research question answered in this study was: How is service-learning conceptualised by dir ectors of community engagement, project coordinators, academic staff members, and students at two rural-based universities in South Africa? The following sub-questions were developed on the basis of the key research question: • What are the current community engagement projects that can be modified for future practice of service-learning at two rural-based universities in South Africa? • What are the views of directors of community engagement, project coordinators, academic staff members, and students regarding conceptualisation of service-learning at two rural-based universities in South Africa? • What are the possible strategies for conceptualising and managing the quality of service-learning at two rural-based universities in South Africa? • What framework will be relevant and appropriate for conceptualising and implementing service-learning at two rural-based universities in South Africa? A qualitative research approach using grounded theory design was employed in this study. Convenience sampling was used to select the two rural-based universities in the Limpopo Province of South Africa. Four similar schools from each university (Education, Law, Agriculture, and Health Sciences) were sampled purposively. Participants were also sampled purposively. These included the director of community engagement, one project coordinator, two academic staff members, and two final year undergraduate students who were taking part in community engagement or servicelearning- related activity at each sampled school at both universities. Data were captured through document analysis, semi-structured interviews with sampled participants, and silent observations. Content analysis was used to analyse data from documents. Data from semi-structured interviews and silent observations were analysed thematically. Findings from documents, semi-structured interviews and iv silent observations were used to make recommendations for developing a framework for conceptualising and managing the quality of service-learning at the two universities. The study revealed that service-learning is an unfamiliar concept at these two ruralbased universities. Advocacy of service-learning has never been done and no initiatives are made on the part of these universities to familiarise this concept. The study's findings also reflect that there is confusion among various role-players regarding the meaning of the concept service-learning. Participants showed that some prefer to use the concept community engagement rather than service-learning, while others view service-learning as synonymous to community engagement. The SMART conceptual framework was developed on the basis of the findings and recommendations of this study. This conceptual framework is SMART because it is S - socially relevant, M - manageable, A - adaptable, R - rural-based, and T - transformative. The proposed SMART conceptual framework is intended to guide institutional leaders, directors of community engagement, deans of faculties, directors of schools, heads of departments, project coordinators, academic staff members, students, traditional leaders, and community partners in conceptualising, implementing and managing the quality of service-learning endeavours at the two rural-based South African universities.

[pt] O presente estudo analisa a formação do pensamento crítico literário do escritor peruano Mario Vargas Llosa ao longo dos anos sessenta e setenta. Neste período, marcado pela experiência revolucionária cubana e a expansão internacional da narrativa latino-americana, pensar a literatura era também pensar os modos de existência político-social no continente. Dessa forma, este trabalho divide-se em quatro momentos distintos e relacionais tendo como objeto de investigação, principal, a formulação da teoria dos demônios de Vargas Llosa desenvolvida de modo sistemático em seu livro Gabriel García Márquez: historia de un deicidio (1971). Inicialmente, busca-se a compreensão da conformação do pensamento de Vargas Llosa sobre o papel do intelectual e a função político-social da literatura no contexto dos anos sessenta, assim como a historicidade de seu ensaio sobre a obra do escritor colombiano García Márquez. Num segundo momento, analisamos o conteúdo da teoria dos demônios estabelecendo os diálogos com os pensamentos e conceitos de outros intelectuais, tais como Jean-Paul Sartre e Sigmund Freud. Depois, segue-se a análise das primeiras recepções críticas da interpretação de Vargas Llosa sobre a vocação do romancista e a natureza da literatura, compreendendo que os posicionamentos políticos do escritor peruano adquirem fundamental relevância nesse processo. Finalmente, aborda-se a polêmica entre Ángel Rama e Vargas Llosa, em 1972, na qual analisamos através dos repertórios e conceitos requeridos no debate os tensionamentos e noções de modernização político-cultural no discurso de ambos os polemistas. / [en] The present study analyzes the literary critical thinking formation of the Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa throughout the sixties and seventies. In this period, marked by Cuban revolutionary experience and the international expansion of Latin American narrative, to think literature was also to think about the ways of political-social existence on the continent. Thus, this work is divided into four distinct and relational moments having as main research object the formulation of the theory of the demons of Vargas Llosa systematically developed in his book Gabriel García Márquez: historia de un deicidio (1971). Firstly, an attempt is made to understand Vargas Llosa s understanding of the role of the intellectual and the political-social function of literature in the context of the 1960s, as well as the historicity of his essay on the work of Colombian writer García Márquez. In a second moment, we analyze the content of the theory of demons by establishing dialogues with the thoughts and concepts of other intellectuals, such as Jean-Paul Sartre and Sigmund Freud. Then follows the analysis of the first critical receptions of Vargas Llosa s interpretation of the novelist s vocation and the nature of the literature, understanding that the political positions of the Peruvian writer acquire fundamental relevance in this process. Finally, we discuss the polemic between Ángel Rama and Vargas Llosa in 1972, in which we analyzed through the repertoires and concepts required in the debate the tensions and notions of political-cultural modernization in the discourse of both polemicists.

This study focused on the behaviours of adult video game players in the context of positive and negative effects of video games, to accurately differentiate video game addicts from highly engaged and non-addicted players. To accomplish this, we adopted the Problematic Video Game Playing Test (PVGT) to measure the components of addiction and Flow Short Scale (FSS) to measure high-level engagement. This is a concept which has been lost in the previous studies, setting the current study apart from other studies which were primarily concerned with investigating the negative impact of video games on its players. To get the data needed for this study, we conducted an online survey with a 40-item questionnaire which included demographic information of the respondents, gaming experience and behavioural components of flow and addiction. We were able to attract 80 adult video game players to participate in the study. Our findings showed that 60% of these 80 adult video game players were not addicted, 34% were highly engaged while 6% of the players were addicted. These findings helped us to infer that not all highly engaged video game players are addicted. Furthermore, most of the addicted players were players who have been playing video games for a long time.

The diploma thesis shows the current state and level of marriage preparation of the engaged couples within the Hradec Kralove diocese border region. The thesis examines and evaluates the status of the preparations in four vicariates in connection with the related church documents. The particular vicariates together with the qualified personnel are introduced and number of marriages for the past ten years is listed for a reference. The thesis characterises four different types of engaged couples and introduces several types of preparations. The current state of the preparations in the region is surveyed and findings are presented in the thesis. Among the preparations guided by a priest the thesis describes additional tools and techniques complementing the preparations. The final part of the thesis is dedicated to these complementary preparation tools and techniques which are presented, compared and evaluated here. The diploma thesis notices preparation of engaged couples with respect to the formation of the future family, which is encouraged by the thesis.

<p>Engineering engagement programs use service learning and community engagement pedagogies that require a real-world situated problem in which the community partners who experience those problems are integral to those spaces. Despite community partners being integral to engineering engagement programs, research on community partner perspectives is vastly unrepresented in literature Therefore, the goal of this work is to investigate engineering engagement programs from the perspective of the community partners by answering the research question: what meaning do community partners make of their experience in engineering engagement programs? This study describes a qualitative research inquiry in which interviews with three community partners from three different engineering engagement programs were conducted and analyzed for community partner meaning. Using a framework developed by Zittoun and Brinkmann for meaning making, this study presented several themes associated with pragmatic, semantic, and existential meanings made by community partners within this study (2012).</p><p>Findings from this study suggest implications for expansions of existing frameworks of constituents and components of engineering engagement programs, as well as potential opportunities to more deeply engaging community partners the assessment of student contributions and trajectories as a function of participation in EEPs. Additionally, findings from this study suggest an opportunity to investigate communication and thinking between students and community partners to better support the experience of the community partner (and potentially, the learning of the students). Lastly, findings from this study suggest that participation in EEPs presents the opportunity for community partners to learn by doing which can be more deeply investigated to begin addressing the gap in the literature associated with community partners in research on engineering engagement spaces.</p>

Agenda 2030 är en global utvecklingsagenda för att utrota fattigdom, skapa fredliga och trygga samhällen samt stoppa klimatförändringar. Världen står för många utmaningar när det gäller vårt klimat och hur snabbt vi förbrukar jordens resurser. Därför är det mer aktuellt än aldrig att jobba såväl lokalt som globalt med hållbar utveckling, demokrati och att minska fattigdom. Syftet med denna rapport är att samla kunskap om hur kommuner och regioner i Sverige strategiskt arbetar för att nå målen för Agenda 2030 och identifiera faktorer om hur detta arbete framgångsrikt kan implementeras för att lyckas nå målen och en kvalitativ metod har valts för att utröna detta. Författarna använde sig av en webbaserad enkät som skickades via mail till 55 kommuner och regioner i Sverige. Resultatet påvisade att nyckelbegrepp som ledarskap, utbildning och engagemang var avgörande för implementeringen av målen. Olika strategier och quality-managementverktyg används för att implementera målen i organisationerna, däremot visade resultatet att de flesta kommuner och regioner i undersökningen inte hade en uttalad strategi för att uppnå målen i Agenda 2030. Kunskapsgap uppmärksammas i samband med rapporten och mer forskning med syfte att undersöka strategier och verktyg som organisationer kan använda för att implementera målen i Agenda 2030 är relevant. / The Sustainable Development Goals, SDGs, is a global agenda that provides a shared blueprint for peace and prosperity for the people and the planet. Our world is facing multiple challenges on stopping climate change and how we’re taking care of each other and our nature worldwide. Therefore, it is more relevant than ever to work locally and globally with sustainable development, democracy, and poverty reduction. The purpose of this report is to gather knowledge on how municipalities and regions in Sweden strategically work to reach the SDGs and identify factors taken by these organizations on how they succeed in their work. A qualitative method has been chosen to determine this. A web-based survey has been sent by e-mail to 56 municipalities and regions across Sweden. The result points out that key concepts such as leadership, education, and engagement are vital for the organizations in order to implement the SDGs in their daily work. Some quality management tools are used in the organizations to accomplish this, but the result also points out that the organizations do not have an explicit strategy for accomplishing the SDGs. The knowledge gap is tangible in Commented [LJ1]: Denna rubrik ligger på fel sida. 3 connection with the report. More research with the aim of examining strategies and tools that organizations can use to implement the goals in the 2030 Agenda is relevant. / <p>2021-06-05</p>

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