In this dissertation, Wallace Stevens' imagination-reality problem as depicted in his poetry is discussed in terms of an eco-critical map-territory divide. Stevens's metaphor of "the necessary angel" acts to mediate human necessity, the map, with natural necessity, the territory, in order to retain contact with changing cultural and environmental conditions. At stake in this mediation are individual freedom and the pertinence of the imagination to the experience of reality. In Chapter 2, the attempt at reconciliation of these two necessities will be described in terms of surrealism. Stevens's particular approach to surrealism emphasizes separating and delineating natural necessity from human necessity so that through the poem the reader can experience the miracle of their reconciliation. In Chapter 3, this delineation of the two necessities, map and territory, will be examined against Modernist "decreation," which is the stripping bare of human perception for the purpose of regaining glimpses of the first idea of the external world. And in Chapter 4, Stevens's approach to the problem of the map-territory divide will be considered against his alienation or internal exile: balancing nature and identity through mediating fictions results in a compromised approach to the marriage of mind and culture in a historically situated place.

Public participation is a collective term for a variety of procedures aimed at involving stakeholders and ordinary people in decisions that may affect them. It is playing an increasingly important role in many democratic societies. Consequently, it has provided the impetus for a number of scientific studies. Most studies of public participation view the subject from a macro-level perspective; they focus on the criteria against which successful public involvement processes should be measured, the institutional arrangements and legal framework needed to achieve such success, etc. By contrast, relatively few studies have adopted a micro-level approach to public participation. Such an approach would entail concentrating on its psychosocial dynamics – in other words, on the behaviour and experience of individual participants, the relationships that form between individuals, the manner in which these shape deliberation and decision-making, etc. The aim of this study was therefore to address the aforementioned imbalance. It took the form of an integrative literature review encompassing publications in the fields of psychology and public participation. Its objectives were (a) to develop a theory of the psychosocial dynamics of public participation; (b) on the basis of this theory, to identify ways in which the effectiveness of public involvement processes might be enhanced; and (c) to propose avenues for future research in the field. Systems theory was chosen as a meta-theoretical framework to guide the process of theory-building. Systems theory may be defined as the study of interrelationships between the properties of whole systems and the properties and organisation of their component elements. Hence, it provided a means of demonstrating how the micro-level aspects of a public participation process (such as the actions, motives and perceptions of individual participants) interact with macro-level variables (such as the cultural and socio-political milieu in which it is embedded) to shape its course and outcomes. On the basis of the study, five complementary models of public participation were constructed. The first three models depict the macro-level characteristics of public participation. These set the stage for the remaining two models, which encompass both its macro- and micro-level dynamics. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2008. / Psychology / unrestricted

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This paper interweaves narrativized readings and experiential narratives as personal and cultural resources for counterhegemonic cultural critique within our historical context of globalization and ecological crisis. Framed by perspectives on epistemology, everyday life, and place, these reflections seek to engage and revitalize our notions of community, creativity, and the individual, towards visioning the human art of community as a counternarrative to globalization. Such a task involves confronting the meanings we have come to ascribe to work and economy which so deeply determine our social fabric. Encountering the thought of key 19th and 20th century social theorists ranging from William Morris, Gregory Bateson, and Raymond Williams, to Murray Bookchin, Martin Buber, and Wendell Berry, these reflections mark the indivisible web of culture in the face of our insistent divisions, and further, iterate our innate creativity as the source for a vital, sustainable culture that might reflect, in Bateson’s terms, the pattern that connects.