This dissertation is "A Collective Case Study of Veterans Inside an Arts and Crafts Room and Their Perceptions Regarding Empowerment." This research examined to what degree art making, and in what ways a community of learning contributed to veterans' self-worth and empowerment through their creative activities and interactions inside an arts and crafts room at the VA hospital in Dallas, Texas. Furthermore, an essential reason for this study is to examine veterans in the arts and crafts environment to explore whether their experiences were important, meaningful, and empowering, and especially important in this regard are the interactions among veterans. Empowerment in this context is defined as gaining self-esteem and motivation within oneself. This includes becoming more confident and positive, as well as gaining the ability to learn about one's own identity. It also described how the interactions between the participants are shaped by the social contexts within which they come together. Using post-modern feminist theory, narrative inquiry and care theory, this dissertation describes the ways that the processes and products of creative activity bring empowerment through dialogue and personal stories while using the component of caring during teaching and learning.

A growing number of Community Artists are doing work with potential relevance to the field of historic preservation. They have seen a need for action in low-income communities and communities of color that are losing their historic, physical, and social character through dilapidation, redevelopment, and displacement. These artists have found nontraditional ways to bolster communities while preserving neighborhood buildings, histories, and social structures. This thesis analyzes three community art case studies as a means to evaluate changes proposed to our current preservation system by leaders in historic preservation concerned with issues of equity and social justice. This study finds that these projects offer many useful examples for preservationists interested in better serving underrepresented communities through the field of historic preservation.

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Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / This thesis is an enquiry into the social and political role, in Australia, of practices that have attracted such labels as ‘community arts’, ‘cultural animation’, ‘cultural action’, or ‘community cultural development’ (CCD). It is often argued that such practices offer an effective means to bring about social and political change for people and communities who participate in them. Looking specifically at theatre-based approaches to CCD in Australia, this thesis examines an alternative hypothesis, namely that such projects and programs can contribute to the continued marginalisation of those who take part in them. Using a combination of Pierre Bourdieu’s theoretical approach to field analysis, Don Handelman’s analytical framework of special events and Baz Kershaw’s theory of potential efficacy, I carry out an ethnographic and performance-based analysis of a particular project called The Longest Night (TLN), which was devised in collaboration with young people from The Parks, a cluster of suburbs north west of Adelaide, South Australia, and in collaboration between Urban Theatre Projects, a small Sydney-based theatre company with a reputation for doing socially and politically challenging work, young people living in The Parks and local partner organisations, for the 2002 Adelaide Festival. I find that in some instances participation in CCD projects and programs is an enabling factor, creating change opportunities in cultural, economic and/or political spheres in the lives of those who take part, whilst at other times it is a constraining factor. Participation in CCD projects and programs creates possibilities because the practices are potentially subversive and foster elements of learning and change in some participants. It also creates limitations because CCD practitioners operate within a subfield of social and cultural practices where the mechanisms and structures in place, indirectly, tend to help reproduce legitimised social and cultural values and norms.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, San Diego, 2002. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 347-362).

Thesis (MTech. degree in Architecture (Applied Design)--Tshwane University of Technology, 2012. / The aim of this thesis is to design an adaptive reuse, collaborative creative centre and public art gallery that is governed by a cultural institute, and financed by a corporate collaboration between the Johannesburg Development Agency and the Blue IQ. The design is intended to act as a catalyst to the city of Johannesburg and the Newtown cultural precinct, by injecting life and spirit back into the area, offering Newtown an opportunity to be in a constant state of activity and vibrancy, living up to its goal to be the cultural district of Johannesburg.

The thirty years of sectarian violence between the Catholic and Protestant communities (known as the Troubles), left the Northern Ireland society deeply suspicious of the 'other'. Since the sighing of the Good Friday Agreement in 1998, Northern Ireland has moved through a tentative peace process. At the time of writing the issues that hold the peace process in stasis include the decommissioning of paramilitary weapons and policing. Similarly the release of political prisoners as part of the Good Friday Agreement has been a difficult reality to face foa significant number of victims of sectarian violence. During the Troubles two approaches prevailed in attempting to reconcile tohe two main communities iand bring an end to the conflict. These were the structural approach and the cultural approach. The structural approach saw the roots of the Northern Ireland conflict as lying within its institutional frameworksand looked for ways to address this. Alternately, the cultural approach saw hat thte conflict was sustained through the belief systems of the two main communities, with the perpetuation of thnegative myths about the 'other'. Resolution of the conflict was seen to be possible by challenging these belief systems through either cross-community work, which brought together Cathoics and Protestants in face to face meetings, or community developemtn work, which focussed on single identity work, empowering the identites of each community so that the two main communities could come together as equals,. It was generally acknowledged that the structural and cultural approaches nneded to be used in tandem, in the effort to reconcile the two main communities. The thesis focuses particularly on the cultural approach, by examining what role, if any, community arts played in reconsiling the two main communities in Norther Ireland between 2001 and 2002, four years af the signing of the Good Friday Agreement. The assumptions that informed this research were: i) reconciliation, the restoration of relationships, can be facilitated through the creation of a safe environment wherein people can express their stories of living through a period of violent conflict, to and with one another, in a non-threatening space; ii) community arts can assist in the creation of these safe spaces by producing opportunities for people to create and express these stories in different and less threatening ways. In examining the role of community arts, the thesis highlights three approaches community arts organisations adopted in their work: an arts for arts sake approach, a cross-community approach and a community development approach. By using these approaches, the thesis shows that whilst community arts has helped in a significant number of ways, a large number of people in Northern Ireland have not been ready to talk about reconciliation, and significant sections of the Protestnant community have been reluctant to engage in community arts activities, both within their own community and with members of the Catholic community.

The purpose of this study was to examine the successes and challenges in implementing community art programs for youth in low-income communities. The National Arts and Youth Demonstration Project (NAYDP) was initiated in September 2001 in five program sites across Canada. This article reports on the qualitative findings of NAYDP staff implementation journals that were utilized in the first term of the project. Findings suggest that community partnerships in program recruitment, youth management and engagement and survey administration were all key aspects in the ability of staff to deliver the program. Positive Youth Development (PYD) provides a guiding framework and implications for social work practice, education and future research are explored.

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / This thesis is an enquiry into the social and political role, in Australia, of practices that have attracted such labels as ‘community arts’, ‘cultural animation’, ‘cultural action’, or ‘community cultural development’ (CCD). It is often argued that such practices offer an effective means to bring about social and political change for people and communities who participate in them. Looking specifically at theatre-based approaches to CCD in Australia, this thesis examines an alternative hypothesis, namely that such projects and programs can contribute to the continued marginalisation of those who take part in them. Using a combination of Pierre Bourdieu’s theoretical approach to field analysis, Don Handelman’s analytical framework of special events and Baz Kershaw’s theory of potential efficacy, I carry out an ethnographic and performance-based analysis of a particular project called The Longest Night (TLN), which was devised in collaboration with young people from The Parks, a cluster of suburbs north west of Adelaide, South Australia, and in collaboration between Urban Theatre Projects, a small Sydney-based theatre company with a reputation for doing socially and politically challenging work, young people living in The Parks and local partner organisations, for the 2002 Adelaide Festival. I find that in some instances participation in CCD projects and programs is an enabling factor, creating change opportunities in cultural, economic and/or political spheres in the lives of those who take part, whilst at other times it is a constraining factor. Participation in CCD projects and programs creates possibilities because the practices are potentially subversive and foster elements of learning and change in some participants. It also creates limitations because CCD practitioners operate within a subfield of social and cultural practices where the mechanisms and structures in place, indirectly, tend to help reproduce legitimised social and cultural values and norms.

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / This thesis is an enquiry into the social and political role, in Australia, of practices that have attracted such labels as ‘community arts’, ‘cultural animation’, ‘cultural action’, or ‘community cultural development’ (CCD). It is often argued that such practices offer an effective means to bring about social and political change for people and communities who participate in them. Looking specifically at theatre-based approaches to CCD in Australia, this thesis examines an alternative hypothesis, namely that such projects and programs can contribute to the continued marginalisation of those who take part in them. Using a combination of Pierre Bourdieu’s theoretical approach to field analysis, Don Handelman’s analytical framework of special events and Baz Kershaw’s theory of potential efficacy, I carry out an ethnographic and performance-based analysis of a particular project called The Longest Night (TLN), which was devised in collaboration with young people from The Parks, a cluster of suburbs north west of Adelaide, South Australia, and in collaboration between Urban Theatre Projects, a small Sydney-based theatre company with a reputation for doing socially and politically challenging work, young people living in The Parks and local partner organisations, for the 2002 Adelaide Festival. I find that in some instances participation in CCD projects and programs is an enabling factor, creating change opportunities in cultural, economic and/or political spheres in the lives of those who take part, whilst at other times it is a constraining factor. Participation in CCD projects and programs creates possibilities because the practices are potentially subversive and foster elements of learning and change in some participants. It also creates limitations because CCD practitioners operate within a subfield of social and cultural practices where the mechanisms and structures in place, indirectly, tend to help reproduce legitimised social and cultural values and norms.