Whereas educational policy is mainly concerned with the content of Human Rights Education (HRE), philosophers of education have widely explored the subject and her social condition in terms of social justice education. This thesis draws on philosophers of education in exploring the subject rather than the content of HRE, focusing the study on ontological rather than epistemological aspects of learning. In this thesis learning is explored through narratives, as a relational process of becoming. The turn to narrative is taken against the dominant historical narrative of human rights as a Western project. This turn concerns how claims toward universalism of human rights exclude difference and equally concerns how notions of particularity overshadows the uniqueness in life stories. The concept of uniqueness serves to elucidate the complexity of the subject, not easily reduced into social categorizations, a concept drawn from Adriana Cavarero and Hannah Arendt. / <p>At the time of the doctoral defense, the following papers were unpublished and had a status as follows: Paper 2: In Press; Paper 4: Manuscript.</p>

Thesis advisor: Thomas H. Groome / No amount of curriculum drafting, standardized testing, or technological aids are sufficient to make a good school. A school is only as good as its participants – students, parents, auxiliary staff, leaders, and of course, teachers. Teachers teach for life – perhaps decreasingly the duration of a professional lifetime, but for the very life of the school and the lives of those who participate in it. So much depends on the spirit of the teacher and therefore on what is likely to sustain their spirits. Fostering the spiritual lives of teachers is crucial; healthy spirituality can be a sustaining force, helping teachers to thrive rather than simply survive in our schools today. In this dissertation I address the need for intentionally engaging and nurturing the spirituality of teachers. I see spirituality as central to every teacher (indeed, every person), no matter who they are, where they work, or who or what they teach. It does not assume any particular religious tradition or religious faith at all. But it does account for the search for what is meaningful in life, and places this search within a transcendent horizon. The issue is important both for the personal and vocational development of teachers themselves and because their spiritual lives dynamically affect the educational life and experience of the whole school community. The dissertation goes on to suggest a spiritually inspired pedagogy drawn primarily but not exclusively from the Ignatian tradition. Chapter 1 sets out to describe the lived reality for teachers today, and lifts up the desire to serve and relationality as two great motivators in the decisions to enter and stay in the teaching profession. Chapter 2 re-frames these motivators as age-old and honored spiritual themes. In order to help craft a spiritual pedagogy to sustain teachers, Chapter 3 turns to the rich tradition of Ignatian spirituality. I hold up the Ignatian tradition as just one example of how the spiritual potential of education can be appropriated by any school and the teachers therein. Chapter 4 proposes five dynamic and overlapping configurations of a spiritual pedagogy. The idea is that when certain spiritual commitments in the form of these five configurations become operative for educators, they cannot but become realized in their teaching. Chapter 5 names and describes some general practices that can support the five configurations of a spiritual pedagogy. It follows with some specific suggestions, first for the teacher, and finally for the leadership of the school community. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2008. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Religious Education and Pastoral Ministry.

This thesis is an exploration into the lives of street-connected young people living in disaster prone communities in the Caribbean country of Jamaica. Street-connected young people’s lives have been well documented over the past few decades in relation to their immediate spaces, activities and more recently, relationships. Street-connected young people have been found to be part of wider social structures in society which have bearing on how they prepare for, react to, negotiate and overcome challenges that they are faced with, both at the local level and on a much larger scale, including adverse events like ‘natural’ disasters. While this study appreciates the progression of the literature on this once overlooked social group, it suggests that there is still a gap in the literature in respect to how street-connected young people’s relationality is understood and explored. Jamaican street-connected young people’s relationality is complex and formed of context-specific networks and relationships. These not only include close knit relationships with family and friends but also wider community relationships with neighbours and extended family and relationships with people out with the community in other parts of Jamaica and abroad. The wider political, social and economic structures in place nationally which street-connected young people are embroiled are additionally considered, particularly in how it influences the coping mechanisms of street-connected young people. This thesis draws on street-connected young people’s relationality to examine how it shapes their resilience and to what extent their positon within this wider web of relationships in Jamaica is crucial to how they prepare and manage the hurricanes and flooding taking place there. Extant studies on young people’s resilience have begun to appreciate the role of the social context and relational networks in enhancing or reducing their resilience, looking beyond traditional studies focusing on an individual’s traits or personal attribute. In this research I have expanded upon the concept of relational resilience to look at how it manifests itself in the lives of street-connected young people, an area currently understudied. A participatory ethnography approach has been adopted in the methodology, using a range of participatory methods to develop a comprehensive and holistic understanding of life for street-connected young people, with the view to establishing their situation in disaster events, how they demonstrate resilience when faced with adversity and how best to tailor national disaster risk management and reduction strategies to suit them and their communities’ needs. By using methods which encourage participation among everyone, a space of collaboration and knowledge exchange can be generated to gain the most informed responses and outcomes.

This dissertation is a performative interrogation of the disagreement and (dis)interest, communication issues, surrounding motherhood in contemporary U.S. culture. Textual analysis of Mary Kelly's Post-Partum Document (PPD) plays a key role in my inquiry. I juxtapose documentation from my lived experiences and academic projects with Kelly's work to build upon the themes and ideas introduced throughout PPD. This project is guided by the concepts love and (im)possibility, and I will argue that, together, they are central to understanding mothering/caregiving as a site of communication inquiry. Love and (im)possibility are inherent to both mothering and communication, but they also are essential for creating the conditions for new variations, ways of doing, and being with and for one another.

The person experiencing chronic or protracted illness is confronted with a complex array of physical, emotional and spiritual trials. This thesis explores how chronic illness can be viewed through the lens of the shamanic experience of dismemberment and re-memberment and shows how clinical, narrative, and relational models on their own are insufficient to speak meaningfully to illness experiences, but the integration of aspects of each of these models when coupled with shamanic initiation experience creates an innovative model for patients and those with whom they are in relationship.

Assurance of corporate sustainability reports relies on the idea of a third-party assuror who is independent and objective. The assurance approaches typically used by accountancy companies have been developed over many years and are supported by internal as well as external standards. With the help of these standards, the assuror provides credibility to the public statements of the companies through a thorough checking of statements, data and supporting systems. However, the orthodox approach overlooks or neglects the many paradoxes and dilemmas that are the daily experience of most assurors, e.g. what it means to be independent and objective while at the same time trying to develop a relation with the client. There has also been criticism of assurance, as currently practiced, as being too rigid, too predictable and providing too few benefits to the companies assured. In this thesis, the author explores why and how his own assurance practice differs from the more orthodox approach. This has led to the description of an alternative approach to assurance, called the ‘artist’ approach that takes the ethical dilemmas and paradoxes into account. The approach has been developed and described on the basis of the author’s own experiences using a critically reflexive methodology. The methodology builds on personal narratives and iterative feedback from fellow researchers and supervisors. The development of the ‘artist’ approach is based on: 1) a critical investigation into the idea of ‘compromise’, which leads to an alternative way of thinking about the practice of assurance; 2) a critical investigation into notions of trust and distrust, and power relations, and the effect of these on assurance work; and 3) a concept of ‘stumbling together’, which is built on relationality and ‘essential references’, where the assuror and the assuree are mutually exploring the territory. In the ‘artist’ approach, the values of independence and objectivity are compromised. The assuror actively strives to build personal trust based (at least in part) on technical kinship. Through this trust the power dynamics of the ‘insider’ and the ‘outsider’ are contained; indeed, the notion of ‘insider/outsider’ is forgotten in the moment. Independence has turned into interdependence, and objectivity into mutual engagement, where both assuror and assuree together might discover new issues not known to either of them before. In the orthodox approach, the assuree is ‘called to account’, whilst in the artist approach, the assuree is invited to ‘give an account’. This process of collaborative exploration allows the potential for radical new discoveries, for both assuror and assuree. The ‘artist’ approach as described here has affinities with complex responsive processes of relating as explained by Stacey. In the ‘artist’ approach, the craftsman approach is always paradoxically present at the same time, and the approach makes use of the same tools and the same framework as the craftsman approach. A wider understanding and application of the ‘artist’ approach can potentially lead to significant changes in the way assurors act, and hopefully to assurance results that are more relevant and useful.

The promising agenda of the EU-Russia strategic partnership has resulted in mutual frustration manifested in continuous crises between the partners. This study explores possibilities for political transformation in the EU-Russia relationship. In search of the key to understanding this complex relationship, I develop a three-fold argument. First, an ongoing crisis in EU-Russia cooperation cannot be understood without revealing the underlying problem of tension between the subjects’ autonomy and their ability to cooperate. Second, this problem produces a paradoxical form of “autonomous cooperation,” imposing limits on the prospects for political transformation in the EU-Russia relationship. Third, Bakhtin’s dialogism holds a significant potential to re-imagine the contradictions of autonomous cooperation in an alternative relational way. Despite the existence of a considerable body of literature on EU-Russia cooperation, little work has been done to investigate the connection between the intricacies of political discourse and problems in EU-Russia cooperation. By drawing on Bakhtin’s account of a “dialogic imagination,” I develop a model, which exposes the processes of mutual constitution of the Self and the Other. This dialogic model reveals that in their political statements, both the EU and Russia privilege the pattern of autonomy or cooperation. The partners produce prevalent discursive practices that reinforce these contradictory patterns of autonomy and cooperation, systematically inflicting crises in the EU-Russia relationship. By establishing dialogic connections between the chosen political statements, the model demonstrates that Russia and the EU co-create perceived differences between each other, isolate each other or try to form an autonomous, self-sufficient Self through imposition, self-exclusion, resistance or dominance. This model, I argue, permits an alternative vision of contemporary trends and possible futures for the EU-Russia relationship as an exemplar of an international relationship viewed through a dialogic lens. My study is also relevant under the conditions of ongoing conflicts in EU-Russia cooperation, which expose the inability of the partners to cooperate effectively. I conclude with practical implications for the partners to overcome the current stalemate. In Bakhtin’s words: “When dialogue ends, everything ends. Thus dialogue, by its very essence, cannot and must not come to an end.” / Graduate

Proponents of Middle Way (Sanskrit: Madhyamaka) Buddhist philosophy argue that all phenomena lack inherent nature. This dissertation provides an analysis of the meaning of inherent nature and the lack of inherent nature in the basic physical character of non-living physical phenomena as indicated by certain interpretations of ancient and contemporary Middle Way Buddhist philosophy, contemporary Western analytic metaphysics, philosophy of science, and physics. The primary intellectual focus in the dissertation is Madhyamaka. I explicate an interpretation of Madhyamaka that is both amenable to discourse and dialogue with the other disciplines, and also consistent with at least some extant Madhyamaka interpretations. The discourse and dialogue with other disciplines results in a revision of some of the arguments of Madhyamaka—specifically making it consistent with modern physics. However, that revision does not deny the foundational view of Madhyamaka that there is no inherent nature in phenomena, but rather supports it within the revised interpretation. Additionally, I also find that this foundational view provides at least heuristic guidance in development of a generic interpretive framework (‘contextualization’ and Physics Pluralism) that I then apply in criticism and revision of some arguments in modern analytic metaphysics and in philosophy of science.That generic interpretive framework is used within this dissertation in examination of Western analytic metaphysics and philosophy of science. While I find independent support for that framework within contemporary philosophy, the framework also reflects an interpretation of Madhyamaka that I develop as a variation of the classic two truths view of Madhyamaka. My interpretation of the classical expression of the two truths is that there is relative existence of inherent nature that may be reflected in our conventions of discourse and habit, while ultimately no inherent nature can be found when the phenomena are analyzed more fully. In my modified interpretation of the two truths that corresponds to modern physics, for some phenomena inherent nature is found within specific (‘local’) contexts of discourse or domains of physics theory applicability, yet when we take a ‘global’ view that acknowledges many domains and relationships between domains we find an ultimate relationality rather than inherent nature.

This research explores the implications of the distinction between transactional and relational understandings of the Numbered Treaties, negotiated by Indigenous peoples and the Dominion of Canada from 1871-1921. It deconstructs representations of the Numbered Treaties as “land transactions” and challenges the associated forms of oppression that emerge from this interpretation. Drawing on oral histories of the Numbered Treaties, it argues instead that they established a framework for relationship that expressly affirmed the continuity of Indigenous legal and political orders. Further, this dissertation positions treaties as a longstanding Indigenous political institution, arguing for the resurgence of a treaty-based ethic of relationality that has multiple applications in the contemporary context. It demonstrates how a relational understanding of treaties can function as a powerful strategy of refusal to incorporation within the nation state; arguing that if treaties are understood as structures of co-existence rather than land transactions, settler colonial assertions of hegemonic authority over Indigenous peoples and lands remain illegitimate. Furthermore, it examines how a relational orientation to treaties might inspire alternatives to violent, asymmetrical, and hierarchical forms of co-existence between humans and with other living beings. To this end, it takes up the potential for treaties to inform legal and political strategies that are reflective of Indigenous philosophies of relationality, providing applied examples at the individual, intrasocietal, and intersocietal levels. / Graduate / 2018-12-18

The Mental Capacity Act 2005, and the domestic law surrounding it, is currently in a state of instability, having undergone rigorous scrutiny by the House of Lords Select Committee. At an international level, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities 2006 has cast substantial doubt over the very basis of this legal framework. The recommendations made by the Select Committee, and any resulting action by the government to address these, will be hoped to have an impact on the implementation of the legislation on those falling within its remit. On a deeper level, however, this thesis seeks to critically engage with the theoretical underpinnings which inform and guide this legislative framework. This entails a questioning of the ways in which those with disabilities and their carers are responded to under the statute. Exploring the theoretical debates in this context leads to a conclusion that the Act promulgates an individualistic approach to the concept of mental capacity, and does not adequately reflect the reality and lived experiences of those deemed to lack capacity or their informal carers. The papers in this thesis interrogate these issues through a focus on three distinct areas- carers interests under the best interests test; the Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards though a social model lens; and capacity to consent to sex. In doing so, this thesis suggests that more relationally and contextually focused approaches can inform a legal framework which is attentive and responsive to the interwoven interests of those with cognitive impairments and their carers, and which facilitates the enjoyment of rights through a focus on the societal, structural and institutional barriers which have historically worked to exclude these individuals.