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This thesis is an ethnographic study of five women???s organisations in Malang, Indonesia. The contemporary significance of local women???s organisations in the lives of kampung women in Indonesia is revealed through an investigation of the relationship between the Indonesian state, local communities and women. This study sets contemporary women???s organisations in the context of their changing historical role and relationship with the state. Women???s organisations have been a part of the Indonesian political and social landscape since the early twentieth century. They played an important role in mobilising women during the struggle for independence. Under Sukarno???s policy of Guided Democracy, restrictions were placed on the political mobilising role of all organisations, including those for women. These restrictions were taken much further under Suharto???s New Order government when many were proscribed. Only state-approved and controlled organisations were accepted. The New Order era essentially undermined the credibility of women???s organisations as vehicles for promoting women???s interests, instead they were generally regarded as ???tools of the state???. Indonesianists and feminists have been especially critical of state-run women???s organisations arguing they have offered Indonesian women ???no path to female power???. This perception of state-sponsored women???s organisations has continued in the post-Suharto era even though their links to the state have changed radically. They now exist alongside a range of NGOs, religious and social women???s organisations. The crucial question that this thesis addresses is why these state-sponsored organisations continue to exist and what motivates women???s participation in these organisations? Through membership in local women???s organisations women enter into a complex relationship with the state, local society and the socio-religious and political institutions within the wider society. The membership status women enjoy provides them with opportunities to engage in a social bargain. Through this bargaining process, local women make social, religious, personal and romantic gains for themselves. The results of the social bargaining process depend largely on the particular organisation to which women belong but they remain strongly oriented towards their local kampung worlds. The thesis provides an alternative way of thinking about the complex role that women???s organisations play in Indonesian society and what function they may continue to have within Indonesia???s post-Suharto future.

The aim of this study was to explore the role of the Church in rural areas with specific reference to the South West region of Queensland and focusing on the provision of social welfare services. The region of Queensland, described by the Australian Bureau of Statistics as the South West, lies to the west of Brisbane, commencing at Yuleba, and stretches to the South Australian border. The region was populated by between ten and fifteen indigenous nations prior to European settlement. Since the 1840s the South West has seen the development of primary industries and the formation of rural communities. A grounded theory research approach was used in this study, which drew upon data collected through a series of programs conducted by the community support agency Lifeline. These data sets included individual stories of extreme hardship, connected chains of evidence and group responses. They provided an overview of the issues facing residents of the South West, including those issues pertinent to the role of Christian denominations throughout the region. The significant issues which emerged from the study related to the concerns of rural residents over their personal health, their self image, the state of their interpersonal relationships, the viability of their enterprises, the loss of community facilities, and the decreasing rural population. With specific reference to the Church, respondents indicated that harsh conditions had challenged their faith, reduced their ability to be involved in church-based activities and added to their concerns over the reduction of resident clergy and Church facilities in rural areas. Respondents in the study presented a widespread sense of powerlessness in regard to decisions made regarding funding for their local communities and management decisions made by Church authorities without any local consultation. The conclusions from this study indicate that the Church does have an ongoing role in rural communities provided that the Christian denominations recognise and respond to the concerns of the rural residents in regard to denominational structures, rural theology and the principles underlying the provision of rural social services. The study recommends that the Christian denominations put into practice the statements which have been made by denominational leaders in regard to the formation of an ecumenical training program for clergy and lay leaders who may work in rural areas. An urgent need is revealed for a new approach to gender issues so that the role of women in rural industry, producer organizations, government committees and Church management can be examined as broadly as possible. The study also indicated the need for further research into the future of Australia's rural communities and the ways in which they may differ as communities from the urban areas of Australia.

Griselda Gambaro’s work had been studied previously under the confrontation of victims and their oppressors where the oppressor’s role is played by male characters while women play the victim part. However, in Gambaro’s four monologues that were written in 1970 and 1974, just before the Argentinean military dictatorship that took place in 1976, there were no male characters. However Gambaro’s monologues, even without male characters, illustrate the violence, repression and stark violations of human rights in an “apparently” democratic time in Argentina. This is possible because the women characters plunder their passive feminine identity by acquiring male behaviors full of aggression which threatens their own elimination. The details of the role of women as victims and oppressors are described in this dissertation.

This thesis examines the work of the United Farm Workers of America (UFW) in the eastern Coachella Valley between 1965 and 1973. I reconstruct the major events that occurred in Coachella and argue that the valley's climate and diverse farm worker population contributed to a unique set of labor organizing experiences. These circumstances in Coachella affected the grape harvest and were key in both the success and demise of UFW efforts in Coachella.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Oregon, 2001. / Typescript. Includes vita and abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 279-296). Also available for download via the World Wide Web; free to University of Oregon users.

Thesis (D. Min.)--Concordia Theological Seminary, Ft. Wayne, 1987. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 106-112).