Localisation and Resilience at the local level: the case of Transition Town Totnes

This thesis provides a critical review of the Transition movement, a grassroots response to peak oil and climate change, co-founded by this author. It focuses on two key aspects of the Transition approach, resilience and economic relocalisation, with the aim of analysing whether and how they can be implemented in a locality based on the Transition approach, and assessing what socio-economic and community-related structures would be necessary to implement such a process. The focus of the research is Totnes, Devon, which because of its status as the UK’s first Transition initiative and the longer history of various initiatives to promote local resilience, offers a valuable case study of attempts to practically implement resilience and localisation. A variety of research methods were employed, including surveys, focus groups, oral history and in-depth interviews, as well less conventional public participation methods such as Open Space and World Café. The first major finding was that Transition Town Totnes (TTT) has become a significant organisation in the town, with a high level of popular support. It was also found that the obstacles to resilience and relocalisation lie not, as was hypothesised, in a lack of skills or an absence of community cohesion, but in issues of governance and the need for increased social entrepreneurship. It was found that what researchers call the ‘Value Action Gap’ (i.e. the gap between people’s declared sympathies and intentions and their actions) exists in Totnes as much as anywhere else, but that some of TTT’s projects, such as ‘Transition Together’, are working imaginatively to overcome this and to reduce emissions. From this evidence is it concluded that Transition’s approach towards relocalisation and reducing carbon emissions can be argued to be effective in, generating engagement and initiating new enterprises. Like other ‘green’ initiatives, it struggles to engage those from more disadvantaged backgrounds, but some of its initiatives are showing promise for overcoming this. Its primary contribution is in suggesting a redefining of resilience, not as a state of preparedness for disaster, but as a desired characteristic of a sustainable society. A more resilient community, it is argued, would be one more in control of its food and energy production, as well as being one that enables inward financial investment. It also argues that the government focus on ‘localism’, the devolving of political power to the local level, ought to be expanded to include ‘localisation’, the strengthening of local production to meet local needs, a shift which would financially benefit local communities. It argues that the key challenge for Transition initiatives such as TTT is going to be scaling up from being ‘niche’ organisations to become economically viable organisations with a broad appeal and engagement, and also articulates the need for ‘Resilience Indicators’ which would allow communities to measure the degree to which their levels of resilience are increasing.Economic and Social Research Council

Listen Here: Women Writing in Appalachia

Listen Here: Women Writing in Appalachia is a landmark anthology that brings together the work of 105 Appalachian women writers, including Dorothy Allison, Harriette Simpson Arnow, Annie Dillard, Nikki Giovanni, Denise Giardina, Barbara Kingsolver, Jayne Anne Phillips, Janice Holt Giles, George Ella Lyon, Sharyn McCrumb, and Lee Smith. Editors Sandra L. Ballard and Patricia L. Hudson offer a diverse sampling of time periods and genres, established authors and emerging voices. From regional favorites to national bestsellers, this unprecedented gathering of Appalachian voices displays the remarkable talent of the region’s women writers who’ve made their mark at home and across the globe. A successful anthology entices readers to move from its pages to find additional works by the writers included. Listen Here , therefore, is going to keep our libraries and bookstores busy for years to come. -- A! Magazine A marvelous confluence of compelling subject matter and almost perfectly executed presentation. Those who care about the literature of our region need to have this book at their fingertips because this is the authoritative guide to its subject. -- Appalachian Heritage Like a feast table piled high with samplers of everybody\u27s best recipes. -- Appalachian Journal If you haven\u27t taken your beach vacation yet this summer, pack this book in your suitcase. Its 673 pages will keep you entertained . . . and the stories you read in it will nourish your mind and warm your heart throughout the coming fall and winter and far, far beyond. -- Appalachian Life Magazine Besides introducing readers to many new voices, the anthology provides a strong counterpart to the stereotype of hillbillies that have cursed the region. -- Raintaxi Review -- Atlanta Journal-Constitution A giant step forward in Appalachian studies for both students and scholars of the region and the general reader. . . . Nothing less than a groundbreaking and landmark addition to the national treasury of American literature. -- Bloomsbury Review What rings true through it all is the truth of women’s experiences, not only in Appalachia, but universally. -- Chevy Chaser Full of welcome surprises to those new to this regional literature: specifically, it includes particularly strong selections from children’s fiction and a substantial number of African American writers. -- Choice Collectively, the 105 writers featured in Listen Here prove themselves, and their region, worthy of the wide recognition that has historically eluded them. -- Floyd County Times Counters the misperception that there is no significant body of Appalachian literature, particularly literature written by women, with the sheer volume of work included. -- Journal of Appalachian Studies A textbook companion for anyone interested in women’s literature—or anyone interested in a more complete view of American literature than that found in most textbooks. -- Knoxville (TN) News-Sentinel A remarkable accomplishment, bringing together the work of 105 female Appalachian writers saying what they want to, and saying it in impressive bodies of literature. -- Lexington Herald-Leader A remarkable new anthology of 105 Appalachian women writers, many of whom have been forgotten or marginalized by the mainstream literary establishment. One of the keenest pleasures in Listen Here lies in its diversity of voices and genres. -- Material Culture An important contribution to Appalachian literary life. -- Mountain Eagle Collects work by 105 Appalachian writers, including Gail Godwin, Lee Smith, and Barbara Kingsolver, composed during the past 170 years. -- Raleigh (NC) News & Observer A comprehensive and unsurpassed anthology of women writers from Appalachia. . . . Exceptional in diversity and scope. -- Southern Historian A number of wonderful gems [are] sprinkled throughout the 600 plus pages. -- Red Raven Circling (redravencircling.wordpress.com)https://uknowledge.uky.edu/upk_appalachian_studies/1029/thumbnail.jp

A means to an end : the sustainability of bivocational ministry

https://place.asburyseminary.edu/ecommonsatsdissertations/1842/thumbnail.jp

Re-Visioning bisexuality: rhizomatic cartographies of sex, gender and sexuality

This thesis is a sociological study of bisexuality and gender in Australian society. A theoretical frame informed by philosophers Deleuze and Guattari is deployed to analyse data from 47 interviews. It finds that the diversity of participants’ bisexual lives challenge conventional dichotomous understandings of heterosexual/homosexual, man/woman and masculine/feminine

Digital Alchemy: A Hermeneutic Phenomenological Investigation of Digital Storytelling for Peace and Justice

This study explores the experiences of undergraduate students enrolled in an education I-Series (University of Maryland undergraduate courses designed to inspire innovation, imagination, and intellect) course, Good Stories: Teaching Stories for Peace and Justice. In this course students are asked to produce digital stories that project themes of peace and justice. The locus of this study focuses on the essential question: In what ways do participants world their experiences producing digital stories for peace and justice? The methodology of hermeneutic phenomenology is employed in order to elucidate interpretive understandings about digital storytelling for peace and justice in the experiences of nine undergraduates over the course of one semester. The metaphor of alchemy is used since the practice of alchemy entailed amalgamating base metals in the hopes of transmuting them into gold. Jung (1968) likens this process to our experience of becoming individuated, whole, and healthy human beings. Digital media amalgamates image sound and written text in order to enhance narrative, making it an apt metaphor since it captures the synergism inherent in both the metaphor of alchemy and the multimodality inherent in digital stories. The methodological practices for this inquiry employ van Manen's (1997) human science research. This inquiry elucidates the participants' experiences on being students of digital media in addition becoming agentive knowers capable of projecting digital stories for the purposes of peace and justice. The conspicuousness of developing the technological know-how of producing digital media also takes particular precedent in this study. Themes of the ways in which students are concerned by being students, producing digital stories the "right" way, and developing particular stances on their understandings of peace and justice are disclosed. Additionally, the pedagogical implications for designing teaching and learning of digital media are discussed. These implications focus on ways educators may develop pedagogical tact in engaging and apprenticing students in digital media. These pedagogical understandings may open possible opportunities for classrooms to be transformed into digital media studios where students develop critical stances through the practice of digitally designing narratives for the purposes of extending care, caring, and caring for others to possible global audiences

Kimberley Women : Their Experiences of Making a Remote Locality Home

In previous histories of Western Australia, pre-dominantly written from a male Eurocentric viewpoint, scant attention has been drawn to the everyday lives of country women. The study described in this dissertation explores the responses of women to the challenges of relocation and settlement within a remote locality in the Kimberley region of Western Australia

Philomela and her sisters : explorations of sexual violence in plays by British contemporary women dramatists

The theme of this thesis is women and violence explored in eleven plays by British contemporary women playwrights in the 1980s and 1990s. In order to explore these plays, I have made investigations into a basic knowledge of violence against women in the Introduction. Violence against women is also called sexual violence or gender-related violence. The knowledge I have gained includes how sexual violence is defined; why sexual violence occurs; what kinds of sexual violence there are; how people perceive sexual violence. My definition is that any act which limits the autonomy of women constitutes sexual violence. Based on a variety of definitions by feminist scholars, there are many forms of sexual violence in women's history around the world. As a result, I have found out the continuity, diversity, and universality of women's pain. The nature of sexual violence has been mistaken by many people from the perspective of prevailing myths about women's sexuality. Because of them, many women and female children become double victims. Having understood the true nature of sexual violence, I have selected eleven plays which explore women and violence: The Love of the Nightingale (1988) by Timberlake Wertenbaker; Crux (1991) by April de Angelis; The Taking of Liberty (1992) by Cheryl Robson; Augustine (Big Hysteria) (1991) by Anna Furse; The Gut Girls (1988) by Sarah Daniels; Ficky Stingers (1986) by Eve Lewis; Beside Herself (1990) by Sarah Daniels; Thatcher's Women (1987) by Kay Adshead; Money to Live (1984) by Jacqueline Rudet; Low Level Panic (1988) by Clare McIntyre; Masterpieces (1984) by Sarah Daniels. The thesis is divided into two parts depending on whether the plays are set in the past or present in order to identify the continuity of sexual violence. They depict the exercise of men's power through sexual violence. In the plays women experience violence committed by men and then they are silenced. However, the women demonstrate their fighting spirit and regain their voice or find ways to express themselves. Women's hope for change is expressed through theatre

Ambivalent Idylls: Hardy, Glasgow, Faulkner, and the Pastoral.

Thomas Hardy, Ellen Glasgow, and William Faulkner used the pastoral mode to show the contradictions, inconsistencies, and dangers in some forms of bucolic idyll. The ambivalence of their texts toward the rural world causes many critics to deny or overlook the presence of the pastoral mode in the work of these three novelists. A study of pastoral literature reveals that its characteristics have never been as fixed as many theorists would like to believe. Pastoral redefines, subverts, and reinvents itself as it interacts with different people, cultures, and languages. The theories of Mikhail Bakhtin help us to understand textual ambivalence toward the pastoral mode, especially when employed in the novel. The novel is dialogic, allowing other voices to speak, thereby disrupting the authority of a single voice. Pastoral discourse may be used to impose a hegemonic culture through an authoritative discourse. Pastoral becomes an official ideology, legitimizing and reinforcing oppression by means of a bucolic myth. The dialogic nature of the novel allows the oppressed voices to speak, problematizing the idyllic aspects of pastoral life. Bakhtin\u27s concept of carnival permits us to see how laughter parodies and calls into question the idealism characteristic of many versions of pastoral. The texts of Hardy, Glasgow, and Faulkner deal with characters and cultures which have inherited certain versions of pastoral myth. Their texts reveal how pastoral often becomes a discourse that encourages domination. Hardy, Glasgow, and Faulkner use class, gender, racial, and religious issues to problematize the idyllic aspects of pastoral. The primary texts under consideration in this work are Under the Greenwood Tree, Far from the Madding Crowd, The Woodlanders, The Return of the Native, and Tess of the d\u27Urbervilles by Hardy; The Battle-Ground, Virginia, Vein of Iron, and Barren Ground, by Glasgow; and Absalom, Absalom!, Light in August, Go Down, Moses, and the Snopes trilogy, The Hamlet, The Town, and The Mansion by Faulkner. These plots, characters, and narrations reveal the difficulties experienced by societies and individuals when pastoral idealism meets the inconsistencies and contradictions within and without its own discourse

Women and knowledge : a study of eight doctoral students in the School of Education, University of North Carolina at Greensboro

This paper concerns the relationships between women and knowledge. Beginning with traditional and contemporary definitions of knowledge and the socially constructed place along the margins of culture that women have assumed over time, it confronts the present day issues women encounter as they enter the public, professional realm of knowledge as graduate students and one day college professors. This analysis includes the nature of the academy as a bastion of male privilege and women's personal redefinitions of themselves as participants in academe. In the course of eight interviews with doctoral candidates, notions of what women know, what "women's knowledge" might to for the world, and what women seek in schooling as an alternative pedagogy emerge. The dissertation concludes with a schematic description of a new, amended curriculum

Omaha Sunday Bee - May 9, 1926

May 9, 1926 issue of the Omaha Sunday Bee. In addition to the usual sections, includes the magazine section (primarily serialized narratives) and the photo arts section.https://openspaces.unk.edu/dar-capsule/1015/thumbnail.jp