Download or read book Parish Transformation in Urban Slums written by Christine Bodewes and published by Paulines Publications Africa. This book was released on 2005 with total page 231 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The poverty of people living in urban slums in Kenya and other parts of sub-Saharan Africa is one of the greatest scandals of our time. Much has been written about the causes of poverty, yet there seems to be little improvement. One reason for this failure is that many programmes are focused on "doing something for the poor but not with the poor." Through a two-year process of social analysis and theological reflection, the parishioners of Christ the King Catholic Church in Kibera slum examined the many injustices facing them in their daily lives. The aim of the parish was to better understand the reality of life in Kibera so that it could people improve their lives in a more responsive and holistic way. This book is a summary of the parish's findings. In their own words, parishioners describe their history, living conditions, socio-economic problems, parish life and African culture that are particular to Kibera. It is a unique perspective because parishioners evaluated these problems in the light of their faith. As a Christian community, parishioners made a plan and have begun their own initiatives to resolve the most serious injustices facing them. This is an important resource for people working in slums."--p. 4 of cover.
Download or read book Civil Society in Africa written by Christine Bodewes and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2014-01-03 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines the efforts of one particular civil society organization, the human rights ministry of a Catholic parish located in the Kibera slum in Nairobi, to determine the extent to which it was able to promote democracy, human rights and the rule of law. It concludes from an analysis of the social, economic and political environment of Kibera as well as church structures, that parishioners demonstrated an observable improvement in their democratic values and behavior at a localized level, but they did not increase their involvement in advocacy and lobbying efforts. Parishioners were inhibited from holding government officials to account for their abuse of power primarily due to fears of retaliation; other factors such as apathy, ethnic divisions, limited resources and restrictive church protocols further curtailed their actions. The findings of this book are important for scholars and students active in the fields of political science, African Christianity, development studies, international law and human rights. This book is also an important resource for practitioners who are addressing the social, legal, political challenges facing the urban poor in Africa.
Download or read book Urban Development Challenges and Progress written by Dr.Sukanta Sarkar and published by Archers & Elevators Publishing House. This book was released on with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of the Modern Slum written by Alan Mayne and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2023-08-25 with total page 601 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ""Slum" is among the most evocative and judgmental words of the modern world. It originated in the slang language of the world's then-largest city, London, early in the nineteenth century. Its use thereafter proliferated, and its original meanings unraveled as colonialism and urbanization transformed the world, and as prejudice against those disadvantaged by these transformations became entrenched. Cuckoo-like, "slum" overtook and transformed other local idioms: for example, bustee, favela, kampong, shack. "Slum" once justified heavy-handed redevelopment schemes that tore apart poor but viable neighborhoods. Now it underpins schemes of neighbourhood renewal that, seemingly benign in their intentions, nonetheless pay scant respect to the viewpoints of their inhabitants. This Oxford Handbook probes both present-day understandings of slums and their historical antecedents. It discusses the evolution of slum "improvement" policies globally from the early nineteenth century to the early twenty-first century. It encompasses multiple perspectives: anthropology, archaeology, architecture, geography, history, politics, sociology, urban studies and urban planning. It emphasizes the influences of gender and race inequality, and the persistence of subaltern agency notwithstanding entrenched prejudice and unsympathetically-applied institutionalized power. Uniquely, it balances contributions from scholars who deny the legitimacy of "slum" in social and policy analysis, with those who accept its relevance as a measuring stick of social disadvantage and as a vehicle for social reform. This Handbook does not simply footnote the past; it critiques conventional understandings of urban social disadvantage and reform across time and place in the modern world. It suggests pathways for future research and for alleviative reform"--
Download or read book Slums written by Alan Mayne and published by Reaktion Books. This book was released on 2017-08-15 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: More than half of the world’s population now lives in urban areas, and a billion of these urban dwellers reside in neighborhoods of entrenched disadvantage—neighborhoods that are characterized as slums. Slums are often seen as a debilitating and even subversive presence within society. In reality, though, it is public policies that are often at fault, not the people who live in these neighborhoods. In this comprehensive global history, Alan Mayne explores the evolution and meaning of the word “slum,” from its origins in London in the early nineteenth century to its use as a slur against the favela communities in the lead-up to the Rio Olympics in 2016. Mayne shows how the word slum has been extensively used for two hundred years to condemn and disparage poor communities, with the result that these agendas are now indivisible from the word’s essence. He probes beyond the stereotypes of deviance, social disorganization, inertia, and degraded environments to explore the spatial coherence, collective sense of community, and effective social organization of poor and marginalized neighborhoods over the last two centuries. In mounting a case for the word’s elimination from the language of progressive urban social reform, Slums is a must-read book for all those interested in social history and the importance of the world’s vibrant and vital neighborhoods.
Download or read book Seeking a City with Foundations written by David W. Smith and published by Langham Publishing. This book was released on 2019-03-31 with total page 387 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: More than half the people in the world live in cities, including a growing number of megacities with populations exceeding ten million people. This trend means that an understanding of urbanization must be an urgent priority for Christian theology and mission across the globe. This updated edition of Seeking a City with Foundations, with an additional chapter, explores Christian responses to the city, ranging from rejecting the urban as evil, to embracing it as being central to God’s redemptive purposes. Drawing from a wide range of disciplines, including history, social science, urban planning, and the history of art, readers are given a detailed text which confronts the challenges that contemporary urbanization presents to world Christianity. Looking at urbanism as a theme throughout Scripture, culminating with the great vision of the New Jerusalem, David Smith explains that God’s own future is revealed as urban, highlighting the need to identify modern-day idols as we share the gospel in cities and acknowledge the impact of global economic forces. The book also explores the causes of what has been called the divided city and traces the urban theme through the Bible to present an alternative vision of the urban future – a future in which the injustices in ever-growing slums and a crisis of meaning among the privileged might be overcome through the power of the reconciling message of the cross. This timely book proposes a way forward for urban mission, highlighting that transformation of our cities must be the focal point of Christian mission and hope.
Download or read book Now Urbanism written by Jeffrey Hou and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-10-10 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After more than a century of heroic urban visions, urban dwellers today live in suburban subdivisions, gated communities, edge cities, apartment towers, and slums. The contemporary cities we know are more often the embodiment of unexpected outcomes and unintended consequences rather than visionary planning. As an alternative approach for rethinking and remaking today’s cities and regions, this book explores the intersections of critical inquiry and immediate, substantive actions. The contributions inside recognize the rich complexities of the present city not as barriers or obstacles but as grounds for uncovering opportunity and unleashing potential. Now Urbanism asserts that the future city is already here. It views city making as grounded in the imperfect, messy, yet rich reality of the existing city and the everyday purposeful agency of its dwellers. Through a framework of situating, grounding, performing, distributing, instigating, and enduring, these contributions written by a multidisciplinary group of practitioners and scholars illustrate specificity, context, agency, and networks of actors and actions in the re-making of the contemporary city.
Download or read book Religion Religious Organisations and Development written by Carole Rakodi and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-04-04 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collection adds to a burgeoning literature concerned with the roles played by religions in development. The authors do not assume that religion and religious organisations can be ‘used’ to achieve development objectives, or that religiously inspired development work is more holistic, transformative and authentic. Instead, they subject such assumptions to critical and (as far as possible) objective scrutiny, focusing on how adherents of several religious traditions and a variety of organisations affiliated with different religions perceive the idea of development and attempt to contribute to its objectives. Geographically, chapters in the volume encompass Africa, South Asia and the Asia-Pacific. Four of the papers have an international focus: providing a preliminary framework for analysing the role of religion in development, considering the roles played by faith-inspired organisations in two regions (the Asia Pacific and Sub-Saharan Africa) and analysing transnational Muslim NGOs. The individual case studies focus on nine countries (India, Kenya, Pakistan, Nigeria, Tanzania, Sudan, Malawi, Sri Lanka, South Africa), consider four religions (Islam, Hinduism, Christianity, Buddhism), and can be grouped under four themes: they consider religion, wellbeing and inequality; the roles of religious NGOs in development; whether and how religious organisations influence, respond to or resist social change; and whether religious service providers reach the poor. Finally, practice notes show how three religious development organisations try to put their principles into practice. This book was published as a special double issue of Development in Practice.
Download or read book Fire Cast on the Earth Kindling Being Mercy in the Twenty First Century written by International Research Conference and published by Lulu.com. This book was released on 2009-03-01 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Fire Cast on the Earth -- Kindling": Being Mercy in the Twenty- First Century is the proceedings of the International Research Conference sponsored in California in November 2007 by the International Research Commission of the Sisters of Mercy. The book contains the theological reflection process used at the conference, the sixteen research papers presented by international Mercy research scholars, the Vision, Theology, and Praxis that emerged at the conference, and other material. This publication will be of interest to Sisters of Mercy and to all those who are committed to indepth reflection on and response to the global human sufferings in the contemporary world.
Download or read book Microhistories of Technology written by Mikael Hård and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2023-02-20 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this open access book, Mikael Hård tells a story of how people around the world challenged the production techniques and products brought by globalization. Retaining their autonomy and freedom, creative individuals selectively adopted or rejected modern gadgets, tools, and machines. In standard historical narratives, globalization is portrayed as an unstoppable force that flattens all obstacles in its path. Modern technology is also seen as inexorable: in the nineteenth century, steamships, telegraph lines, and Gatling guns are said to have paved the way for colonialism and other forms of dominating people and societies. Later, shipping containers and computer networks purportedly pulled the planet deeper into a maelstrom of capitalism. Hård discusses instances that push back against these narratives. For example, in Soviet times, inhabitants of Samarkand, Uzbekistan, preferred to remain in—and expand—their own mud-brick houses rather than move into prefabricated, concrete residential buildings. Similarly, nineteenth-century Sumatran carpenters ignored the saws brought to them by missionaries—and chose to chop down trees with their arch-bladed adzes. And people in colonial India successfully competed with capitalist-run Caribbean sugar plantations, continuing to produce their own muscovado and sell it to local consumers. This book invites readers to view the history of technology and material culture through the lens of diversity. Based on research funded by the European Research Council and conducted in the Global South, Microhistories of Technology: Making the World shows that the spread of modern technologies did not erase artisanal production methods and traditional tools.
Download or read book Urban Environments in Africa written by Myers, Garth and published by Policy Press. This book was released on 2016-02-24 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Africa's urban populations are growing rapidly, raising numerous environmental concerns as the pace of change stretches local resources and generates hazardous and unhealthy living conditions. Because these urban areas are also linked to the extremes of both poverty and wealth, they offer a unique opportunity for analyzing the many aspects of environmental politics. Drawing on fieldwork data, map analysis, place-name study, interviews, and fiction studies, Garth Myers explores African environmentalism from a variety of perspectives. By acknowledging the clash between Western planning mindsets that focus on sustainable development and the lived realities of residents in often poor, informal settlements, this important book marks a critical advance in the study of Africa's urban environments. It will have a profound impact across disciplines, from geography to urban, development, environmental, and African studies.
Download or read book Mission Ad Gentes written by Alexander Lucie-Smith and published by Paulines Publications Africa. This book was released on 2007 with total page 130 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Women s Health in Africa written by Chimaraoke O. Izugbara and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-10-02 with total page 576 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This edited book includes new policy-relevant research on women’s health issues in Africa. Scholars explore critical topics from different disciplinary traditions using a variety of research methodologies and data sources. The contributors include African scholars with in-depth knowledge of their home contexts, who can furnish nuanced interpretations of local health issues and trends; international researchers who bring vigorous comparative viewpoints; emerging scholars adding to scientific knowledge; and more established researchers with a deep global knowledge of women’s health issues. The range of women’s health issues is vast, including the HIV epidemic and its impacts; domestic violence; the persistence of homebirths; and abortion. In addition, the book investigates emerging health concerns such as CVDs and cancers. Readers will learn that, while old health issues have persisted and assumed new dimensions, newer concerns have materialized and are gaining momentum. The inability of health systems to tackle these issues complicates matters in Africa, creating a sense of desperation that can only be successfully confronted through strong political will and strategic planning, grounded in further research. This book was originally published as several special issues of Health Care for Women International.
Download or read book Handbook of African Catholicism written by Ilo, Stan Chu and published by Orbis Books. This book was released on 2022-07-13 with total page 1003 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A disciplinary map for understanding African Catholicism today by engaging some of the most pressing and pertinent issues, topics, and conversations in diverse fields of studies in African Catholicism"--
Download or read book Living with Dignity written by Elna Mouton and published by AFRICAN SUN MeDIA. This book was released on 2015-01-01 with total page 382 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: By addressing gender equality as a fundamental expression of human dignity and justice on our continent, this collage of ? essays [by 14 women and 6 men], is meant to serve as a concrete alternative to aspects of gender inequality ? Its format is particularly devised for use in the classroom, and for critical-constructive group engagement. It is our sincere prayer that it will also be used in imaginative ways by clergy and in congregations as a necessary part of adult learning programmes.
Download or read book Mothers of the Nations Indigenous Mothering as Global Resistance Reclaiming and Recovery written by Lavell Memee. Harvard and published by Demeter Press. This book was released on 2014-10-01 with total page 346 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The voices of Indigenous women world-wide have long been silenced by colonial oppression and institutions of patriarchal dominance. Recent generations of powerful Indigenous women have begun speaking out so that their positions of respect within their families and communities might be reclaimed. The book explores issues surrounding and impacting Indigenous mothering, family and community in a variety of contexts internationally. The book addresses diverse subjects, including child welfare, Indigenous mothering in curriculum, mothers and traditional foods, intergenerational mothering in the wake of residential schooling, mothering and HIV, urban Indigenous mothering, mothers working the sex trade, adoptive and other mothers, Indigenous midwifery, and more. In addressing these diverse subjects and peoples living in North America, Central America, Sub-Saharan Africa, the Philippines and Oceania, the authors provide a forum to understand the shared interests of Indigenous women across the globe.
Download or read book Community Journalism Midst Media Revolution written by Sue Robinson and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-04-14 with total page 144 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This edited volume documents the changes taking place in local community practices globally. Digital technologies and globalization have forced evolutions in how we go about producing and consuming journalism, and these essays empirically and theoretically advance the scholarly conversations about those trends. What does it mean to serve the information needs of a community in a digitized social world where so many of our ties – weak and strong – are at least partially maintained in virtual worlds? With authors and data from all over the world, this work celebrates a fundamental connectedness to citizens and their community and renews the emphasis on home as a mandate for any locally focused news organization. The contributions to this volume explore the "flows" within both digital spaces and geographic places that are an important foreground to any conversation about what is community today. Several terms are coined and explored in the volume, including "geosocial journalism" and "reciprocal journalism" that account for the essentiality of information sharing in global public realms to inspire feelings of community belonging. Other chapters include a review of Patch.com – one of the largest grassroots, digital platforms for journalism – a survey of how Norwegian community media organizations are adapting to digital worlds, how Swedish citizen sites operate, and the ethics of community journalists to advocate for their citizenry regarding digital matters. Venturing towards both optimism and dismay, the collection argues that understandings of communal borders have expanded. So even if journalists cannot reach the current locals (such as in Africa as one chapter relates) or globally transient locals, digital technologies can help relocate fractured community into a less problematic, virtual space. This requires commitment on the part of both journalists and citizens to preserve those connections, utilize those technologies, and exercise those fundamental principles of community journalism that go back more than half a century. This book was originally published as a special issue of Journalism Practice.
