Author's Keywords: community organizing, democratic practice, social capital, religion and politics, authority, identity politics, Detroit	Convention All Academic Convention makes running your annual conference simple and cost effective. It is your online solution for abstract management, peer review, and scheduling for your annual meeting or convention. Submission - Custom fields, multiple submission types, tracks, audio visual, multiple upload formats, automatic conversion to pdf. Review - Peer Review, Bulk reviewer assignment, bulk emails, ranking, z-score statistics, and multiple worksheets! Reports - Many standard and custom reports generated while you wait. Print programs with participant indexes, event grids, and more! Scheduling - Flexible and convenient grid scheduling within rooms and buildings. Conflict checking and advanced filtering. Communication - Bulk email tools to help your administrators send reminders and responses. Use form letters, a message center, and much more! Management - Search tools, duplicate people management, editing tools, submission transfers, many tools to manage a variety of conference management headaches! Click here for more information.
Association: Name: WESTERN POLITICAL SCIENCE ASSOCIATION URL: http://www.csus.edu/ORG/WPSA/
Citation: URL: http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p237978_index.html Direct Link: HTML Code:

Rusch, Lara. ""You see me but it's not me:" The Interplay of Religious Authority and Lay Empowerment in Congregation-Based Community Organizing" Paper presented at the annual meeting of the WESTERN POLITICAL SCIENCE ASSOCIATION, Manchester Hyatt, San Diego, California, Mar 20, 2008 <Not Available>. 2009-05-23 <http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p237978_index.html>

Rusch, L. C. , 2008-03-20 ""You see me but it's not me:" The Interplay of Religious Authority and Lay Empowerment in Congregation-Based Community Organizing" Paper presented at the annual meeting of the WESTERN POLITICAL SCIENCE ASSOCIATION, Manchester Hyatt, San Diego, California Online <APPLICATION/PDF>. 2009-05-23 from http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p237978_index.html

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript Abstract: This case study focuses on the interaction of community organizers and their democratic practices with religious congregations. The analysis draws on narratives from in-depth interviews and participant observation to characterize the perspectives of organizers, active laity, and clergy in a community organizing project in Detroit. Their interactions shed light on internal institutional dynamics that affect people�s ability to draw on their community institutions for political action. The research contributes to scholarly debates on the politics of social capital and how bonding social capital can be a resource for democratic politics, especially for marginalized groups. Existing literature on religious and political participation emphasizes the differences between hierarchical and autonomous congregational structures and highlights the comparative disengagement of Catholics. This study uses interpretive methods to suggest how power relations within congregations may be a resource and/or a limitation for lay empowerment and collective action across denomination. The effects of denomination on congregations� participation in the organizing project appear to be mediated by how clergy and laity make sense of authority and their own roles within congregations. Participants understand internal roles of authority partly in reference to experiences of inequality in the larger political system. This research suggests the importance of observing roles of authority and how they are manifested in particular settings, in addition to studying the presence or absence of structural hierarchy.

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