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While scholarly efforts have helped promote an investigation into women’s leadership, dominant, male-centered paradigms and methods have presented a limited and marginalizing view of the complex ways in which women lead and engage in relationships. In this book, we focus on women as influential community leaders. Keeping the Fire is not merely a metaphor, it is a call to honor the enduring flame of women’s work and leadership, and let its warmth guide us toward more just, whole, and connected futures.
Within the chapters, authors illustrate how women use their agency, identify and address community needs, and understand relationality as an organic evolution of leadership. Part 2 is divided into three distinct sections: Communityship and Spirituality; Communityship and Healing; and Leading Empowerment, presenting contributions from and about women who represent different cultures, races, and experiences, and use paradigms and methods that honor the multiple ways of knowing about and leading communally as women. Stories, narratives, and portraits explore the women who inspire, influence, and ultimately transform their communities.
Lazarina N. Topuzova, PhD is a Professor of Organizational Leadership at Robert Morris University. Her research expertise is in developing leadership capacity in community and grassroots organizations, leadership for peace, and women in leadership.
Kem Gambrell, PhD is an Anglo scholar and educator serving as professor and chair of Gonzaga University’s Doctoral Program in Leadership Studies. Her work explores women, constructive development, compassion, Indigenous perspectives, and decolonization in leadership and communityship.
Sydney D. Richardson, PhD is an Associate Professor of Leadership Studies at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University. Her research intersects community leadership development and leader identity with marginalized entrepreneurs.
Introduction; Lazarina N. Topuzova, Kem Gambrell, and Sydney D. Richardson
PART I. COMMUNITYSHIP AND SPIRITUALITY
Chapter 1. Communityship: A Harmonious Western Buddhist Sangha; Kem Gambrell
Chapter 2. The Courage, Power and Influence, and Intelligent Disobedience of Indomitable Catholic Nuns in Kenya; Lawrence Achal Kyaligonza
Chapter 3. The Discrete Power of Relational Leadership; Ella Ruth Anaya
Chapter 4. Warriors of the Human Spirit: Margaret Wheatley’s Answer to Societal Crisis; Randal Joy Thompson
PART II. COMMUNITYSHIP AND HEALING
Chapter 5. Towards Planetary Health through Wisdoms and Everyday Acts by Women: Examples from the Middle East and Canadian North; Erin Dixon, Camilla Alay Llamas, Hanan Hlayhel, and Wanda Krause
Chapter 6. The Human Resilience Project: Centering Indigenous and Women’s Voices in the Conversation around Trauma, Climate Change, and Thriving; Lisa Courtnadge
Chapter 7. Boundaries of Change: The Fire and Desire of Black Women Leaders and the Case for Community-First Activism; Zakia Y. Gates
Chapter 8. Focus that Ignites Resilient Empowerment (FIRE); Debby Flickinger and Martha Brumbaugh
PART III. LEADING EMPOWERMENT
Chapter 9. Cultivating Connection: How Flourishing Women Mentors Inspire Change in Corporate Cultures; Holly Kasnetz
Chapter 10. From the Ground Up: Rural Zambian Women’s Economic Narratives; Simon Zulu and Gerda van Dijk
Chapter 11. Making Herstory as a Transformative Framework for Leadership Development; Justine Arian-Edwards
Chapter 12. Kindling Change: The SHORT the Squirrel Literacy Movement; Dee Dupree Bennet and Monica Anderson Young
Chapter 13. Reclaiming the Power and Warmth of Feminization in Early Childhood Education; Susan W. Parker and Jennifer H. Tepe