Pope Paul VI’s notion of “integral human development,” which was endorsed by his successors including Pope Francis, broke with the modern project of purely economic and technological development, resulting in an original understanding of development. Like a conventional notion of development, this theoretical construct favors economic growth, technological innovation, and the implementation of social programs. However, development is not just a socioeconomic and political issue, let alone a technical one; it raises, fundamentally, theological questions and points to important ethical challenges. Hence, integral human development is a vocation at which all personal, social, and political activity must be directed. As such, it is not a social but an anthropological program. Far from being a secular development theory, the notion of “integral human development” emphasizes the religious goal of reconciling humanity and God through the creation of a human family over and above material social and economic issues. Sustained by global principle and shaped by different cultural views, this book brings forth the uniqueness of this approach to development, examines its contribution to human welfare, and anticipates the resistances it may face.

Alexander Schieffer and Ronnie Lessem introduce a groundbreaking development framework and process to address the most burning issues that humanity faces. While conventional top-down, outside-in development has reached a cul-de-sac, a new, integral form of development is emerging around the world. Integral Development uniquely articulates this emergent approach, and invites us to fully participate in this process. The integral approach has been researched and framed over decades of in-depth experience in transformative development education and practice all over the world. It uniquely combines four mutually reinforcing perspectives: nature and community; culture and spirituality; science, systems and technology; and enterprise and economics. Conventional development theory and practice has prioritized the latter two perspectives, neglecting the former two. This has caused massive imbalances in today’s world. The four interconnected perspectives allow for a transformative and integrated engagement with core development issues in a way that is locally relevant and globally resonant. Throughout, the practical impact of Integral Development is brought to life through highly innovative cases from around the globe, drawing on the authors` first-hand experience. This makes the book a living demonstration of the power of this pioneering approach. Integral Development shows how individual, organizational and societal developments need to be interconnected to release a society’s full potential. It shifts the responsibility for large-scale development from often-distant experts and organizations to each individual, community, enterprise and institution within the society. It is essential reading - and a call to action - for everyone concerned with the current state of local and global development.

In recent years anthropologists have focused on informal, unfree, and other nonnormative labor arrangements and labeled them as "noncapitalist." In Along the Integral Margin, Stephen Campbell pushes back against this idea and shows that these labor arrangements are, in fact, important aspects of capitalist development and that the erroneous "noncapitalist" label contributes to obscuring current capitalist relations. Through powerful, intimate ethnographic narratives of the lives and struggles of residents of a squatter settlement in Myanmar, Campbell challenges narrow conceptions of capitalism and asserts that nonnormative labor is not marginal but rather centrally important to Myanmar's economic development. Campbell's narrative approach brings individuals who are often marginalized in accounts of contemporary Myanmar to the forefront and raises questions about the diversity of work in capitalism.

The theory of integral dynamics is based on the view that the development of individual leaders or entrepreneurs requires the simultaneous development of institutions and societies. It seeks a specific way forward for each society, fundamentally different from, but drawing on, its past. Nearly every natural science has been transformed from an analytically-based approach to a dynamic one: now it is time for society and culture to follow suit locally and globally. Each culture, discipline and person is incomplete and is in need of others in order to develop and evolve. This book sets out a curriculum for a new integral, trans-cultural and trans-disciplinary area of study, inclusive of, but extending beyond, economics and enterprise. It embraces a trans-personal perspective, linking self with community, enterprise and society, and focusing on the vital relationship between local identity and global integrity. For the government policy maker, the enlightened business practitioner, and the student and researcher into economics and enterprise, the new discipline is set out here in complete detail by a multi-national team of Gower's Transformation and Innovation Series authors. Illuminated with examples relating the conceptual to the practical, this is a text, not for a pre-modern, modern, or even post-modern era, but for what has been called our trans-modern age.

In this fourth and final volume of the CARE-ing for Integral Development series, Ronnie Lessem integrates all that has come before in terms of: Community activation; Awakening integral consciousness; and institutionalized Research. Here he focuses on individual and community development alongside that of the organization or society, and sets it in the context of an integral economy. The four critical success factors identified in recognizing and releasing integral development aligned with CARE are: GROUNDING - linking up with and building upon existing local and global movements for socio-economic development; EMERGENCE - maintaining interconnected focus; NAVIGATING - locating and developing GENE-ius in a particular community/society; EFFECTING - committing to resolving an issue and identifying the most fertile development path. Embodying Integral Development offers a comprehensive system of accreditation. Supported by examples and illustrations of CARE, this book makes a case for Integral Development as a whole. It argues that it is a qualitative means of self-assessment rather than a quantitative one, focused on engagement, immersion and interpretation, as well as evaluation, rather than empirical verification.

This book explores the role of Catholic peacebuilding in addressing the global mining industry. Mining is intimately linked to issues of conflict, human rights, sustainable development, governance, and environmental justice. As an institution of significant scope and scale with a large network of actors at all levels and substantial theoretical and ethical resources, the Catholic Church is well positioned to acknowledge the essential role of mining, while challenging unethical and harmful practices, and promoting integral peace, development, and ecology. Drawing together theology, ethics, and praxis, the volume reflects the diversity of Catholic action on mining and the importance of an integrated approach. It includes contributions by an international and interdisciplinary range of scholars and practitioners. They examine Catholic action on mining in El Salvador, Peru, Colombia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and the Philippines. They also address general issues of corporate social responsibility, human rights, development, ecology, and peacebuilding. The book will be of interest to scholars of theology, social ethics, and Catholic studies as well as those specializing in development, ecology, human rights, and peace studies.

“In the heart of this world, the Lord of life, who loves us so much, is always present. He does not abandon us, he does not leave us alone, for he has united himself definitively to our earth, and his love constantly impels us to find new ways forward. Praise be to him!” – Pope Francis, Laudato Si’ In his second encyclical, Laudato Si’: On the Care of Our Common Home, Pope Francis draws all Christians into a dialogue with every person on the planet about our common home. We as human beings are united by the concern for our planet, and every living thing that dwells on it, especially the poorest and most vulnerable. Pope Francis’ letter joins the body of the Church’s social and moral teaching, draws on the best scientific research, providing the foundation for “the ethical and spiritual itinerary that follows.” Laudato Si’ outlines: The current state of our “common home” The Gospel message as seen through creation The human causes of the ecological crisis Ecology and the common good Pope Francis’ call to action for each of us Our Sunday Visitor has included discussion questions, making it perfect for individual or group study, leading all Catholics and Christians into a deeper understanding of the importance of this teaching.

In 2010 Ronnie Lessem and Alexander Schieffer published their seminal work on Integral Research and Innovation, whereby they identified the four R’s; relational and renewal, reason and realization based research paths that altogether encompass the major qualitative research methods and methodologies. Within each path they identified a trajectory from origination to transformation via foundation and emancipation. However these paths, underlying the research process, conventionally termed 'method', were disconnected from the integral economic and enterprise content, conventionally termed 'literature', with which they were concerned. In this book, Integral Renewal they seek to remedy such, in two major respects. As transformative masters and PhD programs are focused on the 'Global South', where the vast majority of the world’s population is based, as well as those developmental agencies focused on such, the great majority of the people with whom the authors deal select the relational research path, and the path of renewal, over and above the paths of reason and realization. The focus of this book will be on these two paths of integral research, now interconnected with integral enterprise and economics. Uniquely, the authors pursue research and innovation in a systematic way. In that respect, while their prior Integral Research book still provides the research foundation for the four southern and eastern, northern and western paths, this book will focus on the former two relational (southern) and renewal (eastern) from the combined perspectives of research process and economic and enterprise content.

Forbidden moves beyond the conceptualization of a ban on nuclear weapons to the implementation of the Pope's teachings, the first pontiff to condemn possession. This book interweaves the essential witness of survivors of nuclear attacks and test explosions with the voices of leaders who provide needed context for Pope Francis's condemnation.