Keeping the Fire, Part 2

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.