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Item Access to healthcare for children with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) in Accra, Ghana : challenges and strategies for improvement(2017-04) Lamptey, De-Lawrence; School of Rehabilitation Therapy, Queen’s UniversityFindings of this study reveal that children with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) in Accra are affected by several health conditions, including sensory, respiratory, cardiovascular and gastrointestinal disorders. Results imply that although children with IDD in Ghana might be affected by several health conditions, they confront complex structural and psychosocial barriers in accessing healthcare which undermines Ghana’s commitment on the international front to provide equitable access to healthcare for all. Barriers include financial means, social connections, access to transportation, and attitudes of healthcare providers and the general public toward children with IDD.Item Assessing equity in access to healthy diets in Ecuador following the addition of food sovereignty to the constitution(University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, CA, 2014-04) Garton, Kelly; Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies (Population and Public Health), the University of British ColumbiaThis project aims to provide entry points for policies and programs to improve access to, and consumption of healthy foods. These policy initiatives fall within the scope of a commitment to food sovereignty, which Ecuador introduced to its constitution in 2008 in an effort to improve diets and protect local agricultural production. However, results show knowledge of food sovereignty as nonexistent, likewise awareness of any policies to improve access to healthy food. Affordability could be addressed either by improving linkages between producers and consumers, and by adopting fiscal policies that subsidize healthy foods and tax unhealthy ones.Item Assessing monetary valuation methodologies for estimating the impacts of climate change in the Laguna de Rocha (Uruguay)(Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS, CA, 2012) Fanning, Andrew L.Three valuation methodologies are implemented in this thesis, to estimate the monetary values of climate change impacts on specific ecosystem services. Using a case study of a coastal lagoon ecosystem in Uruguay (Laguna de Rocha), results suggest that climate change is affecting its economic value. Implications for local management and lessons learned from the case study are discussed. Using the market price method is particularly relevant for the case of carbon sequestration services. The ‘change in productivities’ method is the most relevant and feasible methodology for estimating the economic value of climate ‘inputs’ to the productive activities in the Laguna area.Item Being young in Old Town : youth subjectivities and associational life in Bamenda(2008) Fokwang, JudeYoung people are redefining their place in society as they face challenges of AIDS, unemployment, and the failure of nation-building in a post-independence Africa. This study explores youth responses to socio-economic and political marginalization and the kinds of individual and collective agency needed for negotiating transition to social adulthood. It is an ethnographic investigation about what it means to be young in Bamenda, the north-west province of Cameroon. Although biologically adults, young men and women may be far from achieving adult-like independence.Item Biodiversity and human nutrition in a landscape mosaic of farms and forests in the East Usambara Mountains, Tanzania(School of Dietetics and Human Nutrition, McGill University, Montreal, QC, CA, 2012) Powell, Bronwen; School of Dietetics and Human Nutrition, McGill UniversityThis research is one of the first studies to examine dietary diversity as a pathway between biodiversity and nutrition. It provides a novel case study using a systems approach and applies the EcoHealth approach to nutrition. It examines relationships between biodiversity and human nutrition in the East Usambara Mountains, Tanzania (at the landscape level). Biodiversity and landscape level variables were assessed by questionnaire and Geographic Information System (GIS). Most of the dietary diversity scores showed significant positive correlations to energy intake, concurrent with local knowledge which emphasizes the importance of dietary diversity.Item Bridging organizations to improve conservation fit in the Coral Triangle(2017) Berdej, Samantha; Department of Geography, University of WaterlooIdentifying how bridging organizations shape narratives, and what actions and consequences flow from these narratives, can contribute to more effective interventions and conservation policy. Based on three case studies from across southern Indonesia: the Bali Marine Protected Area Network, the Nusa Penida Marine Protected Area and the East Buleleng Conservation Zone, the thesis studies how bridging organizations such as Reef Check Indonesia (RC-I), a national-level NGO; the Ministry of Marine Affairs and Fisheries, Buleleng, a regency-level government agency; and the Indonesian Nature Foundation (LINI), a national-level NGO can cultivate social networks to support interactive processes for more adaptive coastal-marine governance.Item Climate change : vulnerability and adaptation, a case study of men and women farmers in Eritrea(University of Regina, Regina, SK, CA, 2014-03) Tesfamariam, Yordanos; Justice Studies, University of ReginaThis thesis study is based on a theoretical framework of vulnerability and coping mechanisms related to climate change, conducted through the lived experience of farmers in two areas of Eritrea. It explores the impact of climate change on rain-fed subsistence mixed crop and livestock-based agriculture, recognizing that vulnerability is affected by poverty, gender and societal conditions. It includes detailed analysis with practical recommendations from farmers regarding struggles for food security. Vulnerable groups include elders and women farmers. Food shortages are alarming in both good and bad years; in good years food production only provides for 5 months.Item Co-management and community-based organizations : issues of participation, capacity building, and sustainability of local institutions in fisheries systems of Bangladesh(Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, ON, CA, 2013) Mamun, Abdullah-Al; Department of Geography and Environmental Studies, Wilfrid Laurier UniversityFindings indicate that establishment of local organizations was a key project element in all six fisheries co-management sites. However, especially after the completion of the project implementation period, due to their financial and institutional weaknesses, co-management could not influence the rigid power structures in their local communities, as local elites captured and dominated the Community-Based Organizations. Formal rights to manage designated fisheries areas had not been established, even where co-management programs had been in force for well over a decade. A project-based approach may not help sustain this type of grassroots process of institution building.Item Community member learning in a community-based ecotourism project in Northern Vietnam(University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, CA, 2014-12) Linh Thuy Tran; Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies (Educational Studies), University of British ColumbiaInformed by theoretical concepts in adult learning, environmental adult education, and women's empowerment in community development, this study examines the content, process, and outcomes of community member learning in three aspects of a Community-based ecotourism (CBET) project in Vietnam. Field research for the study was undertaken on a model CBET project in Giao Xuan commune near Xuan Thuy National Park, a wetland recognized for its importance to environmental conservation. Study findings indicate that community members in the Giao Xuan CBET project have actively learned to make CBET an effective strategy linking the development of ecotourism with sustainable development.Item Community resilience, disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation : learning with coastal communities in central Vietnam(Carleton University, Ottawa, ON, CA, 2016) Nguyen Huu Trung; Carleton University. Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral AffairsFuture climate change is expected to heighten threats to a majority of Vietnam’s population that lives along the coast, projected to be 63 million people and 1.1 million hectares of agricultural land with a sea level rise of one metre. Coastal communities have their own biophysical and socioeconomic characteristics, impacted by different types, severity and patterns of climate hazards, including drought, salinization, and flooding. The research addresses some strategies that could provide central Vietnam’s coastal communities with ways to enhance community resilience and reduce risks from future climate change.Item Community-based conservation and protected areas in Namibia : social-ecological linkages for biodiversity(Natural Resource Institute, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, MB, CA, 2008) Hoole, ArthurThis study investigates the premise that national park designations and management in Southern Africa decoupled indigenous communities from their local ecosystems. The research explores ways and means to recouple communities and national parks to promote biodiversity. The relationships are characterized between Namibia’s community-based resource management program (CBNRM), conservancies, and protected areas system, with particular reference to the Ehi-rovipuka Conservancy and Etosha National Park in northern Namibia. This is a sparsely populated, arid region, marked by recurrent drought, a stunning wildlife spectacle, and ethnically diverse, communal area villages. The nature and consequences of decoupled social-ecological systems between community and national park are elucidated. Institutional linkages and interplay are identified and described in and between community-based conservation and national parks. Alternative approaches are suggested to the strict protection regimes that typify IUCN Category II National Parks. A qualitative research approach is employed, featuring a case study and several different and interrelated methods of data collection and analysis. Fieldwork in Namibia was completed over a 6 month period. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 51 different key informants representing a cross-section of NGOs, private enterprise, international donors, Namibia’s Ministry of Environment and Tourism, communities and conservancies. Structured interviews were conducted in the case study community of Otjokavare with 40 Herero villagers in the Otjiherero language, employing a community interpreter and field assistant. Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) methods were also employed, including participant observation, memory mapping by 3 village elders, local knowledge mapping by 6 village men and women, and a national park and conservation awareness exercise by 34 Grade 7 pupils at the community primary school. Field research findings were supplemented and triangulated with park and wildlife legislative and policy analyses, as well as the extensive study of regional literature and data sources. Findings reveal an historic and systemic decoupling of social and ecological linkages by national parks in Southern Africa. Colonial wildlife and protected areas legislation, policies and management practice decoupled indigenous peoples from places and resources they traditionally occupied and used in protected areas, iv criminalizing their use of wildlife. The separate removals of Hai||om Bushman and Herero communities from Etosha National Park by central government are presented as compelling examples. Herero elders in Otjokavare shared their memories in narratives and maps, telling a story of forced relocation from and denied return to their ancestral place in the park. Namibia’s CBNRM program and the creation of conservancies on communal lands have recently devolved rights in wildlife to communal area villagers, fostering institutions for community-based conservation. This has been an evolutionary process spanning a 25 year period. Institutional interplay, multiple level linkages and partnerships have proven to be important in this process. Dense social networks of national NGOs, working in support of communal conservancies, and mediating international donor funding, are especially noteworthy. But, partnerships and supportive networks in community-based conservation do not yet bridge the gap between communities and national parks, which still emphasize a command-and-control approach to wildlife management. Villagers of the Ehi-rovipuka Conservancy identify a range of prospective benefits they would like to enjoy from living next to the Etosha National Park. These are then portrayed as potential mechanisms in a model for recoupling social-ecological linkages between communities and national parks. Key attributes of community and natural resources are suggested for effective monitoring, as are incentives and sanctions, to achieve biodiversity and sustainable development outcomes. Dynamic and mobile community-conserved areas, integrated conservation corridors, integrated communityconserved areas and state protected areas are envisioned within a collaborative, adaptive and wide area landscape approach to biodiversity conservation. These represent alternatives to the strict protection regimes of IUCN Category II National Parks, emphasizing ‘community’ and community-based conservation, in contrast to typologies of park and protected area.Item Community-based urban environmental management : a case study of low-income settlements in Delhi, India(University of Toronto, 2008) Sider, David R.; Graduate Department of Geography and Program in Planning and Centre for EnvironmentThis thesis investigates community-based approaches to environmental management in a low-income area of Delhi, India. The research site consists of several neighbourhoods within Sultanpuri Resettlement Colony, a sprawling residential area situated on the northwestern fringe of the city that was established by the government during the 1970s for relocation of squatter households. Given that the level of planned infrastructure and services is fairly basic in Sultanpuri, the study focuses on collective action under the PLUS Project, a recent community-NGO-government collaboration to improve water supply, sanitation, solid waste management, and local municipal parks. The study is motivated by the general lack of documentation about environmental conditions in low-income settlements in urban India and the limited academic attention thus far. Further rationale is the largely unanswered matter of whether, and how, the urban poor can be reasonably expected to act together, either by mutual-help or with external assistance, to achieve a better-quality environment. The research design is a mixed-method case study comprising a community-wide household survey; several smaller purposive surveys of local residents; semi-structured interviews with NGO staff, government officials, and other informants; and a literature search. Social capital and collective action theories are utilized to characterize the prevailing social dynamics in the study community and to assess the inherent potential for collective action around local environmental management. Empirical findings show a somewhat low level of social capital in Sultanpuri, as evidenced by patterns of informal social interaction, associational life, and generalized trust. The outcomes of various collective activities, moreover, are found to be partial, in accord with social capital theory. However, the research highlights a number of shortcomings to the explanatory power of the social capital paradigm, in particular, the importance of human capital for collective action, and also raises important questions about the efficacy of the bottom-up, consensual approach to development in the dominant discourse.Item Conservation of natural resources within mature tropical Forests : how an indigenous community uses and manages wild plants in the Comarca Ngöbe-Buglé, Panama(Carleton University, Ottawa, ON, CA, 2012) Michon, Adèle; Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral AffairsConcerns regarding the degradation of tropical forests and the indigenous communities that rely on them have been growing for decades. However, the use of wild plants and local efforts to manage them remain poorly understood. Using participatory methods, this research examines the use and management of useful wild plants from mature forests by a Ngöbe community in the forested highlands of the Comarca Ngöbe-Buglé in western Panama. Ethnobotanical information about nine plants selected by the participants was obtained through a household survey, interviews, focus groups and harvest trips. The findings show that that the use of wild plants is gendered and varies between households, and that a variety of management practices are used within the community, aimed at reducing the impacts of harvesting. The study also identifies limitations of current management practices for long-term sustainability, and highlights the necessity of basing conservation strategies on local priorities for useful plants.Item Construire son future : production de l'habitation et transformation des rapports de genre à Pikine, Sénégal(Université Laval, 2014) Pinard, ÉmilieCette thèse porte sur la production de l’habitation des quartiers informels et sur sa participation dans le processus d’autonomisation des femmes sénégalaises. Elle documente les acteurs, normes et pratiques impliqués dans la construction résidentielle, par l’étude des cas de dix-sept femmes propriétaires et de leur maison dans quatre quartiers de Pikine, en périphérie de Dakar. Supportée par un cadre théorique qui permet de concevoir l’habitation comme un processus dynamique et multidimensionnel, cette étude met en lumière les rapports sociaux développés autour de la mobilisation des ressources pour construire et de la transformation de la forme bâtie. L’approche méthodologique combine des entretiens narratifs avec les propriétaires sur des séquences de vie et l’histoire de leur maison, des relevés architecturaux, des entretiens avec des intervenants locaux et une enquête sur la population et les habitations des quartiers étudiés. Une attention particulière est portée aux moyens individuels et collectifs déployés par les femmes pour la production de leur habitation, afin d’en éclairer les possibilités et contraintes pour la transformation des rapports de genre et l’autonomisation. La thèse montre que les femmes doivent s’appuyer sur divers réseaux pour mobiliser les ressources pour construire, tout en s’assurant de sécuriser celles-ci pour protéger, à long terme, les possibilités qu’elles ont créées pour elle-même et leur famille et, par le fait même, négocier ou transformer les normes sociales qui les désavantagent. Dans ce processus, l’espace résidentiel devient pour les propriétaires un médium des rapports aux autres et peut contribuer au maintien ou à la perte de cet équilibre entre l’accès à de nouvelles ressources et la sécurisation des acquis. Cette étude remet ainsi en question les interprétations, à la base de nombreux écrits et politiques de logement, sur la nature spontanée des quartiers informels et sur les principaux objectifs associés à la construction dans ce contexte. Pour les femmes propriétaires, le processus de production en lui-même représente une voie vers de nouvelles possibilités sociales et économiques porteuses d’une plus grande sécurité et d’une autonomie; pour « construire son futur », transformer activement sa maison est donc souvent plus important que l’obtention d’un bâtiment fini.Item Criminal Resistance? The Politics of Kidnapping of Oil Workers in Nigeria(2011) Babatunde Oriola, Temitope; Haggerty, Kevin; University of Alberta Department of SociologyThis data provides insights into how the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) seeks to frame insurgency as a form of protest. Impression management pervades kidnapping episodes. While insurgent commanders have succeeded in inventing an alternative political structure for accessing the conventional structures of society, the major concern of the Nigerian state is to provide an atmosphere that is sufficiently safe for oil extraction. For others, kidnapping is a dangerous but innovative means of livelihood in a perpetually depressed economy. While the insurgency generates harms for the oil-producing communities, it also creates benefits for some participants.Item Critical evaluation of the appropriateness of ceramic and biosand filters in rural Cambodia(University of Guelph, Guelph, ON, CA, 2010) Murphy, Heather M.Household or point of use (POU) water treatment technologies have been identified as successful interventions for providing safe water to rural households. In terms of water treatment technology, no one method can treat every type of source water and the process of matching a technology to a particular water source is missing from current POU implementations. Currently, there are two water treatment technologies widely implemented across Cambodia: ceramic water filters and BioSand filters. Both have proven to reduce diarrheal disease by up to 50%; this study contributes to debate on the sustainability of these systems in terms of effectiveness and long term health impact.Item Culture et santé infantile chez les Agotimés du Togo : place de la médecine traditionnelle dans le système de santé publique(2019-05-10) Adedzi, Kodzo Awoenam; Mekki-Berrada, AbdelwahedItem Decision making and role playing : young married women’s sexual and reproductive health in Ahmedabad, India(School of International Development and Global Studies, University of Ottawa, 2012) Sharma, RichaYoung women and men are deeply situated in patriarchal systems where core structures of dominations remained unmoved. This thesis aims to better understand the sexual and reproductive health of young women married during their adolescence, in a marginalized Muslim community in a predominantly Hindu state. Capacities to make and assert decisions were largely determined by a need to conform to socialized expectations for their bodies. Interventions focusing on enhancing contraceptive use among adolescents, or addressing their social vulnerabilities through life-skills program is insufficient in this context. Expressed needs were for information on rights, sexual health, coalition building, and increased livelihood opportunities.Item Democracy and the politics of social citizenship in India(Graduate Department of Political Science, University of Toronto, 2013) Varughese, Anil Mathew; Graduate Department of Political Science, University of TorontoWhy do some pro-poor democracies in global South enact generous and universal social policies accompanied by empowering outcomes while others, similar in many ways, do not? If lower-class integration and programmatic commitment steers policy outcomes to be more egalitarian, what explains the variance in redistributive commitment within the cluster of radical democracies? These questions are examined in the context of two celebrated cases of pro-poor reform in the developing world: the Indian states of Kerala and West Bengal. Despite a host of similar background conditions (democratic framework, programmatic political parties, strong labor unions, and a high degree of subordinate-class integration), the cases display considerable variation in their redistributive commitment. Using the comparative-historical method, this dissertation seeks to explain the variance. It argues that the welfare divergences of Kerala and West Bengal are a function of their divergent modes of lower-class integration. In Kerala, a radical-mobilizational mode of lower-class integration has organized the poorer sections of the working classes—landless laborers and informal sector workers—in autonomous class organizations. This has enabled them to vigorously assert their interests within the working-class movement and harness state power to advance their interests through a wide range of legislative protections and statutory entitlements. In contrast, a clientelist-corporatist mode of lower-class integration in West Bengal relies on dependent mobilization of the poorer sections, without effective self-representing class organizations and without the strategic capacity to pursue class action independent of middle-class collaborators. These distinct modes of lower-class integration engender qualitatively different state-poor relationships and, in turn, divergent visions of social citizenship. The origins of these distinct modes are then traced to their historical and peculiar patterns of class formation, class struggle, and class compromise. This dissertation provides nuance to the welfare-state literature by proposing analytical differentiation within a subset of radical democracies and then by specifying the conditions under which lower-class power and state power can be harnessed to create more redistributive and empowering social outcomes in the global South. It also makes a contribution in linking agrarian labor movements to the nature of welfare regimes and more broadly to social citizenship.Item Dengue and development: a critical political ecology(2012) Mulligan, Kathleen; Elliott, Susan J; McMaster University Department of GeographyPolicies for the control of dengue fever often construct the mosquito-borne virus as a disease of poverty, and call for disease control through “development” to meet the needs of poor populations and impoverished or unsanitary spaces. However, exceptions to the narrative of a rich/poor dengue divide persist in nonpoor urban environments across the world. One example is Malaysia's new administrative capital city of Putrajaya – a wealthy and centrally planned new city with among the highest rates of dengue in the country. This dissertation drew on theories of ecosocial epidemiology and urban political ecology to investigate and contextualize the geography of dengue and development in Putrajaya. Key informant interviews and critical discourse analysis found that infectious disease control fell well below other urban priorities for the city, and that globally dominant dengue control strategies targeted toward poor populations were inappropriately transferred to Putrajaya's non-poor local environment. A systematic review of the research literature found no clear evidence showing an association between dengue and conditions of poverty. These findings challenge conventional thinking by policy makers about epidemiological transition and the social determinants of health. The dissertation addresses the dearth of research into the world's neglected tropical diseases (NTDs); in particular, gaps in our understanding of the biopolitical and socioecological contexts (sites of urban governance, sites of health policy development and implementation, and sites of academic research) in which policies for NTDs like dengue are determined, enacted and justified. The dissertation further identifies non-poor urban environments – in particular those undergoing rapid development, such as Putrajaya – as key spaces for future geographic and political ecological research related to epidemiological transition, economic development and the social and environmental determinants of health.