Theses / Thèses

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    Post-millennium development goals : analysis of education policies and gender inequity in basic education in Ghana – a case study of Tema
    (College of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies at the University of Saskatchewan, 2019) Seshie, Abigail Zita; Department of Sociology, University of Saskatchewan
    This study focuses on Ghana’s effort to achieve gender equity in basic education after committing to Millennium Development Goals. Drawing on the intersectional framework of Black Feminist Thought, the research explores professional experiences of education policy administrators and views of parents to better understand the impacts of policies on gender equity in public education. Interviews revealed several trends and practices accounting for girls’ low school completion rates. Among them were; preference for male children; the burden of girls’ domestic chores; teenage pregnancy; early marriage; sexual harassment; the foreign influence of social media; broken homes; and traditional cultural practices.
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    Risk and certification to agricultural standards
    (2017) Mohan, Sarah
    In an economic environment where farmers have little market power yet live close to subsistence, risk mitigation objectives are met through diversification of income streams and strategic crop and marketing choices. Research findings illuminate the institutional conditions under which certification can improve welfare in developing countries. This thesis is comprised of four essays on the economics of certification to agricultural standards in developing countries. Analysis of data gathered for the third and fourth chapters indicates that farmers who adopted the organic standard faced lower rates of product rejection and a lower standard deviation in that rate than their conventional counterparts.
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    Green grabbing and the contested nature of belonging in Laikipia, Kenya : a genealogy
    (2017) Bersaglio, Brock; Department of Geography, University of Toronto
    How and why do political reactions of certain rural groups align or depart from those of others? Findings suggest that in settler societies, aspects of green grabbing (or land grabbing) may be understood as acts of “white belonging.” Likewise, green grabbing presents other groups with opportunities to re-assert other notions of belonging in the landscape through resistance, acquiescence, or incorporation. This dissertation makes green grabbing a subject of ethnographic and historical analysis in Laikipia, Kenya and contextualizes different rural groups’ experiences and reactions to green grabbing, while building the case for ethnographic and historical analyses of land acquisition.
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    Governing social protection in developing countries through community-based targeting mechanisms : a case study of Nigeria’s “In Care of the People” Conditional Cash Transfer Programme
    (University of Guelph, Guelph, ON, 2017-04) Olabanji Akinola; Sneyd, Adam; University of Guelph Department of Political Science and International
    Governance of social protection programmes in developing countries need to ensure that community members and state institutions have the resources to effectively engage with each other. This dissertation examines how the community-based targeting methods and mechanism (CBTM) that was utilized in the implementation of Nigeria’s “In Care of the People” (COPE) Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) programme in three communities in Oyo state, improved or impeded transparency and accountability in the governance of the programme. Due to the weak administrative and technical capacity of state institutions charged with the responsibility of implementing the programme, accountability was weak.
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    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 University
    Findings 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.
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    Social enterprises as agents of technological change : case studies from Tanzania
    (University of Guelph, Guelph, ON, 2017-05) Sheikheldin, Gussai; John F. Devlin; University of Guelph Department of Philosophy
    The thesis constructs a concept of “technology localization” towards developing new or modified explanations for technological change processes. Technology localization is described as a main variable in the pursuit of technological autonomy in developing societies, where autonomy refers to the capacity for self-generating, transferring and managing technologies in support of economic and human development. This thesis examines 6 case studies of technology-oriented social enterprises in rural regions of Tanzania. Research shows that social enterprises play a positive role as agents of technological change. Attention is drawn to the value of regulations that accommodate social enterprise and acknowledged business models.
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    Bridging organizations to improve conservation fit in the Coral Triangle
    (2017) Berdej, Samantha; Department of Geography, University of Waterloo
    Identifying 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.
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    Dynamiques résidentielles dans une ville ouest-africaine : déterminants du statut d’occupation du logement à Lomé (Togo)
    (Faculté de l'Aménagement, Université de Montréal, 2016-03) Fiawumor, Senyo; Faculté de l'Aménagement, Université de Montréal
    La stratégie «Adequate shelter for all and sustainable settlements development in an urbanising world» adoptée au sommet mondial Habitat II d’Istanbul de 1996, traduite dans les Objectifs du Millénaire pour le Développement et maintenant dans les Objectifs de Développement Durable, vise à fournir un logement décent au plus grand nombre de ménages dans les villes du monde et celles d’Afrique Subsaharienne en particulier. La crise du logement caractérisée par les conditions abjectes dans lesquelles la majorité des ménages des villes d’Afrique subsaharienne se logent, devient ainsi un problème majeur auquel la littérature spécialisée promeut généralement, parmi tous les modes d’occupation du logement, l’accession à la propriété comme la panacée. En supposant que cette dimension de la crise du logement ne peut s’expliquer que par les comportements résidentiels des ménages généralement autopromoteurs de leurs logements en Afrique de l’Ouest, et à Lomé la capitale du Togo en particulier, cette thèse de doctorat vise à répondre à la question générale de recherche suivante : Les choix résidentiels à Lomé, en particulier le choix du statut d’occupation du logement, sont-ils exclusivement influencés par le profil des ménages occupants?...
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    Refugees, environmental resource use and local integration in Ghana
    (University of Calgary, Calgary, AB, CA, 2016) Agblorti, Samuel Kofi Miledzi; Graduate Program in Geography, University of Calgary
    This research investigates the implications of environmental resource use conflicts between refugees and their hosts for local integration of refugees in Ghana. Findings show that contrary to popular claims that refugees are often not interested in local integration as a durable solution, a significant proportion consider local integration as a viable solution once it comes with an acceptable package. While the willingness of both refugees and hosts to accept local integration serves as a boost, stakeholders need to do more in terms of resources in order to push ahead the agenda of integrating refugees locally in protracted situations.
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    Migration of Zimbabweans to South Africa and their working and living conditions, 2000-2010
    (University of Alberta, 2016) Zhira, Maxwell; Department of History and Classics and Department of Political Science, University of Alberta
    Five million people left Zimbabwe over a period of ten years (2000-2010) with three million migrating to South Africa. This thesis documents positive changes in the lives of migrants and how they contributed to their new environment. An emphasis on the contradictions of adjustment extends past current arguments regarding migration and displacement in southern Africa. Existing literature shows economic and social marginalization of migrants, their grim living conditions, and in particular their exclusionary treatment by South Africans. This thesis moves beyond the literature to document key positive changes in the lives of migrants, beyond the hardships they encountered.
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    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 Affairs
    Future 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.
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    Water privatization in Metro Manila : assessing the state of equitable water provision
    (University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, CA, 2016-04) Torio, Philamer Carlos; Resource Management and Environmental Studies, University of British Columbia
    A key concern is how to properly assess water privatization programs in their ability to address the water needs of the poor. With limited supply options and low bargaining power, unconnected urban poor households in peri-urban areas of Metro Manila pay high prices for monthly water consumption that is below the minimum World Health Organization standard, posing health risks to individuals and communities. Informal settlements unable to get direct water service connections because of property rights issues depend on supply by private concessionaires to provide the last phase of water delivery. This research offers key insights based on equity metrics.
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    Principes de responsabilité et de solidarité pour un accès financier équitable aux soins de santé : le cas des travailleurs de l’informel urbain du Cameroun en situation de vulnérabilité
    (Université de Montréal, 2015-09) Moubé, Moubé; Faculté des arts et des sciences, Université de Montréal
    La question de l’accès financier des personnes socialement défavorisées aux soins de santé est aujourd’hui un enjeu éthique de grande importance dans de nombreux pays à faible revenu ou en voie d’émergence. On peut se demander comment l’équité dans l’accès aux soins peut être rendue effective puisque l’égalité des chances pour tous et la santé sont des pré-requis aux choix de vie et à la réalisation de soi. Les soins de santé sont donc d’une importance éthique particulière du fait qu’ils contribuent à préserver notre statut comme citoyens pleinement fonctionnels. Au Cameroun, bien que des efforts considérables soient consentis par les pouvoirs publics et leurs partenaires extérieurs pour favoriser l’accès aux soins des personnes défavorisées, le secteur de la santé reste encore très marqué par l’inégalité dans l’accès financier aux prestations sanitaires. Les médicaments les plus essentiels ne sont pas financièrement à la portée de tous et les coûts d’accès aux soins ambulatoires et hospitaliers dans les formations sanitaires sont manifestement prohibitifs pour une large frange de la population. Lors des épisodes de maladie, l’accès aux soins se fait par le paiement direct au point d’accès, et la pratique de l’automédication s’est répandue du fait de l’incapacité des personnes socialement défavorisées à payer leurs soins sans courir le risque de perdre l’essentiel de leur revenu. Les mesures de prise en charge sociale ou des systèmes de financement qui garantissent la réduction des inégalités entre les classes sociales sont fortement limitées par les faibles capacités d’une économie qui repose essentiellement sur l’informel. Sur la base de cette réalité, cette thèse analyse à partir du cas des travailleurs vulnérables du secteur informel urbain, la pertinence du choix politique de la couverture universelle santé au Cameroun à travers les principes de responsabilité et de solidarité. La population d’étude choisie est donc celle des travailleurs vulnérables du secteur informel en considération des problématiques liées à leur accès aux soins de santé, de l’importance de leur apport dans l’économie du pays (90 % des travailleurs) et du rôle qu’elle pourrait jouer dans l’atteinte de l’objectif de la couverture universelle santé...
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    Fortified fish sauce : a novel means of improving thiamin status in rural Cambodia
    (University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, CA, 2016-04) Whitfield, Kyly C.; Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies (Human Nutrition), University of British Columbia
    Poor thiamin status is common among women of childbearing age in rural and urban Cambodia. The Cambodian diet consists largely of thiamin-poor, polished white rice and contains few thiamin-rich foods. Thiamin-fortified fish sauce is an efficacious means of improving dietary thiamin intake and biochemical thiamin status, and as such highlights potential to reduce mortality from infantile beriberi. The disease is totally preventable, resulting from maternal thiamin deficiency. Fortification of both salt and fish sauce could allow for the eradication of infantile beriberi in Cambodia.
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    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 Environment
    This 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.
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    Ties that bind : connections, patterns, and possibilities for marine protected areas
    (University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario, CA, 2015) Alexander, Steven Matthew
    By examining the role of social networks through time in relation to natural resource management and conservation, the role of social networks is identified as one of the research frontiers for policy-relevant Marine Protected Area (MPA) science. However, not all networks are structurally equal, with research suggesting that different patterns of social relations contribute to different management and governance outcomes. The purpose of this doctoral research is to characterize and assess how social networks enhance and inhibit the governance of MPAs.
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    Land-water management and sustainability : an indigenous perspective in Laitu Khyang community, Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT), Bangladesh
    (University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, SK, CA, 2015-07) Datta, Ranjan
    Research findings reveal that current management practices imposed by both government and non-government agencies have seriously undermined local, traditional land and water management practices. The effects include: a dramatic increase in the non-Indigenous population resulting from an outsider brick-field industrial project; increased destitution, displacement, and deforestation of natural resources resulting from force, fraud, and manipulated occupation of forest and plain land; recent expansion of the Bangladesh Forest Department and private companies’ lumber plantation projects by outsiders; and increase in national and multinational corporations’ tobacco plantation projects.
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    Construire son future : production de l'habitation et transformation des rapports de genre à Pikine, Sénégal
    (Université Laval, 2014) Pinard, Émilie
    Cette 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.
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    Sustainable development : the story of the Ivory Park EcoCity
    (Carleton University, Ottawa, ON, CA, 2005-09) Carman, Tara