| 31. |
- Isgren, Ellinor
(författare)
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Between Nature and Modernity : Agroecology as an alternative development pathway: the case of Uganda
- 2018
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Agricultural modernization has massively increased global food supply, but at a high environmental cost. Today many are calling for an agricultural ‘paradigm shift’, including several mainstream institutions. But to what? In recent years, agroecology has gained credence as an alternative approach that seeks to understand and manage farms as complex agroecosystems. From a development perspective, it is argued to not only hold potential for sustainable agriculture, but also as a model for inclusive development thanks to its particular applicability in sites dominated by small-scale low-capital farming. Uganda is one of many countries in sub-Saharan Africa where much hope is currently placed in gricultural development for poverty alleviation, economic growth and food security. Yet despite its promise to resolve tensions between development and environmental sustainability, agroecology remains largely ignored.The aim of this thesis is to understand if and how agroecology has potential to constitute a desirable and viable alternative pathway of agricultural development, and to provide insights about its achievability in Uganda. I do so by employing a research strategy rooted in critical modernity, critical realism and emancipatory social science, and by combining fieldwork methods and secondary material via an interdisciplinary approach. The thesis is structured around three interlinked tasks. First, I provide a critique of conventional agricultural modernization where I identify limitations and contradictions internal to this model of development, and explain the emergence and persistence of the particularly problematic form of agrarian politics in Uganda under the NRM regime. Second, I scrutinize the claim that agroecology offers a sustainable and viable model of agricultural development, and argue that there is convincing evidence for its potential to do so. When analyzing how this alternative is being implemented in Uganda today, and by whom, I find that agroecology is typically pursued by actors in civil society and academia as a form of smallholder-oriented ‘modernization from below’. Agroecology contributes by providing principles for sustainable and locally adapted agriculture. However, I also find substantial barriers to agroecology that are structural in kind, and require more overt confrontation of ‘modernization from above’. Third, therefore, I analyze the conditions for political engagement and broader mobilization for agroecology within Ugandan civil society, by looking at its historical formation and current strategies at national and local level.Beyond insights about the specific dynamics of agrarian change in Uganda, the thesis makes two main contributions: 1) it theorizes agroecology and its role in agricultural development, thus taking steps forward towards rethinking agricultural modernity, and 2) it advances the maturing field of sustainability science by using emancipatory social science to promote its critical problem-solving agenda.
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| 32. |
- McCrory, Gavin, 1990
(författare)
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The unseen in between: Unpacking, designing, and evaluating sustainability-oriented labs in real-world contexts
- 2022
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- We live in a time of compounding ecological and social change. Given its uncertain and urgent nature, contemporary forms of governance are experiencing tension between controlling the present and nurturing collective capacities to enact transformative change. Amidst a wave of interest in transitions and transformations in-the-making, labs in real-world contexts have entered the discussion. Labs have emerged as appealing, novel and highly complex entities that situate and localize engagement around complex sustainability challenges. Labs carry a systemic view of change; they comprise alternative and experimental approaches; they carry a normative assumption that research has plural roles; and they hold an explicit learning orientation that infuses knowledge with action. Given the unfolding of labs in the real world, my involvement in their design, and ongoing interests in treating both meanings and processes of sustainability, this thesis is organized around a curiosity. Its overarching aim is to investigate how sustainability-oriented labs could be unpacked, designed and evaluated in the context of sustainability transitions and transformations. Underlaboured by a critical realist philosophy of science, this thesis investigates sustainability-oriented labs by way of a qualitative-dominant, case-based research strategy. It does this across three overlapping research phases, culminating in four appended papers. In research phase one, we adopt a systematic review of sustainability-oriented labs in real-world contexts, exploring and classifying a global sample of labs according to their engagement with sustainability. In paper I, we identify and unpack 53 sustainability-oriented labs in real-world contexts. Through a mixed-methods analysis, we explore the distribution and diversity of these labs, discerning the research communities which conceptualize labs and the dimensions of their practice. In Paper III, we present an empirically grounded typology, arriving at six different types of sustainability-oriented labs: 1) Fix and control, 2) (Re-)Design and optimize, 3) Make and relate, 4) Educate and engage, 5) Empower and govern and 6) Explore and shape. In research phase two, paper II presents a qualitative case-based inquiry into Challenge Lab (C-Lab), a challenge-driven learning environment. Paper II conceptualizes challenge framing as embedded within an open-ended learning process, both on a level of practice and space. Experiences related to framing in C-Lab shed light on how students situate themselves and see their role within existing challenges, how they navigate limits to knowledge in complex systems, and how they self-assess their own sense of comfort and progress. In addition, we introduce three dilemmas that are not owned by teachers or students but emerge, as contradiction, within the learning space. In research phase three, paper IV presents a multi-case comparison of evaluation practices in various sustainability transition initiatives. We conceptualize and compare the role of evaluation as a tool that can enhance the transformative capacity of sustainability-oriented labs and its broader family of transition experiments. This thesis and its appended papers provide practical-experiential, empirical-conceptual and methodological contributions on the topic of sustainability-oriented labs in real-world contexts. In addition, it contains a layered account of an undisciplinary doctoral journey. I do this by (1) reflecting upon each research phase, (2) providing transparent accounts of positionality in relation to my research, (3) conceptualizing and reflecting upon undisciplinarity as a process of becoming, and (4) providing a mobile autoethnographic account of staying on the ground as part of a broader commitment to interrogate knowledge practices. Moving forward, I find myself motivated by three convictions: (1) transformations are needed, and labs are invitations in between dualisms, (2) invitations hold the possibility of flipping big assumptions and ethical practices, and (3) transformations presuppose fundamental change from within both research and education knowledge systems. They hinge upon the questioning of what both are, who they are for, and what they might need to become. In conclusion, they compel us to think big, start small, and act now.
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| 33. |
- Tängh Wrangel, Claes, 1980-
(författare)
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The Use of Hope : Biopolitics of Security During the Obama Presidency
- 2018
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Through a compilation of four research articles, this PhD thesis investigates ‘hope’ as a biopolitical technology. It interrogates the use of hope by the United States security apparatus, on the one hand, to pre-empt processes of radicalisation and, on the other hand, to prepare the subject of security to cope with permanent insecurity. The dissertation analyses the security dis- course of the Obama Administrations 2009 – 2016, paying particular atten- tion to strategic narratives of hope across three principal domains of US secu- rity: diplomacy, development and military. The thesis thereby renders visible a set of ambiguous relations between hope and insecurity in US foreign poli- cy during the Obama period: between hate and hope in the domain of (public) diplomacy; between despair and hope in the domain of development; and between fear and hope in the military domain. To analyse the respective strategic narratives, the thesis employs a theoretical framework drawn from Giorgio Agamben’s theory of biopolitics, through which hope appears as a means of governing the future, a technology employed to regulate processes of subjectification. The dissertation’s theoretical ambition is to question a central assumption undergirding important critique of the post-9/11 biopoliti- cal condition: namely that practices of security are inherently at odds with hope, operating through discourses and practices of fear and suffering to reduce the capacity to hope within the global populace. By analysing the appropriation of hope by US security discourse, the thesis explores how prac- tices of security works through hope to achieve security. US security dis- course achieves this by means of constituting a particular form of hopeful life: an individualised and resilient form of neoliberal life who is called to embody an indistinction between fear, despair, hate and hope.
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| 34. |
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| 35. |
- Eidevald, Christian, 1973-
(författare)
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Det finns inga tjejbestämmare : Att förstå kön som position i förskolans vardagsrutiner och lek
- 2009
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Previous research studies have shown that in their address and behaviour towards girls and boys, pre-school staff apply stereotyped gender concepts, thus reinforcing rather than challenging stereotypes. The present thesis therefore focuses on which of children’s positions that are accepted or that face resistance from the staff. In this way, children’s gender-based "identity-formation" can be critically analyzed based on different possible descriptions of how it is to be a girl or a boy, and what unaware assumptions about gender representations that in this way may be made in different ways by both children and adults.The theoretical point of departure is feminist poststructuralism; and the analysis focuses on variations found between the groups of girls and boys, as well as within these groups, and within individuals. The empirical data consists of video-taped sessions from two teams working with children aged 3-5, and focus groups interviews with the adult. Then different "readings" of the empirical material have been conducted based on different assumptions (discourses); i.e. assuming that girls and boys "really" are different or equal, different behaviours will appear as more or less obvious and natural. By showing that several different discourses are present at the same time, gender-based "identity-formation" is described as a very complex process. The analyzed situations show that girls and boys in pre-school are defined and treated in stereotyped ways, however, there is a large hidden variation of how different girls and different boys positions themselves in different contexts. Pre-school teachers thus work actively to distinguish between girls and boys based on how they are being perceived as either girls or boys. Teachers’ expectations then become decisive of how different children are addressed and treated in different situations. To conclude, the pedagogical consequences of this are discussed with regard to gender equality work in which also alternative discourses are formulated.
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| 36. |
- Johansson, Erika, 1969
(författare)
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HOUSE MASTER SCHOOL: Career Model for Education and Training in Integrated and Sustainable Conservation of Built Environments
- 2008
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Based on a participatory action research methodology and approach (AR), this dissertation explores the core theoretical problems and opportunities of education and learning for sustainable development (ESD) within the cross-disciplinary area of integrated and sustainable conservation of built environments. The main purpose has been to develop an epistemological framework for integrated lifelong learning, ethics and advanced research (R&D) and to provide a new sustainable education and career model for the field to be applied in the Dalecarlia region and on a national level within the Swedish construction industry at large; i.e. the House Master School (HMS). This includes the development of a new professional “House Master”; a new conservation and sustainable building „process manager‟ or engineer at the interface between various disciplines and with an emphasis on high quality and traditional crafts and design, refurbishment and reuse, preventive conservation and long-term maintenance of the built environment. The HMS is developed according to the principles of integrated lifelong learning, ESD and the Bologna Model for higher education in Europe and will be implemented as part of a well-coordinated training strategy, nationally as well as internationally, including initiation of specific training and exchange programs and R&D. The Swedish approach to transdisciplinary case study research (TCSR) and educational system development has been used as placed in an international context. An outline and assessment of the contribution of action research, critical systems thinking and complexity theory is provided as part of the overall research methodology and design.The main aim of this R&D project has been to promote a sound understanding and conceptualization of meta-theoretical foundations, functions, structures, drivers, needs and dynamic applicability of methods to support integrated lifelong learning and ESD, research and development within the Swedish building sector and to provide a new innovative education and career model, which if implemented successfully, would have a direct impact on the environment, the economy, community and sustainable development processes at large. By using the HMS Model as a case study, this research entails a commitment to socially transformative research - i.e. the methodology is grounded in a vision of educational and organizational change based on an integration of ecological and conservation values. This includes an identification of deficiencies and needs in existing education and training systems, including an assessment of anticipated qualification and emerging learning needs with anemphasis on integrated architectural conservation, construction maintenance and crafts education and training. The aim is to provide new and enhanced career opportunities for young construction students, particularly engineers, skilled trades and craftspeople, as well as for other professionals in need for continuing professional development (CPD) and training in this field.This dissertation demonstrates the epistemological basis, an appropriate conceptual framework and an organizational and methodological design for educational change and development, integrated lifelong learning and ESD for the construction and architectural heritage field at large. If proved successful, the HMS Model may be used as a demonstrative and be adapted and transferred to other relevant sectors, regions and/or countries. It argues that an appropriate education and conservation policy and an integrated life cycle approach are important factors for obtaining sustainability and lifelong learning and for launching new sustainable education and training programs, new products and processes, enterprises, R&D, standards and principles for the future. The central argument is that sustainability/ESD is an ongoing multi-dimensional learning process that seeks and requires cultural change through (a) transdisciplinary education, learning and research, (b) multidisciplinary team- and networked approaches to educational development and change and (d) participatory and communicative action between various disciplines, institutions, NGOs, companies/SMEs and stakeholders. A key lesson derived from this research is the need for preventative systemic thinking and increased stakeholder participation in architectural conservation and construction projects and in inter- and cross-disciplinary research (R&D), in urban and rural development planning and especially the planning for such education and training.
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| 37. |
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| 38. |
- Landzelius, Michael, 1958
(författare)
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Dis(re)membering Spaces: Swedish Modernism in Law Courts Controversy
- 1999
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The dissertation addresses the public controversy, as reflected in newspaper coverage, over the 1936 Law Courts Annex in Göteborg, Sweden. The controversy is conceived as a tension-filled, multi-layered conjuncture of urban rivalry within the nation-state. The politico-differential pair modernism/conservatism and the spatio-differential pair Stockholm/Göteborg are traced out and shown to be formative for subject positions both in the controversy, and in scholarly work during the subsequent six decades.To disentangle the conjuncture, subjects’ spatial sense-making is contextualized with respect to a politicized built environment, and to practices characterized by polysemy, contestation and resemanticization, through which volatile meanings and identity effects are continuously renegotiated. This understanding is elaborated in relation to a notion of power as concerning asymmetries of spatial reach with regard to individuals’ influence and control over practices.From this position, the law courts controversy is unfolded through a multi-factor analysis on several spatial scales, from the nation-state to architectural solutions. It is demonstrated that in the Swedish 1930s, no building but the Law Courts Annex was executed in overt modernism on a site of key symbolico-political significance. The established projection of modernism onto Stockholm and conservatism onto Göteborg is deconstructed. The study shows how the law courts project crystallized into a unique conjuncture entangled in questions of: national and local struggles between fractions of the dominant class; governmental efforts to impose new norms and forms of dwelling and discipline; aesthetic purification and élitism; and conjoined interests of real estate capitalists, functionalist planners, and reformist politicians.The law courts controversy is shown to have been embedded in transpositions of ethics, politics, space and aesthetics. New spaces of commoditized visibility were related to the Law Courts Annex, and a gendered imagery of buildings and female human bodies as homologous were invoked together with notions of sexual and bodily hygiene. The controversy is unfolded as concerned with conditions of identity formation and subjectivity in a space of unseen visibility, and the building is unveiled as a classed and gendered space for the production of humans as mass ornaments with apractic postural models.In conclusion, established scholarly discourse on the Law Courts Annex and the controversy is unveiled as a third-order simulacrum through which the annex since the late 1930s has been produced and preserved as a counterfeit, as a historical simulacrum of the particular imagery of a discourse disconnected from existing traces of the past.
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| 39. |
- Mechkova, Valeriya, 1989
(författare)
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Understanding the Conditions and Consequences of Women’s Political Representation
- 2022
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- In recent decades, women’s ability to engage in politics and civil society has risen dramatically across the globe. What has the increase in the number of women in politics, their “descriptive representation”, meant in substantive terms for women-citizens but also for societies in general? This dissertation contributes to clarifying the effects of descriptive representation of women on substantive representation, defined as the policy areas women tend to prioritize to a higher degree than men. The papers in the dissertation compare the effects of female representation on a comprehensive set of results: from policy inputs such as spending priorities to policy outcomes like infant mortality rates. Further, the dissertation theoretically clarifies and empirically tests the societal and institutional conditions that make it more or less likely for this descriptive-substantive link to work in practice. Across five papers utilizing comparative and historical datasets, I show that institutional efforts to increase representation (e.g., gender quotas) lead to gains in substantive representation. My findings also indicate that women rep- resentatives are successful in advancing the priorities of women as a group in both autocracies and democracies. This positive effect is partially explained by the activism of women-led civil society organizations. However, widespread corruption can undermine these efforts, and even lead to dimin- ished development outcomes. In sum, my dissertation demonstrates that women’s political representation can advance women’s priorities, but this is unlikely to happen absent certain societal and institutional conditions.
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| 40. |
- Nagoli, Joseph
(författare)
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A lake without water : livelihood coping strategies during the Lake Chilwa water recessions in Malawi
- 2016
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis explores the human-environment interaction within the climate-sensitive socio-ecological system of Lake Chilwa in Malawi. It uses the livelihoods framework to analyse various coping strategies to resource scarcity due to lake recessions. The main aim is to understand the processes by which decision-making takes place and the influence of various agents of change on coping with environmental shocks, i.e. water recessions. Lake Chilwa undergoes periodic water recessions with up to twelve incidents recorded between 1900 and 2012. While the lake and its wetland is an economic aquatic agriculture system in between recessions, it is unclear how households around the system survive during the periods of water recessions. Qualitative and quantitative studies were conducted between March 2012 and December 2013 on Chisi Island of Lake Chilwa to evaluate the coping strategies and their major drivers in responding to the periodic lake recessions. Using interpretive analysis, the findings show that people from the Lake Chilwa socio-ecological system have lived in anticipation of periodic environmental shocks due to their deep historical knowledge of the lake level and its fluctuations. This knowledge has been passed from generation to generation. Results further show that the main coping strategies that have stood the test of time for every recession are based on reciprocity and redistribution. These include sharing through kinship ties, hunting wild birds and farming. In many cases coping strategies for each specific recession are driven by political, social and economic factors prevailing at that particular period. Given these conditions, different agents (individuals or communities) make choices designed to maximise their own interests as they scramble to access scarce resources. Although natural resources in these systems are fundamental assets in rural livelihoods, accessing them in times of scarcity requires better governance systems that consider social, political and economic contexts.
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