| 1. |
- Adama, Onyanta, 1961-
(författare)
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Governing from Above : Solid Waste Management in Nigeria's New Capital City of Abuja
- 2007
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This doctoral dissertation examines how the symbolic character of a relocated capital city influences and intersects with local conditions to shape the governance structure and relations in service delivery. The focus is on Abuja, the new capital city of Nigeria, and the sector studied is solid waste management. Abuja was planned to avoid the numerous problems facing other Nigerian cities. Contrary to the intention of government and planners, the city now houses the fastest growing slum in the country. There are various possible explanations for these outcomes but this study pays particular attention to the conception of Abuja as a symbol of national unity. The ‘good governance’ agenda is often promoted by the World Bank and donors as a way of handling the numerous challenges facing African governments, including service delivery. A major expectation of the agenda is that local governments manage the urban development process in conjunction with an array of institutions ranging from the private sector to community groups and households. An underlying notion is that of a minimalist national state. This is not the case in Abuja, where governance is conducted at higher levels and the municipal council remains largely invisible. This is manifested in solid waste management, where the municipal council has no jurisdiction over the sector. In addition, community groups and households play very minimal roles in the governance of services. Drawing on the concept of space and place, the study concludes that the types of institutions found and their roles and relations are shaped by the national function of the city and the local power relations. The study draws on primary and secondary data. Interviews were conducted with state officials, community leaders, households and interest groups, such as the private sector. Secondary data were obtained from government documents, studies and newspaper reports.
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| 2. |
- Andersson, Agnes, 1973-
(författare)
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The bright lights grow fainter : livelihoods, migration and a small town in Zimbabwe
- 2002
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The Aids pandemic and structural adjustment policies (SAP) have had effects on lower income households in Zimbabwe which have been devastating and people have been required to adapt their livelihood strategies. Small towns meanwhile are growing rapidly in Zimbabwe and mobility towards these towns may be connected with the changes being forged by SAP on the economic landscape. This study seeks to establish how the individual migrant uses mobility to negotiate this landscape. This involves mobility directed towards small towns to access advantageous provisioning possibilities, and also the engagement in a multitude of family linkages from the small town to other places within the settlement system. Substantiated through a case study of Rusape, this study suggests that lower living costs, higher food security and a more accessible labour market may be attracting migrants from higher level urban centres. The role of the network of kin relations in mobility is important and migrants’ networks over space cover both rural homes and urban areas. The access to networks, however, is being stratified under SAP and the ability to maintain linkages with relatives is declining, suggesting a rising vulnerability connected with the inability of leaving places and entering others.
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| 3. |
- Axelsson, Linn, 1977-
(författare)
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Making Borders : Engaging the threat of Chinese textiles in Ghana
- 2012
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The borders of the twenty-first century come in many forms and are performed by an increasing number of actors in a broad variety of places, both within and beyond the territories of nation-states. This thesis sets out a detailed political geography of how borders operate to reconcile the often conflicting demands of open markets and security. Focusing on Ghana, where there is a widespread fear that the inflow of Chinese versions of African prints will lead to the collapse of the local textile industry, the study explores where and when borders are enforced, who performs them and what kinds of borders are enacted in order to maintain and protect the Ghanaian nation and market without compromising the country’s status as a liberal economy. It combines interviews and documentary sources with analysis drawn from border, security and migration studies to explore three sets of spatial strategies that have defined the Ghanaian approach to the perceived threat of Chinese African prints. They are the institution of a single corridor for African print imports, the anti-counterfeiting raids carried out in Ghana’s marketplaces, and the promotion of garments made from locally produced textiles as office wear through the National Friday Wear and Everyday Wear programmes. These strategies stretch, disperse and embody the borders of the state or nation to control trade in ways that resolve the fears of both open flows and closed borders. This thesis thus seeks to show how a geographical analysis can clarify the specificities of how borders now work to control mobility. In doing so, it not only unsettles conventional assumptions about what borders are and where they are supposed to be located, but also the idea that borders primarily are used to constrain the mobility of certain people while facilitating economic flows. Furthermore, this thesis adds to the understanding of the variety of responses to the inflow of Chinese consumer products to the African continent.
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| 4. |
- Björklund, Annika, 1969-
(författare)
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Historical Urban Agriculture : Food Production and Access to Land in Swedish Towns before 1900
- 2010
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This doctoral thesis analyses the role of historical urban agriculture in a long-time perspective, through a combination of overarching surveys of Swedish towns and detailed studies of one town – Uppsala in east-central Sweden. The study shows how agricultural land – town land – of various sizes was donated to towns repeatedly during medieval times and in the 16th and 17th centuries. The study examines urban food production at three points in time, and concludes that grain production and, later, potato production as well was substantial in many towns, indicating high levels of urban self-sufficiency. This allows new perspectives concerning the interpretation of urban food provision, as urban dependency on countryside food production might have varied considerably between towns. In addition, the study shows how urban agriculture was connected to social welfare systems, in particular aiming at supporting urban widows. The results in this thesis provide an historical context to the increasing discussions about present-day urban agriculture globally, and identify a number of factors that may create or counteract opportunities for urban agriculture.
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| 5. |
- Byerley, Andrew, 1965-
(författare)
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Becoming Jinja : The Production of Space and Making of Place in an African Industrial Town
- 2005
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The years immediately preceding and following W.W.II marked a turning point in British colonial policy in Africa. In this doctoral thesis, which focuses on colonial and post-colonial Uganda, this turning point is approached in terms of a shift in would-be hegemonic socio-spatial diagrams of power. In turn, the town of Jinja is approached in terms of having constituted a strong point with shifting functions in a series of contested diagrams of power over time. Certain agents and spatial enclosures are examined in terms of having risen and fallen in terms of deemed efficiency in actualising specific lines and modalities of power; the ”African” housing estate, the ”Asian” and the ”Chief” being important among these. Drawing on the theoretical work of Foucault, Deleuze & Guattari, and Lefebvre, particularly that pertaining to discursive regimes of power-knowledge, space and the subject, I seek to show how projects and architectures of socio-spatial ordering instituted by dominant producers of space (principally the colonial and post-independence states, and capital) have impacted on – and in turn been influenced and translated by – the everyday projects of people in place. Much of this focus, and also the fieldwork, is channelled through the Walukuba Housing Estate that was built in the post-W.W.II colonial era. The study is based on archival research, extensive ethnographic fieldwork and secondary literature.
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| 6. |
- Börjeson, Lowe, 1968-
(författare)
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A History under Siege : Intensive Agriculture in the Mbulu Highlands, Tanzania, 19th Century to the Present
- 2004
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This doctoral thesis examines the history of the Iraqw’ar Da/aw area in the Mbulu Highlands of northern Tanzania. Since the late nineteenth century this area has been known for its intensive cultivation, and referred to as an “island” within a matrix of less intensive land use. The conventional explanation for its characteristics has been high population densities resulting from the prevention of expansion by hostility from surrounding pastoral groups, leading to a siegelike situation. Drawing on an intensive programme of interviews, detailed field mapping and studies of aerial photographs, early travellers’ accounts and landscape photographs, this study challenges that explanation. The study concludes that the process of agricultural intensification has largely been its own driving force, based on self-reinforcing processes of change, and not a consequence of land scarcity.
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| 7. |
- Cadstedt, Jenny
(författare)
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Influence and Invisibility : Tenants in Housing Provision in Mwanza City, Tanzania
- 2006
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- A high proportion of urban residents in Tanzanian cities are tenants who rent rooms in privately owned houses in unplanned settlements. However, in housing policy and in urban planning rental tenure gets very little attention. This study focuses on the reasons for and consequences of this discrepancy between policy and practice. Perspectives and actions of different actors involved in the housing provision process in Mwanza City, Tanzania, have been central to the research. The examined actors are residents in various housing tenure forms as well as government officials and representatives at different levels, from the neighbourhood level to UN-Habitat. The main methods have been interviews and discussions with actors as well as studies of policy documents, laws and plans. Among government actors, private rental tenure is largely seen as an issue between landlords and tenants. Tanzanian housing policy focuses more on land for housing than on shelter. This means that house-owners who control land have a more important role in urban planning and policies than tenants have. In Tanzania in general and in Mwanza in particular, housing policy focuses on residents’ involvement in upgrading unplanned areas by organising in Community Based Organisations. This means that owners who live for a longer period in an area benefit more from settlement improvements than tenants. Tenants are relatively mobile and do not take for granted that they will stay in the same house for long. This raises the question of tenants’ possibilities to influence as well as their rights as citizens as compared to that of owners. The question of citizens’ rights for dwellers in informal settlements has received increased attention during the last years in international housing policy discussions. There is an evident need to intensify and diversify this discussion.
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| 8. |
- Cele, Sofia, 1977-
(författare)
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Communicating Place : Methods for Understanding Children's Experience of Place
- 2006
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This dissertation explores how children communicate their experiences of place. It focuses on the qualitative methods of group interviews, walks, drawings and photographs, and asks how children communicate different aspects of place. Drawing on feminist theory and qualitative methodology, the importance of situated knowledge for understanding children’s narratives is argued. Through studies in Sweden and England, it is shown how children’s place experiences are multi-dimensional, consisting of both concrete and abstract processes, places and objects. The different methods reveal different aspects of these dimensions and the children provided rich evidence of their experience of place in regard to physical, social and cultural aspects. It is found that children’s individuality affects the success of the methods, rather than factors such as gender, age or nationality. The methods’ different characteristics, such as creative and interactive aspects, and how power relations are reflected through them are determining factors as to how and what children communicate. Place-interactive methods allow children to communicate the direct experience of place and include subconscious actions as communication occurs through movement and play. The creative aspects of the methods allow children to focus more on their abstract experiences and to include experiences based on a wider time perspective than the present. Walking is discussed as a critical method for the researcher to include place as an active and multi-sensuous phenomenon. As it is shown that the methods reveal different aspects of the children’s place experiences, it is also discussed how this can be used from an adult perspective.
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| 9. |
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| 10. |
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| 11. |
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| 12. |
- Kateka, Adolphine G., 1954-
(författare)
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Co-management Challenges In The Lake Victoria Fisheries : A Context Approach
- 2010
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This doctoral thesis examines the challenges to co-management in the Tanzania part of Lake Victoria. The study mainly addresses the Nile perch fishery and uses the fishing communities of Bukoba Rural district, Tanzania as a case study. Co-management in Lake Victoria is defined as the sharing of the management responsibilities between the state and the fishing communities. Co-management was adopted in the Lake Victoria fisheries on the understanding that it has the capacity to provide space in which the poor resource users could be empowered to sustainably manage their resource base. The assumption was that the sharing of the management responsibilities between the state and the community of users would have led to equity in resource access, poverty reduction and resource sustainability. Thus, reducing the role of the state and enhancing that of the communities was seen as a solution to the problems of poverty and illegal fishing that are threatening the sustainability of the fishery and the fishers dependent on it. However, in spite of these proclaimed efforts, illegal fishing and poverty in Lake Victoria remain major threats to the long-term sustainability of the fishery, a fact that is raising questions on the efficacy of co-management in Lake Victoria. These questions have particularly focused on the co-management model and the neo-liberal ideals that underlie it, namely decentralization, participation and accountability. The central argument in this thesis, however, is that co-management performance in Lake Victoria is to a large extent shaped by the complex international, national, and local context in which it is implemented and which in turn shapes the problems of poverty and illegal fishing that co-management is supposed to address. The study concludes that the international and national politics behind the Nile perch fishery intersect with the cultural and social context in which the fishery is embedded to shape co-management performance at the local level.For analysis, the study applies a multi-level approach and draws insights from the common pool resources theory, the actor-oriented approach, the entitlement framework, and the theory of the state. Detailed interviews across scale, secondary data, policy documents, and laws, supported by quantitative data are the methods applied.
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| 13. |
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| 14. |
- Kjellén, Marianne, 1964-
(författare)
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From Public Pipes to Private Hands : Water Access and Distribution in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania
- 2006
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- In cities around the world, public water systems have increasingly come to be operated by private companies. Along with an internationally funded investment program to refurbish the dilapidated water infrastructure, private operations were tested also in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Only about a third of the households, however, are reached by the piped water system there; most households purchase water from those with pipe-connections or private boreholes. Thus, water distribution was informally privatized by way of water vending long before formal private sector participation began. This thesis explores individual and collective endeavors in water development, distribution, and access, along with the global and local influences that shaped the privatization exercise. With regard to the lease of Dar es Salaam’s water system, the institutional set-up has been found to mix the British and French models, having influenced the local situation through development assistance and conditionalities tied to loans. The institutional contradictions may have contributed to the conflictive cancellation of the lease arrangement. Due to the public utility company’s lack of operating capital and investment planning, infrastructure development has responded mainly to immediate individual demands, resulting in a spaghetti-like network and structural leakage. The long-standing under-performance and low coverage of the piped water system have forced many people to devise their own ways to access water. This thesis argues that the individually-devised artisan ways of water provisioning constitute the life-line of Dar es Salaam’s water system. Yet, they also undermine and divert resources away from the collectively-devised industrial form of piped water provision.
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| 15. |
- Liwenga, Emma T., 1964-
(författare)
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Food insecurity and coping strategies in semiarid areas : the case of Mvumi in central Tanzania
- 2003
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This study examines how people in dryland areas cope with food insecurity and adversities over time. It draws from the experience of the Gogo people living in Mvumi in the semiarid zone of central Tanzania, an area with a long history of food shortages. The study specifically examines the potential for dryland resources to sustain livelihoods. The study looks at the historical perspective of the problem in order to explore factors influencing the food situation in the area. It specifically investigates the role of local knowledge as a factor for adapting to dryland conditions by exploiting seasonality and local diversity. A detailed account is made of the coping strategies among three identified wealth groups in the area. Apart from their wealth levels, households in these wealth categories differ in how they mobilise and deal with labour in various seasons. Households in the well-off group have greater ability in mobilising and using external labour as well as accumulating and managing food surplus. The households in the intermediate group are flexible in utilising their own labour by performing various farm and non-farm activities according to their seasonalities. The households in the poor category sell their own labour and perform various farm and non-farm activities regardless of the season. It is clear from the study that different wealth groups differ in their ability to develop immediate coping into more pro-active livelihood strategies. The study winds up by assessing the potentials of the prominent land resource utilisation strategies in terms of economic, social and environmental perspectives.
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| 16. |
- Lourenço-Lindell, Ilda
(författare)
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Walking the tight rope : Informal livelihoods and social networks in a West African city
- 2002
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Trends towards ‘informalization’ are looming large in the world today. African cities have long been characterised by the presence of an ‘informal sector’ but are now experiencing new waves of ‘informalization’. Policies of liberalisation and structural adjustment are both changing the conditions under which urban dwellers make a living and encouraging states to abdicate from responsibilities for popular welfare. In this context, urbanites increasingly rely on informal ways of income earning and of social security provisioning.This book is about processes of ‘informalization’ in the West African city of Bissau in Guinea-Bissau. It begins with a historical account of the way conditions of informality have evolved through the encounter of locally specific forms of informal relations with colonialism and the socialist era. This is followed by an analysis of how disadvantaged groups who rely on informal ways of provisioning are faring in the context of contemporary changes. The study looks at both the informal income-generating activities and the social networks that urbanites engage in to sustain their income activities and their consumption. It seeks to assess whether these groups are coping with these wider changes or are becoming marginalised from networks of assistance and from activities that provide sufficient incomes. The social relations pervading access to support and livelihood resources as well as the informal rules governing such access are in focus. Forms of regulation in the informal sphere are also discussed.
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| 17. |
- Malm, Charlotta, 1966-
(författare)
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A place apart? : Debating landscapes and identities in the Shetland Islands
- 2013
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Based around the concepts of landscape and identity, this thesis examines several contemporary debates in the Shetland Islands with a view to finding out more about where people in this group of islands currently ‘are’ in terms of their geographical and cultural location, from both a local and non-local perspective.Drawing on a multi-method approach, including textual analysis, participant observation and semi-structured interviews, the study points to the often complex and contentious relationship between power structures and notions of local versus national interests, particularly in the areas of landscape management and nature conservation.The image of Shetland is also discussed in some detail, revealing the importance of how this island group is perceived both outside the islands and among people living in Shetland. It becomes evident, in this context, that ideas associated with ‘northness’ and ‘remoteness’ can be understood as something quite problematic while, at the same time, such ideas can also be used as an asset with which to brand the islands to external markets.The study is set against a backdrop of devolved power structures, nation building and the upcoming referendum on Scottish independence. From a broader perspective, the thesis ties in with a more general discourse in which local and place specific studies are gaining increasing importance in what is frequently referred to as a rapidly globalizing world.
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| 18. |
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| 19. |
- Peil, Tiina, 1967-
(författare)
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Islescapes : Estonian small islands and islanders through three centuries
- 1999
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The thesis applies a modification of the concept of landscape to embody physical settings, social behaviour and affixed meanings. The argument focuses on both how a specific environment was created as well as perceived on four Estonian islands from the late seventeenth century until the present. Islands have clear natural boundaries, and thus they comprise well-defined entities. Physical environment is seen as an important factor in the formation of home and identity. Island life in Estonia was on the background of complicated power relations dominated by foreign ruling classes less restricted, and historically the islanders had better opportunities for gaining a livelihood. They were thus part of a common Baltic Sea world often passed by in native Estonian research, which has concentrated on mainland farming traditions. Living conditions on the islands were drastically changed by Soviet occupation after the Second World War when they came to belong to the strictly regulated border area towards the West. The occupation is seen as a focal point of the thesis lending it a before and after perspective. The local variation was great and therefore island communities and landscapes are critically examined in a long-term perspective focusing on settlement history, the outward signs of belonging to a place (kinship, way of doing things, skills, dialect, humour, traditions) and on landscape biography. It is argued that constant change was accommodated in the mental picture, but an abrupt one caused an idealisation of national cultural values. The mythical elements are examined after first establishing the content of the islescapes of home and of popular islescapes of the 1930s. At present, people are in the process of renewing contacts and revising their islescapes of memory and imagination into possible futures.
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| 20. |
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| 21. |
- Smas, Lukas, 1975-
(författare)
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Transaction Spaces : Consumption Configurations and City Formation
- 2008
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Consumption forms and is formed by the city. How, when and where commodities are transacted is essential in this urban drama of mutual relationships. This thesis explores how consumption and everyday life in cities are interrelated. The specific objective is to analyse how commodity transaction situations are configured and constrained in time and space, and, how consumer service spaces are formed in and are part of city formation. Transactions are conceptualised as economically and socially situated material projects constituted by consumers, commodities and producers. Commodities and values are transferred and created through transaction spaces. The theoretical perspective is framed around consumption and production of spaces, and particularly informed by Hägerstrand’s time-geographical thinking and Lefebvre’s work on urban space. Methodologically different examples of consumption projects and spaces are used to discuss configurations and formations for commodity transactions. The thesis stresses material and time-spatial constraints for commodity transaction and it discusses the blurring of boundaries between what conventionally has been separate social and economic activities and places. Changing transaction configurations and the formation of consumer service spaces in the city are explored through analysis of different consumption places and commodities such as books, coffee and clothes and property development projects in Stockholm city centre. Transaction configurations display geographical and historical continuities and changes as well as time-spatial flexibility and spatial fixity. Transactions spaces are continuously formed and reformed through processes embedded in the global cultural economy, urban development and politics, as well as through people’s everyday life. Producers’ strategic production and consumers’ tactical appropriation of transactions spaces are accentuated as crucial in the spatial practice of transactions, places and city formation.
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| 22. |
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| 23. |
- Zhang, Qian, 1977-
(författare)
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Pastoralists and the Environmental State : A study of ecological resettlement in Inner Mongolia, China
- 2015
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- China's quest for sustainable development has given birth to a set of contested ‘ecological construction’ programmes. Focusing on ‘ecological resettlement’, a type of policy measure in a programme for restoring degraded grasslands, this thesis sets out a critical analysis in opposition to the dominant technical and managerial approaches to understanding environmentalisation. The aim is to draw out the politics of the formulation, implementation and effects of ecological resettlement at and across different scales. The study combines fieldwork, interviews, analysis of policy documents, and statistical analysis while theoretically, in addition to political ecology, it incorporates concepts and models from environmental governance, migration, and pastoralism studies. Environmentalisation is examined through three types of analysis: environmentalisation of the state, reshaping of state-society relations, and (re)territorialisation. A central theme is how local processes are linked to national considerations and how the local state acts as an intermediary between the central state and the pastoralists. The analysis exposes the practices that enabled the central state to define the problem of grasslands and devise interventions, illustrating the environmentalisation of the state. However, at the local level, incentives and interests defined by the political structure drove the developmental local state to pursue short-term-effective rather than sustainable practices. On the other hand, while the pastoral households responded to the projects with different strategies, their migration decisions suggested that social, economic and cultural considerations played a more important role than environmental concerns. Moreover, ecological resettlement has led to a significant change of Mongolian pastoralism. Land-tenure-based management further fragmented rangelands while the emergence of new social arrangements enabled migrant households to remain involved with pastoralism.
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