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The twilight of customary land systems? : effects of the new wave land formalisation programmes on rural livelihoods in Tanzania
Get PDFviii, 220 leaves : illustrations (chiefly colour) , maps (chiefly colour) ; 29 cmIncludes abstract and appendices.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 192-213).Forms of customary land ownership in sub-Saharan Africa are a key element of African social organisation and have sustained and continue to sustain millions of subsistence and smallholder farmers by maintaining livelihoods in spite of significant economic and political change. More recently, attempts to increase productivity in rural areas, thereby enhancing development efforts, have taken the form of land formalisation programmes aimed at the privatisation of customary lands and the adoption of agricultural policies that emphasize growth rather than development. Yet these have often resulted in the failure to protect the livelihoods of rural populations and facilitating land grabbing. In light of these failures, they have since been reformulated into a ‘new wave’ of land formalisation whose objective is to incorporate elements of customary systems. The thesis asks therefore whether the new wave programmes have been successful in improving the quality of life and economic well-being of rural populations?
We argue that even these new wave programmes will not protect rural
livelihoods in the communal areas because they emphasise instead market fundamentalism which sees rural organisation and agricultural policy as driven by competition, profit motive, privatisation, and commodification of land. We undertook a qualitative case study of the implementation of ‘new wave’ land formalisation programme in three villages in Tanzania, which are Mbagwi, Mzeri, and Sindeni, all located in Handeni district, Tanga region. The study sought to find out how rural
social organisation has been altered since the implementation of the formalisation programmes, and also information on agricultural production in order to demonstrate how smallholder farmers’ tenure security, sources of income and food security are being affected.
The study found that the implementation of the new wave formalisation
programmes is eroding key elements of customary ownership systems. Custom and norms of cooperation and reciprocity are dwindling, as evidenced by participants reporting the disappearance of such things as labour and food sharing practices, as well as norms that exhort eschewing selfishness in favour of actions that benefit all the members of the village. Further, strict land use plans eliminate flexibility in the use of land, and enhanced functioning of land markets undermines the
permanency of land availability to poorer members of the society. Furthermore, the thesis concludes that agricultural models associated with the formalisation programmes have resulted in policies and economic strategies that are focused primarily on how to increase production, disregarding the implications on environment and on the livelihoods of rural dwellers
Molecular phylogeny of the RPB2 gene in five Elymus species with the StH genome
Get PDF1 online resource (56 pages) : illustrations, colour mapIncludes abstract.Includes bibliographical references (pages 45-56).Elymus is a polyploid genus within the grass tribe (Triticeae) and is thought to have originated from the hybridization between species in other Triticeae genera. As Elymus originated from processes such as hybridization and polyploidization, it is an ideal model species for studying how these processes lead to plant diversification and speciation. However, due to the taxonomic complexity of Elymus, many of the relationships within this genus are still under investigation. This study investigates allotetraploid Elymus species with the genome from the hybridization between Pseudoroegneria (St) and Hordeum (H). Specifically, the phylogenetic relationship among five Elymus species of the StH genome, E. caninus, E. mutabilis, E. fibrosus, E. alaskanus and E. trachycaulus, and their genome donor genera, Pseudoroegneria and Hordeum, were analyzed using the second-largest subunit of RNA polymerase II (RPB2) gene. Phylogenetic analysis revealed two distinct clades. One clade was formed with the St genome sequences of Elymus and sequences from Pseudoroegneria. A second clade was formed with the H genome sequences of Elymus and sequences from Hordeum. Phylogenetic analysis also revealed a close association between E. mutabilis and E. fibrosus, as well as with H. bogdanii; indicating H. bogdanii as a possible genome donor species. Furthermore, high nucleotide diversity was found within E. caninus and E. trachycaulus. The lowest nucleotide diversity was detected within E. mutabilis. Overall, the phylogenetic analysis proved a complex and diverse evolutionary history among the five Elymus species. The study demonstrates how the hybridization between two genetically distinct genera can lead to the production of a new genus encompassing numerous species with varying levels of genetic diversity through mutations and possibly subsequent hybridizations
The crisis of global governance : can international political legitimacy be maintained?
Get PDF1 online resource (58 pages)Includes abstract.Includes bibliographical references (pages 53-58).This essay explores the severity of the current crisis moment for global governance. This crisis is predicated upon decreased engagement of key western democracies coupled with the rising presence and tolerance of illiberal practices and authoritarian states. The essay argues that the crisis is one of legitimacy, which is not specific to a particular approach to global governance, but is in fact representative of the barriers to legitimacy for multilateral institutions in their entirety. The essay begins by situating the crisis moment and expanding on key factors that have contributed to it, including populism, nationalism, xenophobia, illiberalism, and organizational funding schemes. Drawing on the literature of John Ikenberry and Amitav Acharya, the liberal internationalist and fragmentation approaches are used as analytical frameworks to understand the relationship between political legitimacy and global governance. This exploration of legitimacy draws on early modern theorists Thomas Hobbes and Max Weber and connects to analyses of international political legitimacy through Jan-Aart Scholte and Jonas Tallberg. The discussion of legitimacy examines input and output sources of legitimacy for global governance institutions. Based on the coexistence of liberal internationalism and fragmentation, the essay concludes that the two approaches are not in conflict with each other as one might assume, but instead both continue to grapple with the question of international legitimacy. The purpose of this essay is to identify the key barriers to legitimacy facing global governance approaches. The essay concludes by identifying important components of international political legitimacy that must be further considered when assessing global governance approaches
2020-11-20 Senate Minutes and Agenda
No full textMinutes and agenda for the November 20th, 2020 meeting of Saint Mary's University Senate
The changing face of the Halifax Peninsula : a narrative of transition
Get PDF1 online resource (vi, 68 pages) : colour illustrations, colour mapsIncludes abstract and appendices.Includes bibliographical references (pages 59-61),The urban landscape of the Halifax Peninsula has altered greatly over the 11-year period from 2009 to 2019. While surges in development affect the city in a plethora of ways, one of its most significant impacts is apparent in streetscape change This alteration of urban structure presents the opportunity to chronicle a city in transition. Utilising the theory of creative destruction to situate the findings, the primary aim of this study is to describe and capture the effects of a newly invigorated development climate long characterised by stagnation. Employing Google Street View as a source of visual data for comparative analysis, this study demonstrates the utility of public domain software in studying built landscapes. GIS provides additional veracity in quantifying morphological change. Findings reveal that peninsular Halifax has undergone rapid transformation as a result of redevelopment, resulting in intensified land usage and densification. Most prevalent amongst study sites are multi-storey mixed-use structures, in contrast to previously smaller scale land uses. New built forms display a high degree of homogeneity common to urban centres across North America; while these developments are largely concentrated within the downtown core, they increasingly encroach into surrounding neighbourhoods and threaten local heritage. Development activity will likely have various social and economic implications, representing uncertainties for existing and potential residents in the form of new uses of urban space
The narratives of Saudi women leaders in the workplace : a postcolonial feminist study
No full textxii, 334 leaves : illustrations ; 29 cmIncludes abstract and appendices.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 296-320).This study focuses on the narratives of Saudi women leaders in the workplace. There is an evident gap in the literature when it comes to Saudi women in the workplace. Much of the literature silences Saudi women’s stories and an overarching theme of challenges is set at the forefront of the discussion. To address this gap, this thesis highlights Saudi women leaders’ narratives in the workplace by asking: How do they construct their leadership identities? How do they resist power and patriarchy in the workplace? And, what alternative forms of knowledge are surfaced from their narratives? To answer these three questions, postcolonial feminism is used as a lens to critique the current literature (master narrative) and to make room for the Saudi women leaders to deconstruct the master narrative (counter narratives). The analysis, in particular, explores the multiple ways in which the women construct their leadership identities, their enactments of resistance, and the women’s various perceptions surrounding feminism in the Saudi context. The analysis brings to light the multiple, contradictory, and complex ways in which Saudi women leaders navigate their roles; thereby, obstructing the linearity of their construction. In using a postcolonial feminist lens, this thesis contributes to the limited knowledge we have on Saudi women leaders, and presents an opportunity to explore how gender, power, and identity formation are constructed and simultaneously resisted within organization studies. Bringing forth new places and people of investigation, while being conscious that it is not being told from a Western centric lens is a valuable contribution to organization studies. Reflexively drawing from my experience as a Saudi woman, I attempt to weave another narrative with the women’s narratives (my narrative), allowing for a more thoughtful discussion. The theoretical contributions of the study are threefold. Firstly, the study addresses a vital gap in the literature, and points to the colonialist ways in which research has been conducted on Saudi women. By surfacing their voices and looking into localized ways in which identities have been constructed, the postcolonial feminist goals of giving voice to women whom have been neglected in organizational management literature is accomplished. Second, leadership identity and resistance are explored in a more contextualized and local lens. Finally, this dissertation contributes to more nuanced understanding of feminism. The heterogeneity and multiplicity of Saudi women’s voices need to be highlighted as a resistance to the monolithic constructions the academic community has been so normalized to hear
Predicting the distribution of the Chinese mystery snail, Cipangopaludina chinensis, a potentially invasive, non-indigenous species, in Atlantic Canada
Get PDFv, 146 leaves : illustrations (some colour), colour maps ; 29 cmIncludes abstract and appendices.Includes bibliographical references.The Chinese mystery snail, Cipangopaludina chinensis, a freshwater mollusc indigenous to Eastern Asia, introduced to North America and Europe. Currently, little is known about C. chinensis in North America. My thesis objectives were to: (1) synthesize relevant literature and confirm whether C. chinensis should be considered invasive in North America, (2) determine the known species occurrence in continental North America highlighting reporting gaps, and (3) create a species distribution model for C. chinensis in the Maritimes. The literature review indicated that C. chinensis should be considered invasive in North America. The largest number of reported occurrences were in southern Ontario and northern US along the Great Lakes with the lowest in the Maritimes, the Prairies, Quebec, and near Lake Superior. Finally, a random forest model was developed to predict C. chinensis distribution in Nova Scotia, with highest probable occurrence in the Halifax-area, the New Brunswick-Nova Scotia border, and Cape Breton
Conversing in time with overlooked, historical female proto-management theorists : a ficto-feminist polemic
Get PDF313 leaves ; 29 cmIncludes abstract.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 267-313).Feminist discourse exists at the margins of management and organizational studies and management history. Many figures and ideas have been overlooked by the largely gendered and limited scope of the development of field. This thesis introduces a new method, which fuses aspects of collective biography with the emic potential of autoethnography and rhizomatic capacity of fictocriticism to advance not only a new account of history in subject, but also in style of writing. Emerging from this feminist experiment is a method for feminist historical inquiry, called ficto-feminism. Ficto-feminism offers scholars the means to study lost female figures of significance, surface their lost lessons and contributions, uncover the discourses, which hide them from view, and rhetorically challenge the limited domain of current study with a defiantly feminist lens. The method is marked by several unique facets, including: (1) its potential to unlock agency for subject and writer; (2) reflexive and embodied/emic insights; (3) emotionality and resonance, (4) the opportunity to surface discourses at work over time; and (5) an alternative feminist strategy for studying the past. The power of ficto-feminism is that it has the capacity to reveal a more plausible and persuasive sense of an overlooked, understudied, and underappreciated female figure and reveal (or restore) her broader importance. This thesis endeavours to make a number of important contributions, including: (1) building on current research, which interrogates the role of management history in the neglect of women leaders and their accomplishments; (2) contributing to the development of a bridge between feminist theory and critical historiography; (3) exploring mechanisms to enact personal agency in subject and writer; (4) drawing the discipline’s attention to four proto-management theorists; and (5) introducing a new style of writing, which is narrative in style and inspired by fictional writing. The thesis features four literary non-fiction, fictitious conversations with historic female proto-management theorists from Canada and the United States: Frances Perkins (18801965), Hallie Flanagan (1890-1969), Madeleine Parent (1918-2012), and Viola Desmond (1914-1965). A variety of archival, biographical and media sources are combined with the author’s own sense-making and learnings to stitch together a believable, but fictional encounter. Guiding the study are five research questions: (1) why has she been excluded from management and organizational studies and management history? (2) Who was she as a proto-management theorist? (3) What are her lost lessons and contributions? What are the repercussions for leaving her out of account? (5) How can we study lost figures of significance
Gender in venture capital funding and finance
Get PDF87 leaves : illustrations (some colour) ; 29 cmIncludes abstract and appendix.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 65-73).This thesis explores biases in the finance industry, the impact of gender on venture capital investment, and finance student and faculty representation across Canadian universities. Venture capital investment and finance are areas where women have traditionally been underrepresented. In this study, I conducted a systematic review of the literature on gender and venture capital investment to understand why female founders receive so little investment. I also conducted an environmental scan of the gender distribution of finance students and faculty, to see if there are fewer women entering the field of finance, and determine if this may influence gender biases within the field of finance as a whole. The findings revealed gender biases within the venture capital industry, with fewer women receiving funding, and that while the proportion of male and female students in finance is almost equal, the percentage of women holding higher positions within universities is very low
Pairwise testing of Lentzea strains against Mycobacterium smegmatis to search for and identify new anti-tuberculosis compounds
Get PDF1 online resource (93 pages) : illustrations (chiefly colour)Includes abstract and appendices.Includes bibliographical references (pages 69-72).Tuberculosis remains one of the top ten causes of death worldwide. Therefore, immediate discovery of new antibiotic compounds is crucial for counteracting the evolving antibiotic resistance in strains of Mycobacterium tuberculosis and related species. Previous studies have shown that a soil bacterium, Lentzea kentuckyensis, can biosynthesize lassomycin, a peptide that has the ability to kill multi-drug resistant M. tuberculosis. Two Lentzea strains were grown and observed to exhibit inhibitory activity against M. smegmatis. The active compounds were extracted and analyzed by mass spectrometry. Structure elucidation of the molecules by NMR spectroscopy is ongoing. Further studies will focus on determining the mechanism of action of the active compounds. Characterizing these metabolites will provide a better understanding of how Lentzea strains both interact with and defend themselves against competing microbes, such as mycobacteria