A central theme in Pauline Melville’s novel, The Ventriloquist’s Tale, is the question of endogamy and exogamy, with the opposing alternatives embodied in Melville’s characters. This theme has received much attention in the critical commentaries generated by the novel, with a prevailing number of critics claiming that Melville proposes endogamy as the only option for indigenous communities to remain intact. However, such an argument overlooks the significant fact that Melville’s characters are always already the offspring of exogamous encounters, through which a multiplicity of boundaries have been permeated. Furthermore, the spatial motifs developed in the novel can be seen to undermine commonly accepted delimitations of supposedly homogenous groups, the nation-state constituting the prime example, and this in turn profoundly alters the notion of mixing. Consequently, contending that Melville even enters a debate on endogamy and exogamy stems from a predisposition to see the world in other terms than those Melville sets out in her novel. The nature of boundaries and borders in Melville’s fictitious world are therefore explored using Benedict Anderson’s Imagined Communities as a framework. This examination shows that the novel undermines the notion of the nation-state as a homogenous entity and reveals a global structure that dictates and drives interaction on a global scale. Consequently, instead of a debate on exogamy, we see in the novel an exploration and dismantling of notions of borders, boundaries and barriers between individuals and groups of people.

This comparison of two urban public spaces in the city of La Paz, Baja California Sur, examines the production of gendered space within an ethnohistorical context of material and discursive practices related to socio-spatial order, cultural and biological reproduction, and the construction of urban scale. The focus of the study of these two “commons” is on the liminal spatiality of the central plaza and the seaside promenade, the role of everyday life and consumption in the production of these spaces, and the role of women in these successive spatial transformations. In order to understand the relations and practices that produce these commons, the various spatial transformations that have affected the southern Baja California Peninsula are described and discussed. It is a place that has been constituted and reconstituted within successive globalizing forces since at least the beginning of the sixteenth century, up to and including contemporary international tourism. The city of La Paz, its people, and its sense of itself as expressed in its public spaces have emerged from these historical and cross-cultural processes. By examining and comparing the Parque Velasco and the Malecón as the products of both past and emerging patterns of spatial discourse in the negotiation, rehearsal and affirmation of gender identities, the following specific questions are addressed: What is the role women play in the cultural production and reproduction of these public spaces in a borderland? How do the spaces differ--materially, discursively, and in usage? What or whose purposes do they serve? How do they position peripheral agents within a hegemonic globalizing process? Finally, the study considers the question of what future can be envisioned for La Paz and its commons as border spaces.

This thesis explores a relationship between democratic self-determination, universal human rights, and democratic legitimacy. States are democratically legitimate when they satisfy the first two terms of this relationship. However, these two terms are in tension. This tension is between the universal and particular natures of the terms and requires democratic procedures to provisionally resolve it. A universal human right can be interpreted and contextualized through such procedures to resolve this tension. I argue that the human right to free movement cannot be adequately contextualized in nation-state fora, but instead require an international democratic institution to perform this act. As a result, nation-states, in order to be legitimate, must give up control of their borders to the international institution so that they recognize the human right to free movement. A consequence of this is that Canadian immigration policy is insufficiently democratic and does not recognize the human right to free movement. / SSHRC

No description available.

As Charles Darwin first noted in 1881, earthworms through their burrowing and casting activities, play an important role in the creation and maintenance of soil structure. Burrowing activity leads to the reorganisation of voids and creation of macropores within the soil. This has implications for aeration and the flow properties of water through soils. Casting activity affects the structural stability of soil through the stabilisation of aggregates. The overall aim of this research project has been to investigate the effects of earthworm activity and diversity on void space and aggregation in an upland soil. This research has been carried out as part of NERC's Thematic Programme on Soil Biodiversity. The field site was located on the Macaulay Land Use Research Institute's experimental farm at Sourhope in the Scottish Borders. Three experiments were designed to investigate the impact of earthworms on soil fabric, with each experiment representing an increased level of system complexity. The simplest experiment took place in a controlled environment and used an artificial soil and different earthworm treatments. The second level of system complexity used soil from Sourhope which had its structure removed, and then earthworm and liming treatments applied. The most complex experiment also used Sourhope soil and liming and earthworm treatments, except in this case the soil was undisturbed. The effects of earthworms and liming on void space were characterised using saturated hydraulic conductivity to measure macroporosity, and image analysis to quantify total porosity and void size distribution. Aggregation was assessed through aggregate stability and point counts of earthworm excremental features. The effect of earthworm inoculation in the simplest experiment led to the reorganisation of voids through increased abundance of voids > 2 mm2 in area, and decreases in the proportion of voids with an area < 2 mm2. No significant effects were observed on aggregate stability. The effect of liming in the experiment using disturbed soil was to increased abundance of voids > 2 mm2. No significant effects were observed on aggregation due to either liming or earthworm inoculation. In the most complex experiment, neither liming nor earthworm inoculation led to changes in void space or aggregation, except for an increase in saturated hydraulic conductivity and therefore macroporosity due to earthworm inoculation. The overall conclusions from this research were that as system complexity increased, then the effects of the treatments on void space and aggregation became more difficult to isolate. Nevertheless, it was clear that liming significantly affected void space through increased abundance of earthworms. Out of the two treatments applied to the Sourhope soil, liming had the strongest effect on both earthworm abundance and void space.

No description available.

The Lower Palaeozoic succession of the Gala area, Southern Uplands, comprises two contrasting facies, a pelagic/hemipelagic sequence, the Moffat Shales, and overlying turbidite sandstone (greywacke) successions variously of Ordovician and Silurian age. The area is divided into fault blocks bounded by a series of major strike faults, leading to contrasting sequences variously successive fault blocks; pelagic/hemipelagic facies are replaced by turbidites progressively later south-eastwards. Turbidites in the two northernmost blocks are of Ordovician age, and include two formations. Blocks to the south are formed of three successively younger formations of the Gala Group (Upper Llandovery), with Moffat Shales spanning the Upper Llandeilo - Upper Llandovery interval, whilst the southernmost block includes one formation representing the Hawick Group (Wenlock). Two formations within the Gala Group have been further subdivided into members. In most instances, formations crop out within discrete fault blocks, though in one instance successively higher levels within a single formation form three separate blocks, whilst another block includes an interdigitating intraformational contact, attributed to the overlapping of two turbidite fans of contrasting source areas. Whereas blocks display successively younger flysch sequences to the SE, strata within each block young dominantly to MW. The structural style is comparable to areas elsewhere in the Southern Uplands; showing evidence of prolonged and continuous deformation. Though these observations would support formation of an accretionary prism on an active continental-oceanic margin in response to a north-westward subduction of an oceanic plate, lack of consistent variation in dip attitudes and axial overturning may dispute this proposition. Palaeocurrents suggest a combination of axial and lateral derivation of rudites and associated fine-grained lithologies with contrasting zones of facies associations, representing environments ranging from inner- to outer-fan (fringe) and basin plain, and suggesting at least three cycles of progression and regression of turbidite fans. Greywacke petrography suggests mainly a magmatic-arc and ophiolitic derivation for 'basic-clast' greywackes and a dominantly Highland type derivation for 'silicic' greywackes, with recycling becoming increasingly significant in the higher levels, and indicating elevations of parts of the succession already accreted. Mineral assemblages, illite crystallinity and values of illites establishes the anchizone of metamorphism without a significant areal variation increase in grade.

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento CientÃfico e TecnolÃgico / O esforÃo de sÃntese que compÃe este estudo resgata os usos e sentidos que a PraÃa adquiriu na histÃria de Fortaleza, transformando-se em reservatÃrio de prÃticas, representaÃÃes e atores sociais. O trabalho aqui desenvolvido foi resultado de Pesquisa bibliogrÃfica e de campo, incluindo uma incursÃo à histÃria das PraÃas PÃblicas de Fortaleza durante os sÃculos XVIII, XIX, XX e XXI, possibilitando-me circunscrever detalhes das composiÃÃes paisagÃsticas, e comportamentais inseridas nestes importantes logradouros da cidade. LÃcus essenciais para a concretizaÃÃo do convÃvio e das relaÃÃes pÃblicas, as praÃas fazem parte da memÃria individual e coletiva da cidade. Enquanto espaÃos dinÃmicos, se (re) significam nas conexÃes de tempo e espaÃo assumindo diferentes usos. Entre reformulaÃÃes e intervenÃÃes urbanÃsticas do passado, tais logradouros incorporaram diferentes equipamentos e demarcaram novos estilos de âcivilizaÃÃoâ entre os moradores da urbe. No tempo presente, reapropriadas pelo capital e por novos movimentos de resistÃncia, configuram-se na atualidade como espaÃos de consumo e mercantilizaÃÃo, ao mesmo tempo em que tambÃm incorporam o sentido de Ãgoras modernas e de espaÃos para a afirmaÃÃo da diversidade. Servindo como palco central para os dramas e conflitos da cidade, revelam atualmente um borramento de fronteiras entre o formal e o informal, o legal e o ilegal, o legÃtimo e o ilegÃtimo. Para demonstrar esta fusÃo de sentidos e significados na praÃa contemporÃnea, faÃo um passeio etnogrÃfico pela PraÃa de FÃtima em Fortaleza, enquanto territÃrio emblemÃtico que revela âhibridizaÃÃes de usosâ entre o âsagradoâ e o âprofanoâ e que por isso adquire a marca de âespaÃo sÃnteseâ, sendo apropriada por mÃltiplos atores, dentre eles trabalhadores do mercado informal, âfiÃisâ, âmoradores de ruaâ, âprestadores de serviÃosâ e âusuÃrios de drogaâ. / The synthesis effort that composes this study rescues the uses and meanings which the square acquired in the history of Fortaleza, becoming reservoir of practices, representations and social actors. The work developed here was the result of bibliographic and field research, including a foray into the history of public squares in Fortaleza during the eighteenth, nineteenth, twentieth and twenty-first, allowing me to circumscribe details of landscape and behavioral compositions, inserted in these important thoroughfares of city. Essential locus for the achievement of conviviality and public relations, the squares are part of individual and collective memory of the city. While dynamic spaces, (re) connections in the time and space assuming different uses. Among reformulations and urban interventions of the past, such thoroughfares incorporated different equipment and staked new styles of "civilization" among the residents of the city. At the present time, reappropriated by the capital and by new resistance movements, squares take shape today as spaces of consumption and commodification, while also incorporating the sense of agoras and modern spaces for the affirmation of diversity. Serving as the center stage for dramas and conflicts of the city, they currently reveal a blurring of boundaries between formal and informal, legal and illegal, legitimate and illegitimate. In order to demonstrate this fusion of meanings in contemporary square, I walk through the ethnographic Fatima Square in Fortaleza, as an emblematic territory which reveals "hybridizations uses " between "sacred" and "profane" and therefore acquires the mark "synthesis space" and is suitable for multiple stakeholders, including workers in the informal market, "faithful", "homeless", "service" and "drug users".

The University of ManchesterNatalie Dietrich JonesPhD Development Policy and ManagementThe ma(r)king of complex border geographies and their negotiation by undocumented migrants: The case of Barbados2013ABSTRACTUsing Barbados as a case study, this thesis examines the relationship between agency, undocumentedness and borders. The relationship between these three concepts has been debated in a well-established European and North American literature; however, there is no similar body of work for the Caribbean, a space which since its genesis has been shaped by b/ordering practices. Through a stratified view of the border, it explored the discursive and non-discursive (material) factors which constrained migrants’ existence, and migrants’ agentic response to these constraints. The timing of fieldwork meant that the location’s geography, as well as migrants’ narratives, was marked by a recent amnesty exercise. In addition to ‘talk’ the research also relied on text, in the form of government and other legal documents relating to the management of migration. The research is therefore based on a combination of narrative and critical discourse analysis, espousing the methodological eclecticism that is encouraged in critical realist methodology. The study makes an important contribution to the field of border studies, based on its exploration of the relationship between a complex border ontology and migrant agency. The principal finding is that borders create complex geographies, which operate at varying spatial scales. The thesis thus provides an enhanced theorization of border(s), in particular as it relates to conceptualizations of space, suspect status, governmentality, and agency.

This thesis uses gender as a lens of analysis for understanding the motivations of internal migrants in their decision to move to the 10 kilometer buffer zone of Carara National Park in Costa Rica. The thesis is in reaction to Wittemyer et al.’s (2008) article that statistically demonstrates that population levels at the borders of study selected national parks and protected areas across Africa and Latin America are growing due to in-migration. The study is composed of 30 interviews with Costa Rican migrants who live in three communities inside Carara’s buffer zone. This study used cultural consensus analysis and semi-structured interviews to elicit responses around their motivations to migrate. This study concludes that men and women migrate for similar reasons. Both men and women are influenced to migrate by their desire to access coastal development and the lifestyle amenities associated with living an ecologically rich and tranquil area.