Almost seventy-five percent of India's one billion people live in villages. Until recently, most of the villages were fairly isolated from external media influence. As these villages continued to modernize and gain access to services once thought to be limited to an urban environment, basic human needs began to change. Television, which used to be thought of as a luxury, has in the past 10--15 years become perceived as a necessity. Rural Maharashtrian villages have suddenly been propelled into the electronic information age. These societies that used to be defined by their own oral traditions and stories are now more than ever being structured and reorganized through television. / The research question centers on the role of television in rural life, and the influence it has had on the social, economic and political landscape of the village. Through in-depth interviews and participant observation a picture emerged of television's role in the process of social change at the village level. The physical presence of television and the content of the medium both contribute to the restructuring of human relationships within village life. / The data suggest that television influences certain processes of social change, some of which include: consumerism, democratization, changing gender and age relations, linguistic hegemony, access to information and the entrepreneurial base. In addition, television has restructured the concept of time within the village community. The data also illustrate that village children are unaware of what life was like before the arrival of television. Villagers have become accustomed to their daily dosage of soap operas, movies, game shows and music programs. Rural Maharashtrians are increasingly becoming active participants in the "global village."

Finally, it is suggested that the divergent viewpoints on tourism which are often found may be related to the social positions and environments of the people concerned. Thus, in general, the effects of tourism on Ibiza have been disliked by some local and non-local people belonging to the non-commercial branches of the middle- and upper-classes - particularly by those local people whose relative wealth and status have tended to decline as a result of tourism, and by those outsiders or local people who distastefully associate the current changes with urban-industrial development elsewhere and with the rise of "vulgarity". In complete contrast, the overwhelming majority of Ibizans (including - interestingly - the older generations of country-people) associate the past with economic "misery" and with socio-cultural "backwardness"; and they are actively (though not uncritically) assisting in the transformation of their own society which has been made possible by mass tourism.

This dissertation explores Liberian market women's food distribution activities and specifically focuses on their organizations and practices in postconflict times. During the last few years, Liberian market women have received considerable national and international attention. They have been hailed as heroines because of the significance they played in supplying food to Liberians during the civil war. However, little is known of their micro-world. This paradox constitutes the starting point of my dissertation, which explored market women's micro-level understandings and practices as related to peacebuilding. I used African feminist ethnography as a theoretical and methodological lens to investigate market women's organizations and practices surrounding food distribution in the capital city of Monrovia. African feminist ethnography incorporates insights from African feminist theory and feminist ethnography. It gives attention to issues of importance in West Africa like food and violent conflict. It also rejects the framing of African women as victims of war and recognizes their full agency. I conducted 40 in-depth semi-structured interviews with market women as well as observations in Fiamah, a daily food market located in central Monrovia. I examined market women's grassroots organizations called susu groups. Susu groups are informal credit unions that provide money to market women, necessary to purchase food items and maintain the market business. Findings illuminated the significance of wartime memories on postconflict susu group organizing practices. In this sense, memories of disruption and distrust engendered susu groups that were different from their prewar counterparts. Results also pointed at the invisible nature of susu groups, which had to balance their tendency towards secrecy with the pressure to become visible in a postconflict context where questions of organizational transparency dominated. I also investigated how market women made sense of their food distribution position in the peacebuilding era. Findings revealed that the women framed their role as one of community keeping. They emphasized the physical nature of food distribution which also necessitated maneuvering. Ultimately, food distribution gave them a sense of empowerment in postconflict times. These understandings reified class distinctions between market women and Liberian elites.

In the northern South Island, the area northern Te Wai Pounamu (NTWP) is defined appropriate to a regional investigation of pre-European culture change. It is argued that the Maori sequence of this region is relevant to a range of interpretative problems in New Zealand�s archaeological past. Preparatory to this investigation, the international and New Zealand literature on culture change is reviewed. Two primary investigative foci of change are identified in NTWP; subsistence economy and stone tool manufacturing technology. A chronological scheme of Early, Middle and Late Periods based on firmly dated ecological events and/or independent radiocarbon ages is defined so as to order the archaeological data without recourse to unproven scenarios of cultural change and association. The Early Period subsistence economy is assessed in some detail. An Early Period settlement focus is documented along the eastern Tasman Bay coast in proximity to meta-argillite sources. Early Period midden remains suggest that several genera of seal and moa were exploited, and that people were fishing in eastern Tasman Bay during the warmer months of the year. From the Early Period fishhook assemblages of Tasman Bay, manufacturing change is inferred related to the increasing scarcity of moa bone over time. It is argued that lower Early Period settlement of the larger northern South Island was focused on the north-eastern coast to Rangitoto (D�Urville Island), while NTWP was characterized by smaller stone working communities operating in summer. In contrast, moa-free middens in Awaroa Inlet and Bark Bay of the western Tasman Bay granite coast present a physical dominance of Paphies australis, and finfish species suggesting, along with the dearth of Austrovenus stutchburyi, occupation outside of the warmer summer months. These middens also present an absence of seal and a paucity of bird bone, while sharing a robust 15th-16th centuries AD radiocarbon chronology. With the dearth of all bird species from granite coast middens in general, and evidence that the less preferred kokako (Callaeas c. cinerea) was caught during the occupation of Awaroa Inlet N26/214, it is suggested that cultural regulations beyond immediate subsistence needs were also operating at this time. From southern Tasman Bay, the archaeological investigation of the important Appleby site N27/118 suggests that the people associated with the extensive horticultural soils of Waimea West otherwise consumed finfish and estuarine shellfish in (non-summer) season, kiore (Rattus exulans), dog or kuri (Canis familiaris), and several small evidence of Maori tradition, archaeological charcoal, and the approximately 16th century radiocarbon chronology for N27/118 and the associated Appleby gravel borrow pit N27/122 places the advent of extensive Waimea horticulture within the post-moa, lower Middle Period Maori economy. The Haulashore Island archaeological assemblage of south-eastern Tasman Bay with a similar material culture to Appleby is also bereft of seal and any diagnostic moa bone. This Middle Period evidence is considered in a larger comparative perspective, where the absence of seal from 15th-16th centuries Tasman Bay middens is interpreted as a factor of human predation. A secure radiocarbon chronology suggests the convergence of this loss with the diminishment and loss of selected avifauna, and the subsequent advent of large horticultural complexes in the northern South Island compensated for the loss of faunal calories in a seasonally economy and a managed ecology. The evidence of stone tool use is also reviewed in some detail for NTWP, following the definition of an adze typology appropriate to the classification of meta-argillite tools. It is clear that meta-argillite is the dominant material of adze and (non-adze) flake tool manufacture throughout the Maori sequence of NTWP, while granite coast quartz remains generally subdominant. Beyound the apparent loss of the laterally-hafted adze, the evidence of adze change is generally subdominant. Beyond the apparent loss of the laterally-hafted adze, the evidence of adze change is generally reflected in shifting typological proportions, and in new manufacturing technologies and dressing techniques. Functional change may be inferred in the loss over time of large meta-argillite points and blade tools associated respectively with the manufacture of one-piece moa bone fishhooks and moa and seal butchery. The exclusive identification of hammer-dressed adzes with hump backs and steep bevels in Middle Period assemblages is related to the advent of horticultural intensification. More generally, adzes of the upper Early and Middle Periods are increasingly characterized by round sections, while hammer-dressing is employed more frequently and extensively reduced from riverine meta-argillite and recycled banks. Collectively, these changes reflect a developing emphasis on economy and opportunistic exploitation. From this interpretation, and evidence that meta-argillite adze length and the size of high quality Ohana source flakes diminish over time, it is suggested that accessible, high quality and appropriately shaped meta-argillite rock became increasingly scarce through intensive quarry manufacture. In conclusion, the coincidence of diminishing rock and faunal resources over time is related in a speculative anthropological model of culture change. It is proposed that the 14th-16th centuries Maori economy of NTWP, and by implication and inference, many other regions of New Zealand, was characterized by a resource crisis which either precipitated or reinforced a broader trajectory of culture change. It is suggested that influential leadears perceived a linkage in the loss of high quality rock and important subsistence fauna at this time, and that distinctive technologies, institutions and ideologies of Middle Period Maori society were influenced by, and/or developed from, this perception. Finally, it is recommended that the data of an archaeological Maori culture sequence be ordered and tested within a radiocarbon based chronological scheme, rather than the still generally used model of �Archaic� and �Classic� cultural periods. It is also suggested that New Zealand archaeologists should look beyond the functional-ecological imperative to consider more holistic anthropological explanations of change in the pre-European Maori past, with a focus on integrated regional sequences.

This thesis records the development of Scenario Network Mapping (or SNM): an integrated process for anticipating the future, derived from scenario planning. It argues that this process amounts to an innovative and comprehensive method of anticipating the future. Compared with traditional scenario planning, it is designed to be carried out on a smaller scale, and can be more readily updated. Since the literature revealed no appropriate process for developing a social inquiry methodology, the thesis also develops such a process, using action research for formative evaluation. / If foresighting methods are regarded as ways of dealing with social change, changing social environments therefore require new forms of anticipation. Following a review of foresighting methodologies and of 15 scenarios for the year 2000, it is argued that the current world social environment requires a method that fulfils different criteria from futures methods used previously. The literatures of foresighting and related social inquiry were used to develop a set of evaluation criteria for a futures method. These criteria were divided into design criteria (against which a methodological design could be evaluated) and execution criteria (evaluable during and following empirical iteration). / Thesis (PhDBusinessandManagement)--University of South Australia, 2005.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

This thesis argues that the multiple geographies of political practice are an important feature of activism. It investigates the women in agriculture movement, which is an informally connected web of groups and events working to increase the recognition and participation of women in Australian agriculture. By approaching agriculture as a political and social activity, as well as and economic one, the study demonstrates diverse relations to place, in the mobilisation of the women in agriculture movement. The thesis argues that the movement is challenging Australian agriculture through actions over a variety of sites, scales and spheres. / The thesis sets out to explain the development and impact of women in agriculture activism. In doing so it studies both the contexts and effects of the movement. Multiple dimensions of the movement’s contexts are examined: agricultural, political, discursive and locational dimensions are shown to have shaped its development and character. These dimensions have then been challenged by the movement as it acts on its agenda of recognition and participation. / Three case groups within the movement were investigated to demonstrate the personal, farm and public scales at which the activism of women in agriculture has had an impact. First, the individual and collective agency of participants, at a personal level, is noted as women negotiate diverse subject positions and experience the collective relational aspects of ‘movement politics’. Second, the impact of the movement is analysed at the level of the farm unit where it challenges many of the conventional arrangements operating within family farms. Third, the movement’s impact is described within a number of spheres of agricultural and community affairs. It is argued that the movement applied specific political strategies to farmer, industry, media and state spheres which resulted in the varying success of their goals for women’s increased recognition and participation in agriculture. / Analysis of the multiple geographies of activism illustrated by the women in agriculture movement reveals the political and discursive processes that operate to construct family farming. Moreover, it demonstrates the impact of activism where a movement strategically operates in multiple places and spaces to effect the social change and desires.

China, in her rapid industrialization over the last two decades, has successfully grown out of its traditional village image and into a modernized society. This dissertation aims to study the job stress of workers through the application of Karaseks (1979) job demand - job control model, in the collectivistic culture of China. Karaseks results indicated that workers in general perceived their jobs as more demanding and themselves as less in control. Moreover, high anxiety and depressive symptoms were related to their stressful working environment and demanding jobs. / PhD Doctorate