This dissertation is about the circus, but it is also about how we think through a range of possibilities for individual and social change in the contemporary post-Fordist or neoliberal moment. In the last 40 years geographers, along side other scholars, have documented an increasingly close relationship between social, political, and economic aspects of life in western countries. These shifts have raised concerns over shrinking spaces of resistance and loss of counter hegemonic voices, and increased interest in transgressive or ‘outside’ spaces and bodies as sites of resistance, escape, and social change. Two contested sites that seem to offer promise for resistance, yet are simultaneously critiqued for their participation in dominant discourses, are art (or creative labour) and the body. Despite prolific literatures on these topics in geography in the last decade, links between creative labour, theories of embodiment, and the living practices of cultural workers are still far too rare. To address this I examine the intersection of theories of research, labour, art, discipline, embodiment and politics, understood through the daily practices of circus performers doing highly physical and embodied work. I focus in particular on clowns and aerialists, performance forms to which I have outstanding access as a performer in these genres. I addition to extensive participant observation over several years of performance work, my research is based on 26 elite interviews with key performers in the Canadian circus community, and an ephemeral archive of visual and textual materials. The resonance of questions about the nature of social research, art and work, and disciplined and fluid subjectivities, opens up new space for thinking across often-disconnected spheres. I believe the presence of circus performers’ lived experiences and my own embodied knowledge throughout this analysis deepens our understanding of political possibilities across many different spaces.

This thesis investigates the relationship between water resources, networks and territory under changing relations of rule in the West Bank, Occupied Palestinian Territories. It focuses on the creation of uneven patterns of water infrastructure development since Israeli occupation of the territory in 1967, and on their perpetration following the establishment of the Palestinian National Authority in 1995. This is produced by the interplay of three different imperatives of water resource development: a military-strategic and territorial one, represented by the Israeli Civil Administration, one based on national sovereignty over resources and universal water rights, represented by the Palestinian National Authority, and one based on technical efficiency of the sector, promoted by some international development institutions. The relative strength of these three actors in relation to each other, which in turn is influenced by the political history of the region, determines the physical outcome of water resource development.

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Geography / Richard A. Marston / David R. Seamon / Sprawling over 180 square miles of California’s Mojave Desert, Wonder Valley was founded in the early 1950s and today is an unincorporated community of approximately 1,000 residents. The community’s landscape is expansive and unsettling, featuring a chaotic assortment of residences that include abandoned homesteads, squatter settlements, artists’ studios, middle-class cabins, and luxury vacation properties. This dissertation explores Wonder Valley’s enigmatic place identity from residents’ point of view, drawing on an experiential understanding of place grounded in humanistic and phenomenological geography. Specifically, the dissertation makes use of Edward Relph’s explication of place identity to guide empirical inquiry and conceptual structure. Drawing on resident interviews, place observations, and textual analysis, the dissertation identifies and explicates three distinct Wonder Valley identities—homesteaders, dystopics, and utopics. Arriving in the 1950s, homesteaders were Wonder Valley’s first inhabitants and express a practical connection to the landscape that is interpreted in terms of environmental reach, specifically, the creation, maintenance, and extension of environmental and place order. During the 1970s, as many homesteaders abandoned Wonder Valley, dystopics arrived and today include two subgroups: first, a criminal element pulled to Wonder Valley because of its local isolation but regional proximity to Los Angeles; and, second, destitute squatters pushed out from other communities and having nowhere else to go. The third group identified is utopics, primarily artists from Los Angeles and San Francisco, who arrived in the early 1990s, attracted by Wonder Valley’s natural beauty and sacred ambience. The dissertation explores how these three groups arrived at different times, for different reasons, to create vastly different landscapes, to engage in opposing aims and activities, and to understand Wonder Valley’s meaning as a place in greatly contrasting ways. These differences in meaning are most directly expressed in the common areas of public land, which have often become sites of inter-group tension and conflict, particularly in regard to abandoned homesteads and the use of off-road vehicles. To interpret this group conflict conceptually, the dissertation develops what is termed existential ecotone— a unique mode of place experience generated by overlapping but contrasting modes of being-in-place.

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Geography / Bimal K. Paul / Given the recent recognition that not only physical processes, but social, political and economic aspects of hazards determine vulnerability and impact of an event, the next logical step would seem to be the development of classification systems that address those factors. Classifications for natural disasters, such as the Fujita Scale for tornadoes and the Saffir-Simpson hurricane scale, focus on the physical properties of the event, not the impact on a community. Pre-event vulnerability to a natural hazard is determined by many factors, such as age, race, income and gender, as well as infrastructure such as density of the built environment and health of the industrial base. The behavior of residents in the community, construction quality of shelters and warning system effectiveness also affect vulnerability. If pre-event vulnerability is to be determined by such factors, post-event impact should, at least in part, be as well. The goal of this research was to develop the Tornado Impact-Community Vulnerability Index (TICV) that utilizes variables such as the number of persons killed, economic impacts and social vulnerability to describe to the level of impact a tornado event has on community. As tornadoes that strike unpopulated areas are often difficult to classify, even in the traditional sense, the TICV will take into consideration only events that strike communities with defined political boundaries, or “places” according to the U.S. Census Bureau. By assigning a rating to the impact, this index will allow the severity of the storm to be understood in terms of its effect on a specific community and hence its impact, rather than an physically-based rating that gives only a broad, general indication of its physical strength.

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Geography / Douglas G. Goodin / Prescribed burning in tallgrass prairie affects a wide range of human and natural systems. Consequently, managing this biome based on sound science, and with the concerns of all stakeholders taken into account, requires a method for mapping burned areas. In order to devise such a method, many different spectral ranges and spectral indices were tested for their ability to differentiate burned from unburned areas at both the field and satellite scales. Those bands and/or indices that performed well, as well as two different classification techniques and two different satellite-based sensors, were tested in order to come up with the best combination of band/index, classification technique, and sensor for mapping burned areas in tallgrass prairie. The ideal method used both the red and near-infrared spectral regions, used imagery at a spatial resolution of at least 250 m, used satellite imagery with daily temporal resolution, and used pixel-based classification techniques rather than object-based techniques. Using this method, burned area maps were generated for the Flint Hills for every year from 2000-2010, creating a fire history of the region during that time period. These maps were compared to active fire and burned area products, and these products were found to underestimate burned areas in tallgrass prairie.

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Geography / Melinda D. Daniels / This dissertation increases our understanding of the drivers that shape and maintain grassland streams and their watersheds by examining the influence of grazing management practices on suspended sediment concentrations, bare ground production, and changes to channel geomorphology. Chapter 2 demonstrates that cattle grazing produces significantly higher baseflow suspended sediment concentrations relative to bison grazing. Suspended sediment concentrations within bison-grazed streams are similar to ungrazed streams, indicating that the substitution of cattle for bison has resulted in degradation of baseflow water quality in grassland streams. Burning frequency, discharge, and seasonality are also significant drivers of suspended sediment concentrations, but are generally less influential than grazing treatments. Chapter 3 indicates that high density cattle grazing treatments produce more bare ground within the riparian zones of grassland stream networks, particularly underneath tree canopy cover. The increased bare ground coverage within riparian areas is correlated with increased suspended sediment concentrations during baseflow conditions, while watershed-scale bare ground production is correlated with increased suspended sediment concentrations during storm flow events. Chapter 4 demonstrates channel geometry and sedimentology are significantly influenced by grazing treatments. This dissertation is the first study to comparatively evaluate the relative influence between cattle and bison grazing on stream geomorphology within any environment. Insight gained from this project can be used by public and private land use managers to improve the environmental integrity of native grassland ecosystems.

Master of Arts / Department of Geography / Lisa M. Harrington / Hayscapes, or haying landscapes, are distinctive cultural landscapes that evolve through time as a result of technological changes in response to economic realities. Since settlement began in the western United States, hay-making has gone through a number of mechanical revolutions that have given rise to an assortment of different methods employed in the process of gathering and storing hay. For this research, the changes in haying technology and resulting cultural landscapes are divided into four eras based on the haying methods of the time in western Montana and eastern Idaho. Common haying technology used in the study area at one time or another includes rudimentary devices, hay derricks, Beaverslides, overshots, swinging arm stackers, small, rectangular balers, tractors with front loader extensions, loaf stackers, round balers, large, rectangular balers, and forage harvesters (choppers). Farmers and ranchers create different hayscapes based on the technology used. There are different reasons for using different haying technologies, such as the type and size of agricultural operation, economics, and personal preference. Landscapes are documents, and by “reading” the haying landscape, we are able to acknowledge the story of the transition of life and ways of the past to present-day living of the people. Insights are discovered regarding past and present technologies and aspects of their social and economic systems. This study examines the different past and present haying landscapes of western Montana and eastern Idaho to better understand reasons and ways in which human activities have imprinted the landscape and given rise to distinct, and aesthetically pleasing, patterns on the earth’s surface.

In this research, a recent version of the Boreal Ecosystem Productivity Simulator (BEPS), called BEPS-TerrainLab, was adapted to northern peatlands and evaluated using observations made at the Mer Bleue bog located near Ottawa, Ontario, and the Sandhill fen located near Prince Albert, Saskatchewan. The code was extended and modified with a major focus on the adequate representation of northern peatlands' multi-layer canopy and the associated processes related to energy, water vapour and carbon dioxide fluxes through remotely-sensed leaf area index (LAI) maps. An important prerequisite for the successful mapping of LAI based on remote sensing imagery is the accurate measurement of LAI in the field with a standard technique such as the LAI-2000 plant canopy analyzer. As part of this research, a quick and reliable method to determine shrub LAI with the LAI-2000 instrument was developed. This method was used to collect a large number of LAI data at the Mer Bleue bog for the development of a new remote sensing-based methodology using multiple endmember spectral unmixing that allows for separate tree and shrub LAI mapping in ombrotrophic peatlands. A slight modification of this methodology allows for its application to minerotrophic peatlands and their surrounding landscapes. These LAI maps were used to explicitly represent the tree and shrub layers of the Mer Bleue bog and the tree and shrub/sedge layers of the Sandill fen within BEPS-TerrainLab. The adapted version of BEPS-TerrainLab was used to investigate the in fluence of mescoscale topography (Mer Bleue bog) and macro- and mesoscale topography (Sandhill fen) on wetness, evapotranspiration, and gross primary productivity during the snow-free period of 2004. This research suggests that future peatland ecosystem modelling efforts at regional and continental scales should include a peatland type-specific differentiation of macro- and mesoscale topographic effects on hydrology, to allow for a more realistic simulation of peatlands' soil water balance. This is an important prerequisite for the reduction of currently existing uncertainties in wetlands' contribution to North America's carbon dioxide and methane annual fluxes from an ecosystem modelling perspective.

This dissertation investigates informal waste recycling practices in the modern urban centre of Buenos Aires, Argentina. My research sets a baseline for the living and working conditions of the approximately 9,000 informal recyclers (cartoneros) in the city, focusing on their health, socio-economic status, and access to social and material resources. The research methods included a survey (n = 397) and interviews (n = 30) with cartoneros, as well as key informant interviews and an analysis of newspaper articles addressing informal recycling in the city. My findings indicate that Buenos Aires’ cartoneros, while not the poorest of the poor, are of a relatively low socio-economic status. Their health outcomes and determinants of health are poor compared to others in the Greater Buenos Aires region, and these workers are often stigmatized and discriminated against because of their associations with waste. Cartoneros’ experiences of the city are characterized by a series of social, political, and physical exclusions, revealing a state of urban inequality in Buenos Aires. I argue that municipal agendas of neoliberal urban development are implicated in both the symbolic and physical marginalization of these workers. Cartoneros draw upon many resources in coping with the multiple vulnerabilities that they face (particularly social resources and assets derived from their labour). They also occasionally engage with urban processes of exclusion through collective action and rhetorical redefinitions of their role in society. These workers are therefore active agents in their own destinies, and potential actors for social change. The municipal government of Buenos Aires has recently implemented a formalization plan for some of the city’s cartoneros; the dissertation includes an assessment of these plans, as well as recommendations for other policy-based interventions to informal recycling practices.

Aboriginal urbanization has increased dramatically in Canada over the last half century. Aboriginal rights may be an important factor in shaping Aboriginal peoples’ experiences of urbanization, as they are largely restricted to those living on reserves. Through their impacts on social determinants of health, these differences in spatial access to Aboriginal rights may have implications for the health of Aboriginal peoples living in urban areas. Using mixed quantitative (statistical analysis of the Aboriginal Peoples Survey) and qualitative (in-depth interviews with Aboriginal women and men in Toronto) methods, this thesis explores relationships between Aboriginal urbanization and Aboriginal rights, focusing on how they may differentially impact the health of Aboriginal women and men living in urban areas. Findings suggest that the perceived lack of respect for Aboriginal rights in urban areas is negatively related to health, and that Aboriginal women and men may experience these impacts differently.