Master of Arts / Department of Geography / John Harrington Jr / Agriculture is vital to the character of Kansas. It is threaded through the social, economic, and environmental systems that operate in Kansas and bring each system into interaction with one another. Loss of agriculture would mean drastic changes to traditional Kansas way of life due to the three pronged nature of agriculture in Kansas. Continuation of agricultural activity then is of great importance. Globalization, climate change, and environmental change pose threats to agricultural futures. This study is a meta-analysis of current literature in an attempt to assess the current state of sustainable agriculture in the state of Kansas. An emphasis was placed on climate as a driver of change and ways in which agricultural producers in Kansas may begin implementing sustainable adaptations. Barriers to implementing sustainable agricultural adaptations were also identified in the literature. Broadly speaking analysis focused on barriers created through policy and barriers created through gaps in knowledge and weak or missing connections, or cognitive barriers. Information gathered in the course of the literature analysis was used to generate two potential future agricultural scenarios for Kansas. Scenarios can be used to aid policy makers in assessing potential impacts of environmental change and interactions between different systems and scales. Two separate scenarios, Business-As-Usual and Sustainable-Adaptive, were developed with distinct characteristics. The Business-As-Usual scenario represents a future that is framed similar to the current situation. Changes built into the scenario stem from the projected changes to climate. The remainder of the narrative describes a future that has pursued developmental pathways driven by current policy and market forces. In contrast, the Sustainable-Adaptive scenario represents a Policy Reform scenario in which there is strong guidance through policy towards a developmental pathway that focuses on sustainable agricultural methods. This scenario describes a future in which environmental degradation is slowed or even reversed. Continued future work may focus on the role of water availability, community level impacts of sustainable adaptations, and the integration of stakeholder values as another layer of complexity in future scenarios.

Master of Arts / Department of Geography / Kendra K. McLauchlan / Whitebark pine (Pinus albicaulis) is a critically threatened North American conifer. In modern times, it has experienced a significant decline in population due to pine beetle infestations, blister rust infections, fire suppression, and climate change. While climate, fire, and vegetation are strongly linked on regional and global scales, the relative roles of these three factors are not well-documented during the Holocene in high elevation mountain sites of North America. Recent anthropogenic changes in climate and fire management practices are underway, but the potential responses of subalpine vegetation to these environmental changes remain relatively unknown. Here, I documented the paleoecology of a watershed surrounding an unnamed, high-altitude pond containing a large number of whitebark pine trees located at 2805m elevation in Grand Teton National Park, U.S.A. Using a 1.5 meter lacustrine sediment core collected in 2010, I generated a Holocene-scale fire and vegetation record using fossil pollen, charcoal, and macrofossils preserved within the core. I also conducted a dendrochronological study of the current stand of whitebark pine in the watershed to determine both approximate dates of establishment and responses to past climate change of this modern stand. Sedimentary charcoal data indicate significant variability in both fire frequency and fire intensity during the Holocene. The fire regime observed in the past 1000 years is seemingly unprecedented at this site, with lower fire frequency and higher fire intensity than any other time during the Holocene. Sedimentary pollen data suggest the study site has been primarily dominated by whitebark pine until the last 1000 years, with brief periods of vegetation dominated by non-arboreal taxa that indicate the presence of either successional dynamics or shifts in treeline location. Ages of individual living whitebark pine trees average 365 years, and dendrochronology data suggest that ring widths of the current stand have been declining since 1991. Statistical analyses of PRISM climate data with ring width data suggest that this decrease in annual growth is likely the result of decreased growing season temperature ranges driven by a warming climate. While this stand of whitebark pine is threatened by both warming climate and fire suppression, there is the potential for low-intensity prescribed burns to play a role in conservation and restoration management plans for this threatened conifer.

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Geography / Lisa M.B. Harrington / The Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (GYE) is a large, nearly intact ecosystem with significant protection that has often been considered an ideal location to examine coupled human-environment interactions due to the region’s complex mosaic of private and public lands, competing natural resource uses, and rapid population growth. A transition toward sustainability suggests that current societal and economic needs can be met while simultaneously maintaining the planet’s life support systems for future generations. To facilitate sustainability transitions it is imperative that the perceptions and experiences of local communities be documented. The objective of this study was to determine how residents of amenity-driven gateway communities (West Yellowstone and Red Lodge, Montana, and Jackson, Wyoming) surrounding Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks perceive and experience their transition toward sustainability and the challenges inherent in that transition, how those perceptions inform locally produced and extra-local policies, and how institutions influence sustainability goals. Further, this study determined which factors contribute to these perceptions, and whether they differed spatially and temporally. To meet study objectives, a mixed methods approach was implemented, including the content analysis of local newspapers and key informant interviews. Content analysis of local newspapers was used to investigate decision maker and stakeholder priorities for the local and regional environment, economy, and communities, and to determine what actions had been taken to promote sustainability. A total of 193 articles from West Yellowstone News, 287 articles from Carbon County News, and 333 articles from Jackson Hole News & Guide for the ten year period 2000-2009, were analyzed. Specific focal topics varied among the newspapers/communities, but in general terms the most discussed topics in West Yellowstone during this time were focused on natural resources, economic development, community development, sustainability and conservation, and growth and development. The most discussed topics for Red Lodge were community development, government services, tourism and recreation, and growth and development. The most commonly discussed topics in Jackson were natural resources, growth and development, community development, and government services. A total of 35 semi-structured interviews were conducted with key informants in the three study communities during the summer of 2010 to allow for specific questioning and to gain additional information. Definitions of sustainability differed based on the key informant’s community, role in the community, and length of residence in the community. Overall, definitions of sustainability focused on the environment, the economy, and multi-generational or long-term thinking. The prioritization of the economy, environment, and society also differed based on community; however, there was overall recognition that each community was dependent upon the natural environment for economic vitality. In all three study communities, dependence on tourism and recreation-based industries, the lack of a diversified economy, and continued growth and development have resulted in a disconnect between perceptions, priorities, and goals as they relate to sustainability. In addition, each community was focused on multiple goals that further complicated the fulfillment of sustainability objectives. The multi-goal orientation of study communities is reflected in the multiple visions that various decision makers and stakeholders have for the community and their futures. What is needed most is a hierarchical approach to a sustainability transition, with each community setting its own, as well as ecosystem-wide, goals, objectives, and visions. Findings suggest that a transition toward sustainability is perceived and experienced differently based on local context. In the GYE, that context includes a tourism-based economy that is dependent upon the natural environment, a myriad of local, regional, national, and global stakeholders, and the presence of federal land agencies that are responsible for the sustainability of natural systems, freeing local communities to focus on the societal and economic dimensions of sustainability. A transition toward sustainability will be manifested differently in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, and potentially other communities adjacent to protected lands, than it is other areas because of its unique milieu. While the close proximity of federal lands, including Yellowstone National Park, may complicate the sustainability discourse at times and may, in certain instances, add additional challenges through extra-local control of change, these same federal lands may also favor a transition toward sustainability in amenity-driven gateway communities. In addition, the disparate socio-economic conditions present in study communities, as well as extra-local institutions and agencies, directly influence, and may at times further complicate, a transition toward sustainability. This study is based on the theory that in order to successfully transition toward sustainability, a better understanding of coupled human and natural systems is critical, and because of the close couplings between human and natural systems in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, and because of the unique challenges and conflicts present in the region, the GYE is an ideal location to study human-environment interactions. The use-inspired orientation of sustainability science aims to provide tangible, real-world, and place-based understanding of a transition toward sustainability. The contribution of this study to the field of sustainability science is the understanding that, while sustainability visions, goals, and objectives may be similar across a region, consideration of local contexts affecting goals and perceptions provides valuable insights that may inform sustainability pathways at local scales and, as a result, provide deeper understanding of global sustainability. One of these insights is that communities that seemingly have much in common due to their shared region, physical environmental surroundings, and history, the specific concerns to ensure place-based sustainability can show variability. Another important point from this research is that, while most depictions of sustainability are focused on three elements—the economy, society, and the environment—individuals also key in on multigenerational concerns.

Marginal regions in discursive space: an examination of socio-economic conditions, development paths and spatial differentiation in the economic systems of the Canadian and Russian North Andrey N Petrov Degree: Doctor of Philosophy Department of Geography University of Toronto 2008 This dissertation is an effort to provide a new insight into the problem of regional development in remote areas under changing global and national political and economic conditions. It undertakes an assessment of shared economic histories, recent changes and future possibilities of socioeconomic prosperity and sustainability in marginal regions of Canada and Russia. The first chapter re-examines the structure of Canada’s and Russia’s space-economies by evoking the concept of regional multichotomies and economic marginality. I consider whether outcomes, geographic patterns and spatial logics of regional differentiation in the two countries are similar and explore the evidence of similarity between the North(s). Finding development outcomes in the Russian and Canadian North strikingly similar, the second chapter uses a combination of discursive analysis and regulation theory to re-interpret the origins of present-day problems and examine the genealogy of northern development. It argues that the Canadian and Russian northern development regimes shared profound commonalities. From these positions, the chapter compares and critiques past and present policies of regional development in the two Norths, and discusses their viability. The third chapter dwells upon a concept of ‘development regimes’ to analyze and compare contemporary regional development policies. It further investigates how recent economic development policies in the two Norths are adapting to changing economic and political realities, and if they were able to deliver desirable results to northern communities. The chapter compares and critiques contemporary policies and discusses possible alternative perspectives that reconcile an emerging postcolonial paradigm of development and realities of post-Fordism. It introduces the notion of the neo-staple development regime and describes its manifestations (Impact and Benefit Agreements). The fourth chapter presents a case for fostering knowledge based development and creative capital in the North. It builds on the innovation systems and institutional geography literatures to argue that the creative capital in the periphery is a pivotal factor of regional development. The chapter provides a conceptualization and empirical analysis of the creative class in remote regions. Contrary to the metropolitan bias, I argue that creative ‘hot spots’ beyond metropolis exist, and could become the centres of regional reinvention, if appropriate policies are introduced in support.

This dissertation examines how social inequalities are reinforced over time and in place by addressing a central question: How are power relations maintained and reproduced in space? I outline ways in which social networks contributed to the reproduction of social and economic power in early twentieth-century Toronto. I also pay particular attention to the ways in which particular spaces acted as a nexus for the reproduction of power and unequal social relations. My research captures the dynamism and complexity of social capital networks that stretched across space. These networks demonstrate that Toronto’s Anglo elite and Italian entrepreneurs lived in a world where persons interacted over a number of regions and scales. This study contributes to the body of knowledge in social capital, network and social boundary research. Although this dissertation is largely concerned with early twentieth-century Toronto class and power relations, the results have implications beyond this case study. This research makes a significant contribution to historical geography by providing scholars interested in contemporary power relations and social networks with an empirically rich historical perspective. This study extends previous examinations of social inequality by examining how power relations were reproduced over time and through space. I analyze how social capital can be conceptualized as set of processes that is 1) integral to the acquisition of economic capital, 2) significant in constraining the action of others by redrawing the social boundaries of class and ethnicity, and 3) critical for the building of alliances across space. This research offers a complementary method to the inequality studies of David Ward, Joe Darden, Nan Lin, Richard Harris, James Barrett, and David Harvey by historically situating questions about the reproduction of social inequality through the examination of social networks.

This thesis investigates the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (Nepad) in order to engage debates about neoliberalism in African development policy. In identifying limitations with commentaries of Nepad and pervasive narratives of neoliberalisation, I employ an analytic of governmentality to reinterpret neoliberalisation as the governmental re-management of populations into societies of free, entrepreneurial, self-regulating subjects. Firstly, I investigate how Nepad makes Africa knowable and amenable to technical intervention in the form of “development”, particularly drawing attention to how the African subject is understood and the intimacy between technical solutions and expert diagnosis. Secondly, I explore four initiatives and techniques that attempt to render these rationalities reality. The conclusions elucidate how neoliberalism ought not to be understood as a monolithic, unrolling totality that simply implants itself through coercive power relations, but rather is comprised of a patchwork of rationalities, knowledges and discourses and given effect through prosaic governing practices.

Cardiovascular Diseases (CVD) have become the leading cause of death in India and other developing countries. The aims of this study were to: (1) describe the geographical epidemiology of CVD in India, (2) provide a graphical display of CVD risk factors and mortality outcomes, and (3) describe the sources of bias. Five large, nationally-representative datasets from India were studied. Cardiovascular death rates were 308/100,000 among males and 198/100,000 among females in middle-age (30-69years). Wide variations between states were noted in the distribution of risk factors and mortality. The selected risk factors explained 49% and 43% of the variation among males and females respectively. Ecologic analysis revealed death rates at state-level were associated with rates of overweight and vegetarianism among males; no such association was found among females. This study has implications for identification of areas with high burden, formulation of hypotheses, and assessing needs for disease control at national/regional levels.

This research examines the perceptions and use of environmental indicators and state of the environment reports by local government and Conservation Authority decision makers and practitioner’s within the Ontario portion of the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence basin. Participants describe their information needs and how indicators and SOER are used at the local level; and what limitations or challenges they face to bridge the gap between monitoring information and policy. A multi-method approach including a web-based survey and follow-up telephone interviews was the primary data collection method used. Indicator and SOER knowledge and information are further explored to determine information exchange amongst different levels of governance. To review the dissemination of indicator and SOER information from a higher spatial scale down to the local level, the State of the Great Lakes environmental indicators and SOER, developed by the governments of Canada and the United States served as a case study.

Using qualitative interviews, this thesis examines bicycle and car politics in Toronto, Canada to understand: i) how automobility affects those engaged in contesting and supporting cycling initiatives; ii) why the installation of cycling infrastructure has been politicized; and iii) whether strategies used by cycling activists are effective. The paper concludes that contemporary cultural and economic values surrounding automobility are visible in those engaged in bicycle and car politics. Findings suggest that the politicization of efforts to install cycling infrastructure arise due to how these values manifest themselves in the political realm, and the interrelationship between a lack of coherent transportation policy, the institutionalization of automobiles in planning and a ward-based decision-making system that entrenches suburban and urban biases. Activist strategies could be more effective by moving away from a focus on cycling lanes to address cultural norms associated with automobiles and bicycles and by focusing on a ‘complete streets’ approach.

Using the Three Border Model developed by Mike Davis and Alessandra Moctezuma, this thesis presents a number of case studies focused on the narratives of power and transformation that continue to develop on the American side of the U.S.-Mexico border in the post-9/11 context. The first case study overviews the history of the U.S.-Mexico border in relation to the ongoing fortification of the physical boundary and its legal reification in federal policy. The second case study examines the exclusionary policies enacted by the state of Arizona as well as the anti-immigration agenda instituted by the Minuteman Project. The third case study examines the ways in which urban communities in the borderlands contest the material manifestations of the border present in their everyday lives. By surveying case studies at different sites and scales along the U.S.-Mexico boundary, this thesis challenges traditional conceptions of state power at the border.