This thesis, titled ‘Hide: A 21st century woman’s response to the first person in poetry’ is a creative and critical examination of the challenges and benefits of the first-person approach in poetry. It is in two parts, consisting of a collection of sixty poems and a critical investigation into the research leading to, and engendered by, the poems. Hide is a place from which to observe, hide is skin, hide is deliberate concealment; all of these meanings can be seen to reflect some of the concerns examined in both the creative and critical parts of the thesis. ‘Hide’s’ layers of meaning directly engage with what 'I' we choose to conceal and what 'I' we choose to show, as well as residing on the boundaries between privacy and exposure. The poems spring from investigations of my central concerns of autobiography, family history, the workings of memory, and ancestral knowledge in the form of ‘cunning’. The poems are an active investigation into the challenges and benefits of the ‘I’; the approaches and techniques for using it as well as the reasons for, and strategies involved in, avoiding the ‘I’. The critical part of the thesis is an auto-ethnographic study of the poems in the collection, together with examination of the difficulties faced by women writing in the first-person. The research includes thematic analysis of published reviews, and examination of the critical landscape within which women are writing.

The primary objective of this study was to describe and analyze visions of 21st century education articulated by prominent individuals involved with current school reform and restructuring efforts. A second objective was to describe and analyze those images of the most likely educational scenario in the 21st century and the perceived barriers that would prevent realization of those idealized visions.

The political films that have emerged on the global film festival circuit since the 1990s mark a shift in cinematic strategies for critically addressing dominant, militant, or otherwise repressive ideologies. From a focus on the representation of oppression in films like The Battle of Algiers, films such as Timbuktu, Nobody Knows About Persian Cats and Chop Shop now contribute to the active formation of political characters and viewers, a form not fully realized until the 21st century due to shifts in information technologies and resulting political organization. This book demonstrates that a contemporary form of political cinema has emerged, centered on the production of subjectivity and networks of protest, which depicts the active formation of political identities that resonates with off-screen protest movements. / https://dc.etsu.edu/etsu_books/1211/thumbnail.jpg

Research report submitted to the School of Architecture and Planning, University of the Witwatersrand, in fulfilment of the requirements for the Master of Science in Development Planning, 2016 / In South Africa, the promotion of economic zones by government is marked by a paradox. The Department of Trade and Industry promote economic zones in the promise of “regional development” (Department of trade and industry 2014). However, scholars including Chinguno (2009, 2011) and Robbins (pers. communication 2015) have argued that economic zones are not designed for this purpose. In particular, economic zones have been criticised for having minimal positive economic impact on adjacent communities (ibid.). This research as a result is located under the broad theme of economic impact or effects of economic zones, with a specific focus on induced economic effects of the Coega mega-project on businesses in Motherwell. In this research induced economic effects are understood in the context of income spending that result from direct effects (employment) of the Coega mega-project. Income spending as a lens has been used to investigate the manner in which workers employed at Coega mega-project spend their income, with a particular interest on whether these workers do or not spend their income on businesses that are operating in Motherwell. Motherwell is one of the adjacent communities - to the Coega mega-project - that have been targeted by the Coega mega-project for development (Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality 2010a). This community as a choice or area of study is interesting since the existence of the Coega mega-project is encourage by the Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality because of its potential to create jobs and foster economic growth in Motherwell (see Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality 2010a, 2010b, 2014b). Primary data resulting from a survey that involved 30 workers demonstrates that there is about 10 different ways in which workers at Coega spend their income. This include renting accommodation - buying food, clothing/cosmetics, fuel - paying for medicine/doctor visits, child care, education, recreation and transportation. Moreover, workers at Coega who participated in this research also spend their income by sending it to family members and they also save their income with banks. This research reveals that none of the workers who do not stay in Motherwell are spending their income on businesses that are operating in Motherwell. Moreover, this research also reveals that most of the income from the workers who stay in Motherwell is spent on businesses that are not operating in Motherwell. As a result of these challenges amongst other challenges for Motherwell - identified in this research - I have concluded this research by providing an intervention of what could be done to address issues of poverty and unemployment in Motherwell through income spending of workers at Coega. I have suggest that Motherwell should be developed to offer a safer and accessible urban structure/environment, characterised by mix of land uses at specific nodes that responds to income spending of workers at Coega. / MT2017

A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management, University of the Witwatersrand, in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy March 2015 / The study was carried out to determine the transformation of the security institutions and related management bodies in Malawi from 1994 to 2014 as the country shifted from authoritarian rule to democratic governance. Transformation of the security sector (TSS) is the process by which a country in transitional democracy formulates or re-orients the policies, structures and capacities of security institutions, and private security groups in the security sector. Such tasks in a newly democratic Malawi required new sets of values among political leaders, the legislature, security practitioners as well as the civil society. TSS is sometimes expressed as Security Sector Reform (SSR), Security Sector Governance (SSG) and as well as Security and Justice Sector Reform (SJSR) (African Union 2010). The study employed qualitative method as the mainstay and partly some statistical data interpretation was employed using a Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) software for the purpose of data visualisation and to identify information in graphical presentation. Forty participants were involved from security institutions and management bodies (army, police intelligence, prisons services), residing in Lilongwe, the Capital City of Malawi. iii The findings reveal that the security sector and management bodies in Malawi failed to transform/perform sufficiently. The opportunity for reform was significant however it was limited because the transition to democracy stalled due to continued abuse of power by the elected authorities. This may have been a deliberate attempt by those in power in order to maintain a weak security sector and management bodies for own interests. The current structure of the security sector in Malawi may be weak for the following reasons: Lack of expertise by the elected authorities, lack of overall security reviews every year, non-existent of various security policies, lack of modern equipment and technology and last but not least, mean budgetary consideration and very low salaries to the security members. Furthermore, the basic security legislation should be reformed because Malawi inherited a legal structure from the colonial rule that requires modification. The results from this study suggest that the transition process calls for a comprehensive TSS/SSR or SSG of the entire security sector and management bodies. The government should reinforce policy action across security institutions whereby the elected authorities, legislature, security practitioners and civil societies are involved in locally owned TSS. An important fact is positive change in the level of responsiveness by the State to the rights, views and demands of its citizens. / MT2016

A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Economics, October, 2017 / This thesis contains three core chapters that assess the performance of alternative monetary policy frameworks and instruments in stabilizing 10 selected African economies. Literature and practice show that Advanced Economies (AEs) and Emerging Market Economies (EMEs) are mostly adopting the ination targeting (IT) framework. This framework relies on active use of the interest rate as a policy instrument for macroeconomic stabilisation. Di⁄erent from AEs and EMEs, the majority of African countries are characterized by low nancial market development, frequent supply shocks and volatile terms of trade. These features impede the e¢ ciency of the IT framework and the interest rate instrument. Supply shocks imply that ination is not only demand driven. Volatile terms of trade translate into excessive exchange rate uctuations. Due to these factors, policy practice in Africa remains largely divergent from the global trend. Authorities still rely on monetary aggregate targeting (MAT) with de facto managed exchange rates. However, the MAT framework is also failing to stabilize economies. This follows instability of the key factors, such as the money demand, upon which the framework is anchored. Furthermore, controlling exchange rate movements is a challenge due to weak balance of payments positions. It is not surprising, therefore, that the majority of African economies still remain in the grip of macroeconomic instability. Ination and GDP targets are rarely met and they also remain volatile. The perverse macroeconomic features and the perceived failure of the MAT regime have necessitated the search for alternative monetary frameworks and instruments. In this study, we join the search by specically focussing on three questions. First, given the macroeconomic landscape in Africa, what is the relative performance of the interest rate vis--vis the monetary aggregate as instru iv ments for macroeconomic stabilization? Secondly, how do these instruments perform when apart from ination and output stabilization, monetary policy also engages in smoothing exchange rate uctuations? Thirdly, what is the relative performance of ination targeting vis--vis nominal GDP targeting as alternative monetary policy regimes for macroeconomic stabilization in African economies? Although the success of monetary policy largely relies on appropriate conguration of monetary policy frameworks and instruments, answers to these questions remain controversial and scanty for African economies. In order to address these questions, we formulate a New Keynesian Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium (DSGE) model. In this model, money is non-separable from consumption in the utility function. We estimate the model using the Maximum Likelihood method with quarterly data mostly from 1990 to 2014. The data is obtained from the International Financial Statistics (IFS). The thesis has ve chapters. Chapter 1 is the general background to the research problem. Chapters 2, 3 and 4 are distinct but related core chapters addressing three specic research questions. Chapter 5 is the conclusion. In Chapter 2, we compare the performance of the monetary aggregate and the interest rate as alternative instruments for stabilizing ination and output in 10 selected countries. Results show that the monetary aggregate is superior in stabilizing 5 economies. In the other 5 countries, it is the interest rate instrument which performs better. In the former group of countries, the monetary aggregate plays a relatively large role in macroeconomic dynamics while in the latter the interest rate is more signicant. These results partly reect di⁄erences in nancial market development between the two groups of countries. Overall, we nd a weak role of the interest rate compared to the monetary aggregate in driving aggregate demand dynamics. The exchange rate is also found to be a key driver of macroeconomic dynamics. Our re v sults suggest three things: First, authorities in Africa need to be cautious of a blanket adoption of the interest rate as a sole monetary policy instrument. Second, authorities will nd it di¢ cult to stabilize economies using the interest rate based frameworks. Third, exchange rate stability is key to macroeconomic stability in Africa. In Chapter 3, we extend the authoritiesobjective function. In addition to minimizing ination and output volatility, authorities also use the interest rate or money supply rules to smooth exchange rate uctuations. The results show that macroeconomic performance is enhanced when authorities smooth exchange rate uctuations in 4 of the 10 countries. The gains from exchange rate smoothing mostly arise from a reduction in ination and exchange rate volatility but not fromoutput. In the other 6 countries, exchange rate smoothing worsens macroeconomic performance. These results reect the fact that the exchange rate exerts a relatively large inuence in macroeconomic dynamics in the rst group of countries compared to the latter. Exchange rate smoothing therefore minimizes the pass-through of the exchange uctuations to ination and output leading to better performance. Overall, the ndings suggest that exchange rate smoothing is harmful in Africa. Where exchange rate smoothing delivers gains, appropriate thresholdsofsmoothingneedtobeobservedtoavoidpolicyinducedmacroeconomic instability. Authorities should also smooth temporal rather that structural shifts in the exchange rate level. In Chapter 4, we compare the performance of ination targeting (IT) vis-vis nominal GDP targeting (NGDPT) as alternative monetary policy frameworks for macroeconomic stabilization. We examine the strict and exible versions of these policy regimes. We also include a hybrid regime which combines elements of IT and NGDPT. Results show that the hybrid regime performs better in 5 countries. In the other 4 countries, it is the strict ination targeting that performs better. In 1 country, exible ination tar vi geting is optimal. The results also reveal that demand shocks dominate but are closely trailed by supply and exchange rate shocks in explaining macroeconomic uctuations. The multiplicity of signicant shocks is key in explaining the dominance of the hybrid regime. The hybrid regime successfully handles shocks that can neither be optimally handled by the IT regime nor the NGDPT regime alone. These results have several implications. First, demand management alone is insu¢ cient to stabilize African economies. Second, identifying dominant shocks is critical for choosing robust monetary policy regimes. Third, the multiplicity of signicant shocks implies that choosing monetary policy frameworks and hence macroeconomic management process is more complex for African policy makers. Overall, the results have several policy implications which are outlined in Chapter 5. First, they suggest a cautious approach towards generalized adoption of the interest rate over the monetary aggregate as a monetary policy instrument in African economies. This contradicts the current wave of monetary policy changes sweeping across African countries. Secondly, the signicanceoftheexchangeraterenderscredencetoexchangeratesmoothing in Africa. The ndings, however, suggest that exchange rate smoothing can either enhance or worsen macroeconomic performance. Where it enhances macroeconomic performance, authorities must carefully consider the thresholds of smoothing to avoid creating macroeconomic instability. Authorities need not ght structural shifts in exchange rates levels through smoothing. This would help to preserve the shock absorbing role of the exchange rate. Finally, the prevalence of demand, supply as well as exchange rate shocks makes the hybrid monetary policy regime which combines elements of IT regime as well as NGDPT regime to perform relatively better in stabilizing the majority of the economies. Given the multiplicity of shocks, authorities inAfricaneedtocomplementdemandmanagementwithpoliciesthataddress supply side and exchange rate bottlenecks to ensure sustainable macroeco vii nomic stability. Overall, the ndings suggest that there is scope to improve monetary policy performance in Africa by adopting suitable frameworks and instruments. The results also highlight the problem of tackling monetary policy issues with a "one size ts all" approach. / GR2018

Thesis (M.M. (Public Policy))--University of the Witwatersrand, Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management, School of Governance, 2016. / The study focuses on the lived experiences of indigenous and traditional community of Phokeng in the process of urbanising. It is a community affected by unclarified policies and documents to secure their tenure. Phokeng community in Rustenburg is approximately 200 km to the west of Johannesburg. The research revealed that the rural and marginalised of Phokeng is now becoming urbanised and that there is inadequacy of legislation or policy to guarantee security of tenure in an area a under traditional authority. The community has historically depended on oral information and storytelling. A total of thirty informants were surveyed in the community. The study elicited information on informant’s understanding of security of tenure, the role they played to secure tenure to their land. It also probed, their awareness of developmental policies affecting their activities and expectations. The study revealed that people did not have title to the land they occupied but were very content that they were safe from evictions because the traditional leader and his traditional authority provided the guarantee. There is need for further research on why people in traditional authority areas that are in the process of urbanising would be content to live on land on which they do not have registered tenure rights.

Merging from the Distance offers a place to display the poems I have created during my tenure as a graduate student. The four sections found within represent different personal aesthetics. My thesis is also representational of a personal chronology, for it was my intention to demonstrate my efforts of contemporary poetry. Many of the poems seek to engage symbiosis by combining different languages, forms, and levels of diction. / Includes bibliography. / Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2014. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

Thesis advisor: Sarah Beckjord / En la tradición mexicana, la figura de La Malinche ha llegado a representar un paradigma importante para explorar el legado de la conquista. A fines del siglo XX, Kimberle López señaló el surgimiento de un nuevo tipo de narrativa de la conquista, una que se esforzaba por revisar las narrativas antiguas para que éstas pudieran mejor explicar las realidades y la identidad de los latinoamericanos contemporáneos. Como tal, la desilusión y las injusticias de la opresión han surgido como temas principales en la literatura histórica de la época posmoderna. Debido a este empeño, se están recuperando las identidades que antes sufrían el efecto de ser olvidadas por una tradición histórica que se negaba a reconocer su valor en la representación del pasado. Si se encuentra uno de los primeros retratos de La Malinche en la Historia verdadera de la conquista de la Nueva España de Bernal Díaz del Castillo, los comentarios críticos de Octavio Paz y Carlos Fuentes evidencian la presencia de una dicotomía problemática con respecto a la representación de esta figura. Además, la publicación de Malinche por Laura Esquivel ha sacado a la luz el trauma de la conquista y, por consiguiente, ha cuestionado las mismísimas estructuras e ideas que sofocaban las voces de la gente, como Malinalli, que se quedaban en las márgenes de la historia. Imaginando una nueva versión de la conquista a través de los ojos de su protagonista, esta autora logra ampliar la narrativa del pasado para que la participación de todos, especialmente las mujeres, sea una realidad. Al expandir los límites de la representación del pasado mediante la libertad imaginativa de la literatura, hemos podido llevar una suerte de justicia, sea ésta poética, a las personas cuyas identidades que se perdieron en la lucha para el poder. / Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2013. / Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Romance Languages and Literatures Honors Program. / Discipline: Romance Languages and Literatures.

The following is a collection of personal essays exploring identity during the transformative period of the author's early adult life. It also examines themes of home, inheritance, grief, and loss of faith. It has elements of both humor and drama highlighted through unusual forms and elements of voice. It is about growing up and going home, mixing old traditions with new ones, bringing new insights to old problems, and about having faith, but always on one's own terms. / Includes bibliography. / Thesis (M.S.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2015. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection