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Against the backdrop of market transition and urbanisation, the gated community have gained a strikingly fast growth in China in the last two decades. Looking at the key forces shaping the design and the socio-spatial consequences, this research aims to understand the design issues of gated community with respect to the well-being of the neighbouring public spaces and urban life in-between. From the perspective of spatial political economy, and based on Manuel Castells's definition of 'urban design', this study develops a research framework emphasizing the significance of context around the gated community phenomenon. A two-phase strategy is adopted to explore firstly the historical background of gated community in China with respect to the general morphological transformation and the socio-cultural and political-economic impetus behind it. Then, it narrows the focus on to a case study of a set of gated communities in the Dragon Lake Garden urban neighbourhood in Chongqing, aiming to examine in detail the design process and consequences for local public spaces. The specific methods of documentary analysis, secondary survey, direct observation, semi-structured interview are used for this research. It was the reform towards commodity housing system, and fundamentally, the de facto neo-liberal governance, that decisively gave birth to China's gated community in an era of rapid urbanisation, rural-to-urban mass migration, widening gap and confrontation between the rich and poor. But the conventional roots help account for the prevalence of the gated community in contemporary China, which embodies, or re-interprets, the traditional values, habitat culture, and morphologies that are deeply embedded in Chinese urban history. As the laissez-faire attitude in local authorities has created a favourable context for gated community development, the specific physical features have been decided largely by the developers who emphasize their own economic interests and the needs of their member-residents. However, this private-oriented approach does not necessarily result in a negative relationship between gated community and the neighbouring public spaces. The empirical investigation in this research shows that both spatial-morphological and socio-behavioural outcomes vary greatly according to different physical arrangements, and could be either positive or negative. In this regard, the design features have played an effective role in manipulating such relationship, and there are three key elements for the design of gated community. By limiting the enclosure size, diversifying the boundary effect visually and functionally, and maximising the shared amenities and facilities, a spatially and socially integrated urban neighbourhood can be fostered on the basis of a reciprocal and interdependent relationship between the gated community and the adjoining public spaces. Such physical manipulation and changes, although oriented to the public good, were not contradictory to the private interest of gated communities by nature. The private effort in this case should be encouraged and supported, but it should also be supervised and guided by the public sector. Therefore, sufficient supervision/support from government is the prerequisite of the successful physical manipulation and the final performance of the gated community development at large. Unfortunately, the local government failed to take a leading role in this regard. Very often, it was the failings or inactions on the part of the current planning regime rather than the gated community itself that resulted in the fragmented urban space which amplified the negative impacts of gated communities.

This thesis is an ethnographic study of a fishing community in the Philippines in the context of a dwindling fisheries resource and in relation to the community's contemporary social and political structures, values and local issues. It considers the everyday life of the fishing community the realms of power gender and economic relations and how these relations are played out among and between fishers and their wives, fish vendors, dealers and brokers as the community experiences dramatic changes in the local economy. While the study avers a very local orientation, it takes cognizance of the community's enrollment in a bigger polity: national and global economic and political spaces. Thus, the study focuses upon what local life means and exemplifies in the epoch of globalization and how local practices are instantiated amidst talk of a fast globalizing world. It highlights the enduring importance of the local linked in this case to the people in the fishing community's relative immobility and marginal position in the sphere of the Philippine economy in particular and the global economy in general. The thesis has eight chapters divided into three parts. The first part, chapters 1, 2 and 3, introduces the study, explains its ethnographic and theoretical import, states its significance as a piece of scholarly research and connects it with the wider literature on fishing studies, maritime anthropology, and the sociology of globalization. The second part, chapters 4, 5, 6 and 7, deals with the Philippine economy and describes the fishing community studied. Furthermore, it discusses the different ways in which fishers and their wives 'make do' in the face of dwindling catches, the changes and continuities in the community's economic roles, gender dynamics and power relations in the household and highly localized market practices in fish trading where among other factors, intimate actual and fictive relations in the community affect how fish is traded and sold among community members. The third part, chapter 8, concludes the thesis and summarizes the key arguments laid out in the second part of the study. It calls the reader's attention to the many geographies of globalization such as how some lives remain local and yet not isolated from extra-local developments, and how in this community everyday life is given material shape that is more local than global.

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Thesis (Ph.D. (History)) --University of Limpopo, 2009 / Key to this study is the history of Makgabeng, mainly focusing on creation of rural communal identities in that area. Defining identity will be an important aspect for this study in which a deduction will be made on how the Makgabeng communities viewed themselves and were also viewed by those outside their area. The various aspects which shaped and led them to view themselves and be viewed that way over time will all be explained. The history of Makgabeng was never included in the mainstream just like the history of most of the previously marginalised communities in South Africa. The early history of such communities was documented by Europeans, while those communities did not participate in the production of their own histories and the history of South Africa in general. The history of indigenous communities has been told from the other people’s perspectives resulting in huge gaps as well as distorted, prejudiced and subjective accounts of the past. The past of these indigenous communities was mostly preserved in oral traditions and oral history. Therefore, one of the principal aims of this study is to work towards filling the gaps as well as attempting to rectify distortions and myths prevailing in the current texts which were made by authors alien to the indigenous people.