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The magnitude of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, the severity of its impact and the inadequacy of a purely medical-based response has prompted the development of multi-stakeholder partnerships (MSPs) for HIV/AIDS mitigation. MSPs utilise an appropriate mix of health and non-health based interventions and involve a broad array of stakeholders in their design and implementation, including faith based organisations (FBOs). MSP discourse commonly has goals related to local organisations’ empowerment and capacity building, yet attainment of these goals is often difficult and analysis of these MSPs shows that the complex micro-politics of development interventions is often neglected. This thesis investigates the local-level encounter and contestation of FBOs participation in MSPs based on research undertaken in the rural district of Ngamiland, Botswana. The theoretical framework is taken from a post-development perspective that sees discourses of development as pervasive forces that shape identities, knowledge and relations of power in much of the Global South. The focus of this thesis is on FBOs as specific ‘objects’ of development discourse. It argues that MSPs facilitate uniformity, impose a very specific language and envision highly prescriptive outcomes. In doing so, it suggests that MSPs frame the actions that produce and deploy a highly prescribed and increasingly globalised format for partnerships, and specifically here, for FBO participation within them. Yet, following the work of Foucault, it also argues these discourses of development are not monolithic or fixed, but rather remain critical sites of encounter where FBOs struggle and manoeuvre for political, social and economic advantage. The thesis emphasises the productive features of development discourse, their framing attributes, fragility and transformative potential, and achieves this by drawing on the activities and intentions of FBOs and their participation in MSPs. Attention is also drawn to the way ‘identities’ form and shape FBO participation. It is argued that FBOs are required to deliberately accommodate, resist, and/or construct their own particular ‘faith identities’

This thesis looks at land disputes and the dispossession of Rarámuri communities in northern Mexico by examining the way dominant groups shape the structural conditions for land appropriation and its perpetuation over time. This is pursued by exploring the link between the Rarámuri communities’ decision-making power and their potential to resists land dispossession. The research contributes to a better understanding of the wide variety of dominant actors’ tactics behind juridical dispossession of indigenous landholders with ancestral ties to the land. Archive research and interviews regarding Rarámuri communities’ agrarian and juridical disputes over the 20th century provided empirical evidence to interpret dominant actors’ discourses and practices. These obscure indigenous communities’ land claims, while legitimating, normalising and allowing development-led land appropriation through the use of notions of progress, rule of law and political representation. While the lowest levels of Human Development in indigenous regions in northern Mexico have been found in the Tarahumara mountain range, development discourses and practices tend to neglect historical, relational and political perspectives of development-induced land displacement, thus, invisibilising structural inequalities and perpetuating land dispossession. The structural domination approach aims at the identification of the main structural conditions that indirectly constrain the Rarámuri’s efforts to protect their property or landholding rights from local and external elites engaged in development initiatives. Group dominance and subordination is thus highly influenced by groups’ constructed attributes and, therefore, by the position different groups occupy in the social structure. Archive research and interviews concerning Rarámuri communities’ agrarian and juridical disputes over the course of the 20th century revealed domination mechanisms for land dispossession. The thesis argues that these tactics undermine the Rarámuri’s decision-making power and, consequently, their potential to resist unwanted development interventions. I conclude that, in contrast to brokerage, self-determining practices have been shown to be more effective for securing and defending indigenous land.

Community support towards Natural Resource Management (NRM) strategies is thought to be crucial for their success and sustainability. This study considers the case of community based Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) in the Philippines where, despite their proliferation many are failing to achieve their objectives. The lack of acceptance and support from the adjacent community is thought to lead to these “failures” of MPAs. Very little work however has been carried out to understand support towards MPAs and what influences it. I define support as the combination of attitudes and relevant environmental action undertaken with regards to the already implemented MPA. This thesis seeks to understand “community support” by determining: 1. What factors influence attitudes towards MPAs? 2. What factors influence actions towards MPAs? 3. What is the relationship between attitudes towards the MPA and MPA related actions? I combine both quantitative and qualitative research methods to help determine which factors are associated with community support but also to help explain how these factors influence support. Fisher questionnaires, Semi Structured Interviews, In depth interviews and Focus Groups were carried out at three different villages with adjacent MPAs within the Visayas region of the Philippines. A number of MPA design and MPA management factors as well as individual feelings, emotions and socio-economic characteristics were found to influence support through a multitude of ways. The plurality of factors identified, their interconnectedness and the way their impacts on support varies through time and between individuals within a community makes it clear there is no simple solution as to which set of factors are necessary for prolonged support. Nevertheless we now have a clearer idea as to how best to design, manage and implement an MPA in a way that is supported by the adjacent community.

This research utilises the concepts in Miller’s anthropology of consumption (1987; 1988; 1994; 1995a; 1998a; 1998b) to enable an analysis of social relations, including gender, through looking at what and how people consume. Goods not only express individual identity and status, but are used as a means of objectifying personal and social systems of value, which, in the lives of people living in a central ward in the village of Mochudi, Botswana, signify the importance of social relationships. An analysis of social change since the 1920s and 1930s when Isaac Schapera (1940, 1971) spent a period of fieldwork in the same location and wrote extensively on married life here, is undertaken through familial and life-course events. Informants took photographs of objects, the significance of which is explored through one-to-one enquiry. Generational and gendered differences in consumption choices point to the stage in life reached and lifestyle. An older woman is found to gain pleasure from the purchase of plastic chairs, ensuring she has enough for family or communal events, where all who turn up may expect to partake of a feast; it is through these chairs that social relations are objectified and her wish to be identified as a ‘good’ woman is fulfilled. Similar projections can be made with older men and desire for livestock – the ultimate signifier of masculinity and role of ‘provider’ - which are considered ‘useful’ as a means to sustain the social importance and inclusivity of communal gatherings. Young, single men and women are found to conform more to the stereotypical view of consumption as the development of individual identity (Miller 1998b:35). Yet here, within courtship relationships, material things are utilised as a means of expressing and assessing love. This may have become out-of-kilter, with young men under pressure to compete with gifts for the affections of women who ultimately can decide to walk away. Marriage is constructed around consumption. Time slips the distinction between courtship and engagement, co-habitation and marriage, or even leads to indefinite delay. Marital relations replace courtship gifts with ‘material acts of caring’ (Miller 1998b) such as provisioning on behalf of husbands, and washing of clothes by wives. The family home in the village draws people back for kinship events, such as weddings and funerals, which act to connect people together. White weddings, driven by the fantasy of the bride, are big consumptive events, and yet may be read as being less about conspicuous consumption than an objectification of love which carefully interweaves kinship, tradition and modernity. Through the crisis of AIDS, funerals have altered to reflect a sensitivity which places importance on sober and modest approaches, yet also combines this with a need to ensure the many people who attend are well fed. Large social gatherings reflect the Tswana value system in which consumption acts to reinforce social structure, gender identities and family and tribal belonging, and yet, over time, also acts to bring about change.

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