Recent years have brought a resurgence of state-led plans to expand access to electricity over African polities. Nonetheless, and in line with deep-seated patterns of infrastructural and general abandonment by the centre, very few of those plans have seriously addressed poor, distant, sparse and scarcely endowed peripheral regions. Those rare instances have received scant attention in the literature, despite their precious value to single out key interactions between national electricity regimes and core-periphery political linkages. Addressing that gap, this thesis pays attention to schemes of peripheral electrification to better understand how African states govern their peripheries. To that end, it scrutinizes two schemes of electrification: northern Ghana from 1989 to 2012, and southeastern Tanzania from 2004 to 2015. The thesis argues that in northern Ghana central rulers embarked upon electrification against the odds of geographical determinism, guided as they were by political motivations, chief amongst them the extraction of narrow electoral rents. By contrast, in southeastern Tanzania central rulers endeavoured to tap into the abundance of gas, governed by a determination to advance business models inscribed in the national electricity regime. Ultimately though, the central rulers in Tanzania were forced to re-politicize electrification to appease the deep local resentment caused by the very extraction of gas flowing toward the capital. Both cases thus illuminate varying trajectories in the interplay between national electricity regimes and core-periphery political linkages, that shaped the territorial strategies of electrification. In addition, this thesis also offers two revelations. One first revelation is that sub-national units exert significant mediations in the linkages between core and periphery, via alterations of distributional settlements. This goes against a stream of literature that pays attention exclusively to vertical strategies engineered from political rulers in the centre. The second revelation is that over the long-term electrification alters the political linkages between core and periphery. This squares well with the predictions of theories about the infrastructural power of the state. All in all, this work affords an embryonic analytical elaboration on the strategies of territoriality in the electrification of regional peripheries in Africa. From a political geography perspective, this helps to illuminate how sub-national electrification can simultaneously redraw and reinforce long-entrenched political linkages between core and periphery.

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This thesis purports to critically analyze Wallerstien’s world-systems theory, to test its strengths and weaknesses and establish its reliability as a world politics theory, thereby reviving Marxism in general. The study employs a qualitative research method to go deep into the underlying logic of the theory.In an endeavor to tackle the matter at hand, five criteria of analysis are employed to examine the merits and demerits in specific areas of the theory. This involves looking at the structure of the theory, the period of the emergence of capitalism, the unit of analysis, the coherence of the arguments and processes of the theory and the reliability of the world-systems theory in contemporary world politics. The main conclusion of the study is that the world-systems theory is reliable when used to explain three themes in world politics. These are global inequality, dependency and sovereignty.

From the exterior, the United States has extracted natural resources and transformed the social dynamics of those living on the periphery, contributing to the emigration from Mexico and immigration to the United States. This,in turn,creates the racialization of the Mexican immigrant, specifically the undocumented immigrant—the "illegal alien." I argue that this unilateral interaction operates with a racial formation of the Mexican immigrant created by elite white (non-Hispanic) males. The anti-Mexican immigrant subframe and "prowhite" subframe derive from the white racial frame,which racializes the undocumented immigrant in the United States. In addition, the subframes are evident in the three stages of migration. The three stages consist of threefold factors: First, the exploitation of Mexican resources (natural and human) and racialized immigration policies; second, the social networks and smugglers, called coyotes, who assist the undocumented immigrant to bypass barriers; and third, the discrimination undocumented immigrants encounter in the United States by other people of color. This dissertation relied on the migration experience of thirty Mexican male day-laborers,living in Texas, to examine the white racial framing of undocumented immigrants. The findings demonstrate how the U.S. immigration policies and members of the host society persistently exhibit the white racial frame and its subframes. This study is essential, because, aside from noting the issues of unauthorized migration, it demonstrates how elite white males shape the dialogue on the discourse and all that surrounds the migration process.

The definition of the periphery can be made in in different ways, based on the concepts emphisized in different theoretical discussions. Correspondingly, different peripheries appear in Europe from the perspectives of these different definitions. The thesis puts forward five different definitions of the periphery / definition of the periphery based on income and income growth differentials / definition of the periphery by using economic structure, employment and population potentials / definition of the periphery based on welfare conditions / definition of the periphery based on externalities / and definition of the periphery based on endogenous growth dynamics. All these definitions produce different core-periphery maps of Europe. The evidence is based on the use of cluster analysis to identify different groups of regions homogenous in terms of variables that belong to every one of these five definitions. The result confirms that there are different peripheries in Europe. One region that is categorised as core can fall into a peripheral group in a different clasification. This shows that there is not only one type of periphery in Europe, but that different peripheries appear in case of the usage of different variables. The thesis also argues that there is a need for regional policies that do not the define the periphery as a homogenous area by considering only income differentials, but that identifies different peripheries that have different needs and problems, and devise instruments accordingly.

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This thesis investigates southern China as a part of dynamic and extensive interregional networks from the third to the first millennium BC and explores the changing roles of different southern regions within the interregional relationships. This was an important transitional period for southern China as it was the time when several prominent and farreaching innovations of technologies and material culture were made or adopted in the area. Four key sets of materials – rice, bronze, ceramics and jade – are examined with a World-system perspective to reveal interregional contacts in different directions and of different nature between southern China and a number of neighbouring regions. By stressing on local responses towards different technologies and material culture in different period, an alternative narrative to that stemmed from Chinese historiography is, therefore, suggested. Instead of being a passive and 'backward' periphery in the traditional sense, southern China presents diversification of material culture over time. Many of the mechanisms of transmission and circulation in the south are characterised by 'leaked' technologies and designs, as well as 'selective adoption' and local redevelopment of material culture.

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Text in Afrikaans / The growth and development of Randfontein is analysed within a spatial perspective. The theoretical point of departure is found in settlement geography and in the spatial economic approach. As continuous perspective, the PWV serves as major metroplitan region, of which Randfontein is a functional subsystem. Information has been obtained from businessmen, industrialists, the local authorities and the inhabitants of Randfontein. The economic sectors (mining, manufacturing and services) are analysed 1n terms of their contribution (or lack of) to the course of the economic realities in town. The behaviouristic approach provides a perspective 1n the sense that behavioral patterns are prominently analysed. A special technique of analyses is used to highlight the economic activities of Randfontein (with the graphic illustrations), by determining strong and weak factors. Problems that have been experienced in terms of the economic activities of Randfontein are identified and possibilities for the future are stipulated. / Educational Studies / M.A. (Geography)