This study explores Wales for Africa, the Welsh Government’s international development programme. It particularly considers the issues of political decentralisation, and participation in development assistance, on the making of national identity in contemporary Wales. Using a case study methodology, and a conceptual framework of the sub-state and the citizen as development actor, it explores how notions of Welsh subjectivity are tied to iterations of national identity and civic value, constructed around the concept of sustainable development, and ideas of mutual benefit and reciprocity in international development. It focuses specifically on community-based development organisations linked with partner organisations in sub-Saharan Africa. Although the potential benefits of citizen-led development initiatives to right-based approaches are recognised, little attention has previously been paid to the role of international development to sub-state nation-building. The study seeks to address this gap. Situated within the field of interpretive policy analysis, the thesis adopts a context sensitive approach focussed on how a political narrative around nationhood and civic value has been constructed around Wales’ development activities as a symbol of an alternative nation. Beginning with political devolution, the timeframe of the study ends at October 2016. The research involved extensive documentary analysis of policy related material, participant observation at policy and international events, the analysis of semi-structured interviews with interviewees from the public and third sector, and from participants in community-based development organisations. Data from focus groups and participant observation at a development project in Uganda was also scrutinised. By approaching both the sub-state and the citizen as development actors, the study brings together the professional knowledge of policy-makers together with the experience of citizens. The study provides a number of original contributions to knowledge. This is achieved by presenting an interpretive analysis of policy dynamics in a context where attention is largely absent in academic literature. The research also provides a broader contribution to understandings of the policy-making process by presenting an innovative explanation of how representation and interpretation may shape the design and consequences of policy.

This project provides an insight into the culture and practice of what has been termed ‘out-dwelling’, a cumulative term for huts and bothies. In doing so it draws attention to Scottish rural leisure and seeks to explore the materialities, experiences and practices of the ‘out-dwelling’ scene. As such, it focuses upon both the buildings and their users, speaking to the intimate geographies of this culture, as well as to its broader cultural significance. Part of this task involves an exploration of landscape, and of the means by which out-dwellings facilitate an engagement with physical surrounds beyond their built form. Just as this thesis seeks to situate the intimate interior of being in buildings, it also displays the ‘out-dwelling’ world through a broader lens, viewing these buildings and their users as part of a broader cultural movement, informed by the social history of land-use and ownership in rural Scotland. Inspired by an interest in hutting as a political act, this thesis also explores the critical edge to this potentially radical culture and situates ‘out-dwelling’ within a broader international hutting history. In doing so, this thesis enables a fuller understanding of the past, present and, to a certain extent, the future of such practice within rural Scotland.

From March 1984 to March 1985, over 150,000 British coal miners walked out on strike in protest at plans for widespread closures in the industry. Alongside the strike developed a large and diverse support movement, both within Britain and internationally. This thesis focuses on the solidarity campaign in London, a city far from the heartlands of the coal industry. The support movement outside of the coalfield areas has been relatively understudied in the years since the dispute, and this thesis is a contribution to recuperating this important history. The four central empirical chapters are organised thematically. The first explores relationships developed between London and the coalfields from the late 1960s, arguing that the support of 1984-5 must be rooted in ongoing mutual relationships of solidarity. The second describes the diverse spaces and sites in which the support movement was enacted, and how distinct tactics such as twinning and forms of politicised mobility reduced the distance between London and mining areas, enabling the development of personal relationships across space. The third focuses on the weaknesses of the support movement, working-class opposition to the strike, and the relationship between this absence of solidarity and the anti-union rhetoric of elites. In the fourth empirical chapter, I emphasise how the intersecting politics of class, race, gender and sexuality were raised through the miners’ strike solidarity movement, and the forging of new relationships across spatial and social boundaries. Through a study of the miners’ support movement, this thesis makes a number of central theoretical contributions. It is concerned firstly with developing an account of translocal solidarity as a generative relationship that can construct connections across social and geographical boundaries, and develop new political theories and practices. Secondly, I argue for an intersectional approach to class as a way of rejecting simplistic divisions between the politics of class, gender, sexuality and race. In particular, I highlight intersectionality as a historical process whereby relationships of solidarity across space inform a politics that is simultaneously able to recognise differences and develop commonalities. Thirdly, I emphasise how translocal networks of solidarity contribute to relational constructions of place, but that such an understanding is not inimical to a deep, historically rooted local development of class. Fourthly, I argue that a spatially and temporally dynamic understanding of the construction of cultures of mutual solidarity can contribute significantly to how we think about labour agency.

The research examines actions and relationships described as patronage which have contributed to the development of architecture and the built environment. In so doing it first seeks to identify the characteristics that have defined such patronage historically. It then moves to examine whether such characteristics could be identified in the promotion and execution of publicly funded projects in the modern day. The focus on aspirational forms of development which relied upon the commitment of public resources allowed the following proposition to be more fully tested. That is that the forms of patronage evidenced historically cannot be replicated in a democratic polity like contemporary Britain for reasons which include current requirements relating to the exercise of probity in management and public office. As an inevitable consequence of the universal franchise and wider democratic accountability those commissioning public works do not then enjoy the relative autonomy exercised by those described as patrons historically. A case study research strategy was adopted and undertaken focussing on major publicly funded developments in Cardiff between 1986 and 2006. Those, expressly or implicitly, aspired to the creation of places which would embody symbolic or cultural capital. Among the factors examined are the impartiality required of bureaucracies and political pressures for public bodies to prioritise quantifiable short-term outputs over less tangible longer-term assessment of environmental qualities. Other countervailing forces considered are prevailing economic conditions and market forces, which are similarly short-term, the cultural climate and public support for such development. The conclusions of the research then question the extent to which actions and relationship described as patronage can be the effective means of realising publicly funded urban development of notable quality.

The period following the Roman withdrawal from England in AD 410 has long been considered a time of ‘cultural decline’, owing to the relative paucity of archaeological evidence relating to this time and the dismal state of affairs described by the Dark Age historians Gildas (c AD 540) and Bede (AD 731). Traditionally this period has been viewed as a time of chaos in which farmland was abandoned and the population declined, leading to woodland regeneration in many areas. In Northwest England, archaeological remains for the early medieval period (c AD 410-1066) are sparse. Early palynological studies in Cumbria, for which radiocarbon dates were often lacking or imprecise, frequently assigned major ‘woodland clearances’ to the Romano-British period, woodland regeneration phases to the early Dark Ages, ‘subdued’ agriculture to Anglo-Saxon farmers and pastoral clearances to the actions of Norse settlers. The overarching aim of this study has been to question the validity of the above interpretations through analysis of pollen and diatom records from six tarns within the English Lake District. Of the sites investigated, both Loughrigg and Barfield Tarns produced good records for the study period. The pollen curves for Loughrigg Tarn appear to support the traditional interpretation of woodland regeneration in the early post-Romano-British period, while at Barfield Tarn the pollen indicates a largely open landscape with limited evidence for agriculture. Drawing together the data from these sites with the small body of extant palaeoecological research relating to this period, it is clear that the timing and nature of land-use varied across the region. This highlights the importance of localised pollen studies, particularly as regards the relationship between vegetation records and archaeological remains. Pollen-vegetation simulation experiments using HUMPOL (Bunting & Middleton, 2005) were a useful aid to interpretation, raising important questions regarding ‘woodland regeneration’ signals in pollen diagrams

Any mapping or analysis involving population data aggregated to geographical areas (zones) is subject to the modifiable areal unit problem (MAUP), namely that observed patterns are influenced by both the scale (size) and aggregation (boundary placement) of zones. This has important implications, not only for researchers undertaking analyses, but also for national statistical organisations needing to decide what zoning system(s) (sets of zones) to employ to release population data. This thesis explores, enhances and extends automated zone design techniques for the spatial representation of population. It addresses three key themes: the use of automated zone design to explore the modifiable areal unit problem; automated maintenance and adaptation of existing zoning systems; and the importance of building blocks in automated zone design. It shows that administrative geographies are not necessarily the most appropriate zones for exploring health and environment relationships and that automated zone design can be used to explore sensitivity of results to the MAUP. It demonstrates that automated procedures can be used to update existing zoning systems which have become unfit for purpose due to population change, and also to modify existing zones to make them suitable for representation of other phenomena such as workplace statistics. It provides evidence that building blocks are a crucial, but under-rated, component of the zone design process and concludes that all zone design should be based on sound theoretical reasoning and a clear conceptualisation of the phenomena and processes being represented. The thesis has had a demonstrable impact on the fields of environment and health, and official population statistics; its concepts and methods have been employed by a diverse range of researchers, as well as by the Office for National Statistics to create 2011 Census output areas and workplace zones for England and Wales.

The 2008-09 global economic crisis has impacted UK high streets and town centres in complex and little understood ways. In addition, the vitality of UK high streets has been differentially impacted by three other forces and has become an increasing focus of government and public anxiety: These forces include: (i) the progressive rise of online shopping, (ii) the complex consequences of the implementation of a ‘town centre first’ policy in retail development and (iii) the rise of often underestimated influence of convenience culture. This research investigates the response of UK high streets to these drivers of change, and seeks to make three main contributions. First, to provide new descriptive evidence on the differential performance of UK retail centres during and since the economic crisis. Although some of these findings parallel those suggested by specialist commercial research companies they also significantly extend available knowledge. In particular, they depict the discrepancy in the response of independent and multiple retailers to the economic and competitive shocks. Second, to identify the key drivers of town centre performance, by employing the multivariate analysis of that issue at both cross-regional and intra-urban levels. The cross-regional analysis derives seven factors associated with retail centre enhanced resilience or fragility to the economic crisis; the intra-urban analysis validates and reinforces the results of the cross-regional analysis and provides further insights into the dynamics of UK town centres performance in the post-crisis decade. Third, to conceptualise the nature of UK retail centres’ complex adjustment to the shock of economic crisis and other forces of change, by exploring alternative interpretations of the resilience of economic systems. In particular, we use the concept of adaptive resilience to understand the dynamic process through which UK high streets have gradually and constantly evolved. We suggest a conceptual framework which links the notions of adaptive capacity and adaptive resilience and indicates how a position of a centre in adaptive cycle and the role of various actors are important to performance of that centre. At a time when the economic health of high streets has generated a large amount of research, the findings of this study have the potential to contribute to the policy agenda and set a benchmark against which future research can be positioned and interpreted.

Under projections of future (next �100 years) anthropogenic climate change, it is predicted that marked changes in environmental driving conditions, with relation to baseline (1961 - 1990) climates, will be experienced. Such changes have the potential to induce substantial geomorphological and ecological change. Numerical models of landscape evolution provide powerful tools to assess the impacts that environmental changes may have on landscape morphology. Accordingly, this research seeks to utilise landscape evolution models (LEMs) to understand how projected changes in climate will a�ect the geomorphic response of a series of incised coastal gullies found on the Isle of Wight, UK. Incised coastal gullies are known to be dynamic and sensitive landscape features which intersect the terrestrial - marine boundary; as such their evolution is influenced by changes in both terrestrial (i.e. precipitation) and maritime (i.e. sea level and wave height) climates. In order to ensure the processes driving incised coastal gully evolution are represented within the LEM, an existing LEM was modified to include processes of soft cliff erosion. This represents the �rst such inclusion of coastal processes within a LEM framework. The modified LEM was forced with ensemble projections of precipitation, sea level and wave height downscaled from HadCM3 and CGCM2 Global Climate Model (GCM) outputs for two emissions scenarios (A2 and B2). Comparison against a baseline scenario based on the 1961-1990 climatology allows for climate induced changes in system response to be quantified. To constrain the uncertainties associated with the application of landscape models and downscaled GCM data, a Monte Carlo analysis framework is employed, resulting in ~22000 model runs. This method also permits the development of probabilistic results describing geomorphological change in gully systems. Results suggest that the likelihood of extreme loss in gully extent will increase by up to 61%. Furthermore, it is projected that extreme rates of coastal erosion will increase by 22% by 2100 (under HadCM3 runs forced with the A2 emissions scenario). However, under certain scenarios the possibility of extension of the gully systems exists, with likely (>66% probability) increases in gully length of 13.7 m projected under CGCM2 runs forced with the A2 emissions scenario. The novel application of a Monte Carlo methodology with a LEM framework permits the identification of key climatic parameters responsible for causing extreme changes within these gully systems, allowing the relative importance of each climate parameter in driving incised coastal gully evolution to be assessed. Furthermore, the successful application of this technique suggests it may be applicable to other studies applying LEMs to scenarios of future climate change.

Decision Support Systems (DSS) are computer tools that combine models and data, to a user interface to help decision-makers solve complex problems. Despite their perceived usefulness, DSS are often not used. Past and recent reviews of existing decision support tools have shown a lack of implementation. Reasons behind their rejection were multiple, from poor design to more complex organisational and personal issues. Researchers have advocated the use of a more user-centred design framework for DSS development. A series of approaches aimed at involving users in the design process have been developed and applied with mixed results. In this thesis, I argue that DSS success or failure may be due to a lack of fit between the design process and the culture of the organisation in which it is being implemented. Through literature reviews on science, decision-making, DSS and organisational culture and two case studies, I show how the assumptions taken by scientists and DSS developers on decision-making and problem-solving become embedded within the systems they produce and may conflict with that of users. I further propose a novel approach that is centred on an understanding of the cultural system in which DSS will be used. The culture-centred iterative design approach is based on a constructivist theoretical perspective using methodologies borrowed from the social sciences. It follows an iterative design process such as that described by Sprague and Carlson (1982) with an embedded investigation of the working culture of the organisation. The study of culture is performed through group and individual interviews and aims at identifying areas of potential frictions between the DSS stated aims and user norms and values. The results from the analyses are then used to produce a DSS that will maximise outputs whilst minimising the risk of rejection. The approach was applied to the development of TooiHab, a DSS for prioritising habitat enhancement work on rivers for the Environment Agency Thames Region Fisheries section. The Environment Agency is a government organisation responsible for the management and regulation of river ecology, pollution, discharge, abstraction and for the protection of land and property against flooding. Through this case study, I show how the use of a cultural enquiry as part of the design process can lead to the resolution of potential conflicts and a greater acceptance of DSS.

Geographic Information Systems (GIS) have provided effective and useful methods that are widely used to measure spatial access to services and to inform the planning of public facilities and infrastructures. The development of innovative GIS tools has informed approaches for researching demographic and socioeconomic problems. Nevertheless, GIS methods have not yet been developed for construction of water indices that can provide measures of household accessibility to safe drinking water at the finest spatial scales such as district and sub-district. There has, to date, not been any integrated measurement of access to safe drinking water that can be used as a practical tool to quantitatively identify small areas suffering from poor water supplies or households who use unimproved water sources. A comprehensive and structured review of the literature indicates that although there is international emphasis on drinking water problems in developing countries, there is a wide gap in relation to the current international measurements and programmes set up to measure and monitor access to safe drinking water. This includes efforts made by the United Nations (UN) and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) to measure and monitor access to safe water. These measurements are not only limited in terms of the socioeconomic factors impacting safe water access but also have not addressed measurement at the sub-national resolution level of residential communities and spatial variation within individual countries. Therefore, the available measurements neither provide a convincing picture of water accessibility nor a spatially detailed measurement. To bridge this gap, this study introduces new GIS analysis techniques for the measurement of access to safe drinking water as a global problem in the developing world. The main objective is to develop a multivariate index which measures current access to safe drinking water using datasets commonly available in lower and lower middle income countries. It draws on a wider range of data than current United Nations monitoring efforts. GPS coordinates are increasingly collected as a part of household surveys, particularly in the developing world. This offers great opportunities to enhance national census data about drinking water by spatial linkage with other survey sources. Egypt was chosen as a case study and spatial linkage was undertaken between the 2005 Egyptian Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) and the 2006 Egyptian population census in order to develop indicators that reflect household access to safe drinking water. Understanding the spatial uncertainty associated with linking points (DHS GPS clusters) to polygons (sub-governorate census districts) was essential. Consequently, positional error relevant to DHS GPS clusters was detected, validated, measured and modelled. Selection criteria were developed for choosing the index components and a method for scoring these components was implemented. This was followed by standardisation and weighting of the components before combining them all into a single index. A map demonstrating index values for all Egyptian districts has been created. The index was evaluated against health factors to examine the influences of water accessibility on public health. The same types of datasets (DHS and local census) about another country (Jordan) were explored to examine potential index transferability. This was based on assessing the positional accuracy of the GPS clusters of the Jordanian DHS and evaluating the index construction. Potential limitations of this measurement were discussed and recommendations for further research suggested. Future policies options with a wider incorporation and implementation of GIS and spatial analysis methods were also considered