This study seeks to argue for the persistence and continuance of Arab and European fascination with the desert and desert travel in the Middle East evidenced by the texts of desert travellers. The research stems from the question: How has textuality, whether poetic, mystical or material, been brought to the desert’s otherwise implacable nature by traveller/writers dating from the broad landscape of Arab and European desert writings from the 12th/13th and the early 20th centuries? Acknowledging the complex nature of the desert’s actual and symbolic qualities, this enquiry seeks to identify the existence and endurance of a dynamic between the desert, embodied experience and the desert as text. In order to frame this study, a further question is asked as to the significance of the image of the lover as both a figure and a state within these writings. Four particular works of desert literature provide the focus for close readings and a comparative and creative analysis that forms the substance of the thesis: Ibn al-‘Arabî’s Tarjumân al-ashwâq (611/1215); Isabelle Eberhardt’s posthumously published book entitled, Dans l’ombre chaude de l’Islam (1906) (translated into English as, In the Shadow of Islam (1993)); Harry St. John Bridger Philby’s, The Empty Quarter: Being a description of the Great South Desert of Arabia known as Rub’ al Khali (1933); and T.E. Lawrence’s, Seven Pillars of Wisdom (1935). The thesis being structured in three thematic sections, each relating to a condition of Sufic love – attraction and seeking (an ardent longing (raghbat)), servanthood (submission (taslim)), spiritual annihilation (fanâ) and subsistence (baqâ) – the Tarjumân al-ashwâq forms the locus around which each of the other texts are brought into relation. Despite the gap of time or cultures in which the chosen texts originate, core to this study is the process of revealing common tropic elements and shared intentions in the texts, and identifying those areas of difference and singularity. A dynamic of diversity and affinity is revealed between occidental and oriental perceptions, focused by the complex nature of the desert, the traveller’s experience of it, and the manifestations of both in the text. What unifies these authors is a shared sense of the desert as both a space of Divine encounter and as a text to be read. The desert becomes a place of embodied experience, where literal and metaphoric readings are inverted, and the real is encountered. The journey across the desert’s surface provides a mirror image of each author’s inner quest.

This thesis presents a critical examination of the processes of creativity in the performance of Persian classical music. Using current literature, information from musicians, and detailed musical analyses, the thesis endeavours to reach an understanding of what creativity means in the Persian context, and to examine the ways in which creativity takes place and the factors which affect it. A consideration of the nature of human creativity in general is followed by a critique of the concepts and terminology of creativity used within (ethno)musicology. Several areas are subsequently explored for their potential contribution to an understanding of creative musical processes. There is a consideration of possible parallels between musical and linguistic creativity, as well as an exploration of theories about the psycho-physiological determinants of musical creativity. With specific reference to Persian classical music, various aspects of the basic canonic repertoire, the radif, are examined, and this is followed by a discussion of the processes by which the radif is learnt, this being a crucial stage in laying the foundations of musical creativity. There is also a consideration of the concepts of creativity in this musical tradition, as well as changes to such concepts in recent years. The musical analyses focus on a number of performances and versions of the radif, primarily from dastgah Segah. There is an examination of the sectional organisation of both performances and radifs, as well as of compositional procedures, typical melodic patterns, and including specific focus on the ways in which material from the radif is treated in performance. The aim is to comprehend how it is that musicians use the knowledge acquired during training to present unique expressions of the musical tradition at every performance occasion. The thesis seeks to contribute to a greater understanding of generative musical processes and ultimately, towards a better understanding of the nature of human creativity.

Scotland is being transformed as renewable energy resources are being exploited through new developments and infrastructure as part of an energy transition. Scotland has a significant amount of potential onshore and offshore renewable energy available for capture largely located in rural and isolated regions. Some of this potential renewable energy has been developed and contributes to the increasing amount of energy from low carbon sources in the UK, aiding in the UK reaching its greenhouse gas (GHG) emission targets. This thesis responds to four research questions. The first proposes an analytical framework that incorporates the concept of resource peripheries and processes of peripheralization and centralization in the multilevel perspective (MLP) from the sociotechnical transitions literature. The second discusses the transition dynamics during the renewable energy transition in Scotland that are being shaped by a number of drivers including the shift to community ownership in Scotland and a range of policies, targets, and legislation. The third address the relationship dynamics between cores and peripheries created through processes of peripheralization that include relational, multi-dimensional processes that are also multi-scalar. The fourth discusses the uneven multi-scalar dynamics created as a transition occurs with processes of peripheralization and centralization creating resource peripheries as ‘transition-periphery dynamics’. By better understanding these dynamics and relationships during transitions the renewable energy transition can be better informed to deal with possible implications and ensure possible benefits are secured for a more sustainable future.

This thesis imagines an ecological future for the post-industrial landscape of Govan Graving Docks, situated on the banks of the River Clyde in inner city Glasgow. The research is framed by a context of urban renewal and at times violent change in early 21st century Glasgow which has seen the city’s riverside transformed, with centres for culture, tourism and entertainment built on its infilled docks and sites of dereliction. Prompted by the development priorities of this change, and the nostalgia for an industrial past that has become a ‘way of seeing’ the river, this research seeks to better know the material life of this landscape. On Govan Graving Docks - an abandoned ship repair and fitting facility that remains as yet ‘unresolved’ - this thesis unearths the agencies, temporalities, ecologies and material legacies of a less familiar elemental landscape, and considers how these expressions could be tended and extended in a vision for a different future, focused on fostering new kinds of environmental engagement. The research themes draw insight from emerging theories in new materialism and the environmental humanities, particularly those that are responding to the matter of the Anthropocenic landscape, and they are explored through a repertoire of creative and collaborative field methods crafted with the site of study; variations on ecological performance, landscape and ecological survey work, public consultation, material imagining and sitewriting. These methods are founded on openness and attentiveness, they are opportunist and affirmative in nature, they are practiced on site and taken into the wider estuarine landscape, and they enrol many others beyond the researcher. These methods are first used to explore the expressions of life and vitality that can be found in the Graving Docks’ new ecologies, material memory and more-than-human publics, and then to imagine the creative capacities of these agencies in new configurations of shared possibility. The researcher is another site of investigation: a distributive understanding of agency informs the emergence of an ecological sensibility through material engagement, which has implications both for the design process and the imagined landscape. These resources are used to imagine an alternative future for Govan Graving Docks: it is a vision that works with ruination, re-wilding, and the liquid dynamics of the city; a vision that honours both natural and industrial histories; a vision that is both challenging and necessary, where new experiences of ‘worlding’ in the city are made possible. Through this process of investigation and conjecture, the Clyde imaginary emerges as a space for critical and creative thought; a discursive space where the challenges facing this ecological landscape and its future are explored. This thesis is both a product of, and contribution towards, cultural geographical enquiry, but it also has an interdisciplinary reach both theoretically and methodologically speaking, which enables the research to contribute to a wider debate about environmental futures that is currently taking place across the sciences and humanities. It can be defined as ‘interdisciplinary in practice’ for the way that it brings a wider range or perspectives to bear on a precarious urban wilderness and its associated communities, and seeks to develop a broader repertoire of research methods capable of exploring it’s diverse material world, and the multiple expressions of value that exist therein. Written in a style that has been highly affected by this kind of open and inclusive style of research engagement, the emotive environmental story that is contained within this thesis is open to a wider audience. This thesis identifies the productive role that cultural geography can play in larger environmental debates concerned with the current state and play of ‘life on earth’, and by enacting and engaging ideas related to the cultural landscape, place-based identities/communities/values, and landscape practices, it also identifies the particular conceptual and methodological resources that make cultural geography’s contribution both unique and necessary to these debates.

No description available.

No description available.

This study examines the effectiveness of the corporate governance mechanisms and their impact on corporate performance, using the data of one industry sector-China's listed real estate companies. The studies include four parts: (l). the ownership structure, (2). the board structure; (3). the manager compensation and (4). the agency costs measured by asset utilization efficiency and manager discretionary expenses. The empirical studies cover three years (2000 to 2002). Here I classify the listed real estate companies into the subgroups of state owned enterprises (SOEs), privately owned companies (POEs), SOEs dominated by state shares and state legal person shares for analysis. The conclusions are first, in the real estate industry of China where the market is not fully open and transparent; the land resource is controlled by the government and is transferred by the negotiation or agreement between related parties, rather than the open market price and the government has strong influence on the performance of the listed real estate companies. Although the ownership structure is diversified in the real estate industries and the POEs take part in the property market development with the SOEs, the ownership concentration is positively associated with the firm performance. The companies with highly concentrated ownership structure are state owned companies (SOEs), especially the state shares dominated SOEs. The state shares are positively associated with firm performance, indicating the government influence on the real estate industry. This study does not support the suggestion that SOEs are more inefficient and legal person shares outperform the state shares. The study also shows that under the concentrated ownership structure, the dilution of the controlling power among more than one controlling shareholder would reduce the agency cost and improve the firm performance. The second conclusion is that the board size is positively associated with firm performance, but the relationship is non-linear. The board with an appropriate portion of independent directors may improve the effectiveness of corporate governance. Board size is decided by the ownership structure and the adjustment of the ownership structure, e.g. increasing the number of shares owned by other large shareholders will change the board size and improve the monitoring function of the board. The third conclusion is that the agency costs rooted in the separation of ownership and management are related with ownership structure. The largest shareholder is significant in improving the assets utilization efficiency but not significant in reducing manager discretionary expense. The presence of the other blockholders would reduce the agency costs. The agency costs POEs are higher than that in SOEs, indicating that the owner/manager in POEs who owns less than 100% of the company stake is likely to extract benefits from the abuse of the controlling right. The fourth conclusion is that the manager's compensation of the China's listed real estate companies includes three elements, i.e. a basic salary, a position allowance and a bonus; they are all paid in cash. The managers own tiny or no equity stake of the company. Stock option is not adopted in China's listed real estate companies. Manager's compensation is not associated with the firm's performance, but is associated with firm size and the turnovers of chairmen and top managers. The study also discusses the two fundamental issues that the corporate governance reform of China's listed companies are facing. One is the ambiguity of property rights in SOEs and another one is the inefficient managerial incentive system and the two factors are interlinked. The ambiguous property rights in SOEs have resulted in the companies being controlled by insiders in reality. The highly concentrated ownership structure has led to the board of directors being dominated by insiders-directors from the controlling shareholder and executive directors and the illiquidity of majority of shares on stock market makes the market as external governance factor ineffective. I also discuss the factors deterring the wide adoption of managerial stock option on the Chinese stock market.

In light of a severe, changing and globally implicative New Food Equation marked perhaps above all else by the dynamics of a new, bimodal food insecurity and the simultaneous rising importance of cities, new approaches to address food security at urban scales suggest promise. But as such efforts are relatively new, the discourses and activities of urban actors are understood to only a limited extent. Moreover, while attention to food security per se is robust and growing, attention to the discursive and narrative dimensions that ultimately construct both the real nutritional achievements and the real experiential implications of such policy is not. In this research, I apply analytical methods informed by the interpretive, critical and ethnographic traditions to understand (some of) the cultural, ideological and philosophical particularities of these new dynamics and contexts, examining the cases of two large cities in the North and South, New York City and Bogotá. Tandem to the empirical work, I explore the philosophical tenets that ground food security efforts in the two studied cities and more generally, and I finally settle upon the purposefully normative appeal for motion towards a new concept: dignified food security.

This thesis aims to explore the socio-spatial control mechanisms, termed as Informal land controls – used by informal power intermediaries termed informal structures to produce space to claim public resources in Karachi-Pakistan. Such informal structures include but are not limited to: political parties, bonds of tribe and kinship, religious authorities, neighbourhood committees, gangs and other criminals. The concept of informal land controls is integrally embedded within the processes of informality and production of space in Karachi and is used to examine political conflicts, social divisions and the spiral of violence evident in Karachi, especially from mid-2000 onwards. The study introduces the concept of informal land controls to address the gap in the literature, both on informality and production of space, which currently remains focussed on the state, market and the poor, and thus, neglects the role of power intermediaries. Such informal processes of production of space that are neither ‘from above’ i.e. state and market driven, nor ‘from below’, but ‘from between’. The research is based on four case study areas in Karachi – North Nazimabad, Lyari, PIB Colony and Scheme 33 – which demonstrate how multiple and overlapping informal structures initiate and maintain informal land controls, and how these are linked with the failure of formal government and prevailing informality in planning decisions. A wide range of licit and illicit measures are used – including political domination; religious discourse; cultural practice; tribal identity; property control; barriers, flags and wall-chalking; harassment; extortion; violence, street control and homicides. The result is a complex network of socio-spatial divisions that form ‘no-go’ areas of varying degrees, which have exacerbated social divisions and violence in the city. The research argues that understanding such processes is essential to underpin interventions to reduce violence and extortion, and ensure more equitable access to urban resources.

This study investigates the impact of aspects of geographic location on criminal spatial behaviour. It is also concerned with where crimes occurs and how the location of crime may actually limit the behavioural possibilities of criminality, these limitations are derived, in part, from offenders representations of their offending locations and the potential for desired criminal activity in those locations. The underlying behavioural possibilities for criminal movement relate to the background characteristics of the individuals committing offences. The Thesis develops a locational characteristic paradigm, which puts the focus on where crime occurs reflecting the type of the individual who is likely to commit crime there. This study examines those features of individuals' psychological, physical or cultural backgrounds, as they relate to geography, that prohibit or inhibit forms of criminal movement. The study addresses this by focusing on an offenders' representation of crime opportunities, the distribution of crime locations and offenders considerations when planning their crimes. The study aims to provide a direct challenge to some of the key concepts within the criminal spatial literature, such as routine activity theory, rational choice theory, the psychological importance of the home and the influence of familiarity on crime locations. Individual differences across features of criminality are examined. Real crime cases are explored in order to unearth the differences within the geographic profile of offences. Offender representations of their offending areas are studied in an attempt to establish what these depictions actually represent. The work explores the distribution of offence locations and the rationale offenders put forward for why they offended where they did to establish if there are barriers to offending and how offenders account for these barriers, if at all. The first stage of the research is a Case Study introduction to the crime of Tiger Kidnap (TK) in Ireland. TK is an adaptation of a Standard Armed Robbery offence and is the term used to describe the abduction of a person(s) of importance to a target (generally a bank manager) in which that person(s) is used as collateral until the target complies with the requests of the offenders. What makes TK a unique crime is introduced and the substantial distribution of offence locations, something which has not previously been observed in the criminology literature, is discussed. The first empirical analysis addresses methodological concerns within the measurement of distance data. It challenges the related literature which suggests Crow Flight as a valid and reliable measure of criminal distance data. Previous studies acknowledge that Crow Flight knowingly underestimates the likely distance offenders travel and that it relates to the relative position of locations in the mental representations of distance. It is hypothesised that this difference is likely to be significant, and, that offenders conceptualise distance through routes, not relative positions of location. This was confirmed in the interviews with offenders. This study compliments previous work on this topic by opening the possibility of a new methodological alternative for measuring criminal distance data. The argument for this conceptualisation of distance is based on the advancement in technology and transport primarily, where offenders now have access to route information much more readily than they will have to deal with the relative position of locations. The advance planning found in the current cases show that offenders have gone as far as to travel the routes that they will use, indicating that these distances are considered in terms of routes and the time it takes to travel these routes. The hypothesis is that there is a significant difference between the Crow Flight measure and the Route Distance measure of distance data. A significant distortion in probable distance travelled compared to the Crow Flight measure was found. The findings provide support for the current argument that distance measures in future studies would have greater methodological precision if they were to favour the route distance measure . The work moves to examine the geographical profile of TK offences in Ireland. Building on the first study into distance measurements, and how using route distance appears to be, for Irish offences, a more psychologically valid form of measurement. The second study applied these findings onto the measurement stage of a sample of real cases of TK while also looking at the variation between offences. The hypothesis was that there would be a significant difference between TK in the North and South of Ireland. The analysis found that offenders in the North of Ireland had a significantly reduced geographic profile than offenders in the South. These differences relate to the type of offenders that are operating in those locations. Research from the Home Office and reports from the Police Service of North Ireland has suggested that TK in the North, are committed by ex-paramilitary offenders who are likely to have advanced skills in hostage taking and experience in staging and planning operations of this nature. This type of offender is less bound to the geographical opportunities that offenders in the South can avail of and operate on a much more refined geographic template than their counterparts in the South. This study highlights the distortion that can be found when studying types of offences as a whole, and, specifically, it showed the differences that can exist within the same crime type. The forth stage of the work explored offenders cognitive maps and the information that can be gleaned from the graphic representations of their crimes. The study tested the validity of a revised model of Appleyard's 1970's Sketch Map Classification Scheme. The study questions whether the multi optional classification schemes are too broad to distinguish one style of map from another. The results supported this position, finding that the rigid classification schemes are unreliable as they are too subjective in the manner in which they can be ascribed. However, it was found that there was a distinction between maps that were basic and simple over more complex maps. It was also found that the context behind the drawing, as in what was being represented by the offender, influenced the style of map that was presented. This suggests that knowledge of the background to the offender is just as integral to the process of classifying an individual's cognitive map as is the sketch map itself. The final study explores the role of psychological barriers to crime and offenders interpretation of their offending behaviour. This was achieved through exploring the distribution of crime around the Dublin region in Ireland. The hypothesis was that the distribution of offences would be restricted to the side of the city in which the offender resided. This was supported through the finding that offenders preferred to offend on the side of the city that they lived. This is illustrated in the maps that they marked their crimes on. This was based on the psychological barriers to movement that manifests itself in the River Liffey that divides the North of the city from the South of the City. Offenders rationale for offending on one side of the city over the other highlights an interesting development in that they equate the locations in which they offend to be based on issues removed from the influence of the river partition. Security consideration and closeness to home were offered as reasons why offenders offended where they did. However, when studying the distribution of offence locations they highlight a clear distinction in the form of a geographic arena, based on the river that divides the city. Further examples of this geographic arena are discussed in respect to the distribution of offence locations in the North of Ireland which relate to the border that previously divided the North of Ireland from the South of Ireland. This study highlighted the need for an understanding of not just offender characteristics but also the physical characteristics of the location of crime. The implications of these studies for how we conceptualise criminal spatial movement are discussed. At present, there exist little to no study into the area of spatial context, which is an understanding of the nature of the differences in movement based on the characteristic background of the offender. The special importance of the crime of TK and the unique contributes of this form of criminality is outlined. A criterion based paradigm for the measurement, analysis and interpretation of geographical data is put forward. An improved understanding of specific influencing aspects of offenders’ spatial behaviour will enhance the modelling of offender behaviour. This has implications for policing and the investigation of crime generally.