This thesis is an ethnographic exploration of the way in which local actors who engage in Ambedkarite discourses in rural Chhattisgarh are disconnected from the larger pan-Indian social movement. It goes beyond the literature that looks at Dalits in the urban context by focusing on Dalits in rural India. The aspects under investigation are caste, social and sectarian movements, youth, rights, intergenerational difference and education. The Satnami community examined here is located in a village where they are in more or less the same economic position to other castes. These other castes, however, practice ‘distancing’ from them to avoid ‘pollution’, which is a cause for smouldering resentment. Satnamis have been historically militant. They acquired additional land and assert themselves through a sectarian movement. They have their own functionaries and pilgrimage site. Their sectarian ideology advances the claim that they are independent (swatantra) from other castes and have mitigated exchange (len-den) with them. Nevertheless, they remain at the bottom of the village caste hierarchy and face everyday forms of caste oppression. Educated Satnamis in the younger generation claim that they know more (jaankar) about their rights (adhikaar) and aspire to change by becoming “key social animators”. These young men are organised in an association (samiti/samuh) that draws on Ambedkar’s ideas about overcoming caste oppression. They also appropriate mainstream spaces in the village by organising Hindu festivals, and defy ‘clean’ caste ostracism at a ritual level. But they do not have any functional power in the village or in the panchayat. When urban Dalit activists, with their headquarters in Raipur, visit rural areas, they ignore this group of young men in the village. Their main activity is fact-finding and the dissemination of reports of caste-motivated atrocities on the Internet with the intention of forging links to NGOs nationally and internationally. They do not focus their attention on mundane forms of caste oppression in everyday village life, and the young men in the village remain hidden from view. The present study examines how the Dalit movement is functioning at the grass roots level, focusing on those actors in rural India who remain hidden from mainstream channels of activism in the Dalit movement.

This thesis addresses six main objectives answering questions on the origin, nature and social organization of SNS and their custodians; motivations for, and BCD conservation consequences of, their maintenance; threats SNS and ancestral institutions face and existing governance and protection instruments, with focus on local perceptions among the Wonsho of Sidama, Ethiopia. The study employs anthropologically-oriented, but interdisciplinary, conceptual framework and mixed methods to collect and analyse data. A year of fieldwork (July 2012-June 2013) was carried out using six major data collection methods (including interviews, BD inventory and HHS). The data were analysed using NVivo 10 and SPSS 20/21. The results are presented and discussed in seven key thematic areas and six chapter headings. The main findings are summarized as follows: 1. Forty-eight SNS (whose sizes ranging from a site of a single tree to a 90.6 ha and ages from 28 to ca 375 years) were identified in seven PAs. Three criteria were used to identify a typology of Wonsho SNS: spatial-clan structure, function and protection status. SAR was identified as the core of the origin, social organization, governance and geography of SNS and other BCD protection areas. Twenty-two of SNS were protected by SAR practitioners and four by Protestant Christians. The rest were either lost or transformed. 2. Answers to the question of why SNS are maintained are interpreted as linked to ancestral conceptions of the natural world, knowledge about, and practice relating to, it. The people valued SNS and native trees as ‘life’, ‘beauty’, ‘ancestor symbolizers’, ‘temples’, ‘wealth’, ‘shade’, ‘healing agents’, ‘food banks’, ‘place and name identifiers’, and ‘tribunal courts’ among others. Certain salient norms and practices, supporting tree biodiversity, are identified and interpreted as the foundation of the motivation for the maintenance of SNS. 3. 154 floral and 33 faunal species were documented for their reported and observed past and present existence in 26 of the 48 SNS and other informal protection areas. A partial inventory identified about 133 flora and some fauna, including two locally endangered species, Colobus guerezza and Tauraco ruspoli in various SNSs. Twenty-two locally reported endangered native trees were found here, of which ten were reportedly found nowhere. Eighteen major woody species were identified as extractively conserved in various informal protection areas, notably agroforests. 4. Forty-three types of uses of trees were identified. Eighteen woody species were identified as playing crucial socio-economic role; seven of these being culturally important and Podocarpus falcatus was identified as a truly ‘cultural keystone species’. The maintenance of SNS and native trees has important role through provisioning, regulating, supporting and cultural ecosystem services. 5. Maintenance of SNS and other botanic landscapes were found to contribute positively towards community health, herbal medicine and conservation of medicinal plants. SNS are perceived as key resources for health and wellbeing. Sixty-two percent of surveyed HHs accessed medicinal plants from SNS where 48% of the identified plants (including nine that were reported as locally endangered) were found. 6. The SNS and ancestral institutions faced threats. Fourteen SNS were lost, eight severely degraded through other land uses and the existing 26 also threatened in seven studied PAs. Twenty-two important native trees were reportedly threatened; ten of these exited only in the SNS. Twelve native woody species were reportedly lost. SAR is threatened (e.g. declined from 13.6% in 1994 to 2.7% in 2007). Eroding factors, especially external ones, have been intensifying since the 1890s, but momentum added over the past 50-60 years, salient drivers being introduction of cash economy, modern religions, modern education, misguided state policies, rapid population growth and resultant socio-economic pressures. 7. The SNS have for centuries been protected through ‘spirit agency and policing’ in a structure that gave supreme place to ancestors who influenced and guided governance. Some key principles of SNS management were identified, including ‘spirit-policing’, dreams and oracles in decision making, protecting entire habitat, protecting species, etc. In recent years, protection efforts have improved, with emerging collaborative governance, but these suffered from poor resourcing, coordination and fragmentation; and the future of SNS, native tree species and the SAR seemed uncertain despite some locals were optimistic. The study concludes the SNS and associated institutions of Wonsho have resiliently existed as ‘guardians of Sidama biocultural diversity’ and are showcases for the mutual adaptations of tree biodiversity and ancestral traditions. The study discusses a set of implications and recommendations for further research and action. The contribution of the study lies in the following areas which appear to be under-represented in the current literature: (a) qualitative analysis of the ontology, nature, structures, functions, geography and dynamisms of SNS and custodians, demonstrating that Wonsho SNS are not relics from static past but dynamic socio-ecological systems; (b) in-depth discussion of the role of SNS in conserving both biodiversity and cultural diversity; (c) a nuanced analysis of why and how the SNS are maintained, (d) local perceptions and parameters of the values and roles of, and threats facing, SNS and related local institutions; (e) our understanding of what constitutes ‘biocultural diversity’ and the indicators for cultural diversity when this concept is applied at a local scale; (e) interdisciplinary conceptual and analytical tools to understand the socio-ecological and biocultural systems embodied in sacred sites, combining concepts from a range of social and natural sciences, notably anthropology and conservation biology.

This dissertation presents the first evaluation of a VCA in terms of its multi-scalar governance approach with reference to the principles of the ICCAs category and the CPR principles for institutional arrangements for sustainable natural resource management. The research techniques applied to develop this research included: (1) document revision on national legislation for protected establishment and management; (2) forty four semi-structured interviews with conservation practitioners at different administrative levels, as well as (3) direct observations, 32 semi-structured and unstructured interviews to conform an in-depth case study of the VCA of El Reten, in San Miguel Chimalapa, Oaxaca, Mexico. Devolution processes in El Reten were analysed in terms of the bundles of rights or powers that local community holds for natural resource management after the certification of El Reten and during its early implementation. The issues examined by these dissertation have explored for the first time who is entitled to “give” which powers back to local communities; the actual procedures that allow these approaches to be called community-driven when ICCAs can only retain “power” by conforming to externally defined criteria, and finally, if devolution is happening, the way “bundles of rights” - or powers - (Ribot and Peluso 2003) interact with external criteria for conservation. The case study of El Reten provides clear examples of the implications of the formalisation of a VCA over local governance structures. These decentralised approaches for conservation are also subject to elite capture and the trade-offs between the availability of economic resources and local autonomy, as well as between administrative efficiency and equity and legitimacy. The VCA in El Reten represents the ideal scenario for the tragedy of the commons (Hardin 1968), where the establishment of a VCA, the arrival of economic incentives and the overlooking of the local political context by conservation agencies is fuelling the tragedy instead of alleviating it. This dissertation shows this explicitly in the context of the newly developed VCA category in Mexico for the first time.

Many carnivore populations were in decline throughout much of the 20th century, but due to recent conservation policies, their numbers are stabilising or even increasing in some areas of the world. This, compounded with human population growth, has caused increased livestock depredation by carnivores, which threatens farmer livelihoods, particularly those in developing countries such as Namibia. How to resolve this so-called “conflict” between carnivores and livestock farmers remains challenging, in part because some mitigation strategies have proven somewhat ineffective or unacceptable. By using a case-study approach on the commercial farmlands of northcentral Namibia, I aimed to understand the complexity of the human dimensions affecting coexistence between carnivores and people in an unprotected working landscape. Specifically, my objectives were to 1) develop a participatory decisionmaking exercise to analyse the views of stakeholders on how they would like carnivores to be managed in unprotected lands, 2) understand how the media framed financial incentives to improve human-carnivore coexistence, and 3) determine if there were any underlying social, economic or political causes of negative human-carnivore interactions on commercial livestock farms. To answer objective 1, I developed a new decision-making exercise that combined Q-methodology and the Delphi technique to determine whether a diverse group of stakeholders could agree on how to manage carnivores on commercial farmland. A strong agreement was reached by participants: providing conservation education and training on livestock husbandry were acceptable and effective ways to improve coexistence with carnivores. This new also method highlighted areas of disagreement between stakeholders and showed that there were two different narratives on how carnivores should be managed. This method could be used by policy makers to help with participatory decision-making for resolving other conservation conflicts. To answer objective 2, I undertook content analysis of national newspapers to determine how the media framed articles on financial incentives to mitigate this conservation conflict. The most common (30%) financial incentive discussed was compensation - many (61%) of these articles framed compensation positively. However, upon categorising these articles into those where respondents were enrolled in compensation schemes compared with those who were not, a clear pattern emerged: articles were more likely (89%) to be framed ambivalently or negatively when respondents had experience of this financial incentive compared with respondents that did not. These results can help conservationists plan more effective communication interventions and anticipate issues that can affect the success of mitigation strategies. To answer objective 3, I undertook eight months of participant observation on livestock farms and interviewed 69 respondents and found that reported livestock depredation was associated with increased instances of poaching of wildlife and stealing of livestock. This association appeared to be partly due to farmer-worker relations: when employees felt happy, respected and were paid a liveable wage, they were incentivised to perform well in their job. This resulted in livestock that were managed more effectively and therefore less likely to be killed by predators. Furthermore, these well-paid employees were not incentivised to steal or poach to supplement their income, which limited the extent of game poaching and livestock theft on the farm. These findings underline the fact that this conservation conflict is extremely complicated, driven by many social, economic and political factors that may not be apparent initially. In conclusion, this thesis has found that the conflict between carnivores and livestock farmers is a truly wicked problem, affected by a multitude of complex layers. Only by exploring the entangled web of drivers will we ever begin to create positive, lasting change for both people and predators.

This thesis draws upon anthropological fieldwork carried out in 2010–11 in the Tikveš wine region of the Republic of Macedonia. Unlike most other countries of the former Eastern Bloc, Macedonia’s post-socialist transition was held off due to the conflicts in the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s. The result is that a slower, more subtle shift has occurred there yet it has been one guided by neoliberal principles, thus significantly altering the livelihoods of the country’s inhabitants. My research in Tikveš illustrates the role privatisation (privatizacija, a term known and used locally) is playing in the region’s transition from government to private ownership and production, specifically in the wine industry. Although the quality and selection of wine in Tikveš has improved, the lives of the independent grape growers and their families have not. Instead, the growers have been subject to the leverage of the winery owners—who have reduced and delayed payments to them—while a neoliberalised government has taken a laissez-faire approach to market regulation. Combined with EU accession development policy, this thesis therefore focuses on how individuals in the region are both protesting and adapting to the change at hand through rearranging their livelihoods and work. Indeed, grape growers have been left with a surplus of grapes and a dearth of income and certainty, inciting some to produce vast quantities of homemade rakija (brandy) while others replace, abandon or sell their vineyards. New ways of bringing in income, such as selling one’s brandy, produce or homemade goods are also modes of survival. Yet many claim that is all they are doing, merely ‘surviving, not living’. An argument is thus made that there is a return to the peasantry. Such repeasantisation is a process whereby the focus of economic activity becomes further centred on households and the pooling of family resources drawn from working the land and engaging in non-professional types of work. This form of repeasantisation is essentially that increasing numbers of individuals are not only working their small plots of land to provide produce for their family and for sale, but that in replacing the employment and income once provide by the state they are engaging in petty trade and precarious employment when it can be found. The thesis is comprised of six chapters, with an introduction and conclusion as well.

Recent decades have seen unprecedented loss of global biodiversity with amphibians among the most affected species. Emerging infectious diseases have being linked to declines and may result in very rapid extinctions, with chytridiomicoses and ranaviroses cited as diseases with the greatest impact. However, demonstration of a link between population declines and infectious pathogens is not always straightforward and becomes harder if pre-outbreak data are not available. With this thesis I combine observational, experimental and modelling approaches to analyse the spread and impacts of emerging agents on amphibian assemblages. In Iberia, the first case of Bd-infection and consequent mass mortality was documented in 1997 in Sierra de Guadarrama (Spain), leading to the decline of common midwife toads (Alytes obstetricans). In Portugal, impacts were first recorded in 2009 in Serra da Estrela and here described. Bd led to a collapse of midwife toads in high altitude areas. However, despite being regarded as a highly susceptible host to Bd, midwife toads seem to exhibit strong variation in the prevalence of infection across small geographic scales. Although present at lower elevations, an altitudinal envelope prevented chytrid from causing mortality among this amphibian assemblage. Through ongoing monitoring, I detected the asynchronous emergence of a second pathogen: a Ranavirus. The new virus had the capacity to infect multiple hosts, leading to massive annual die-offs in different taxa, life stages and across the altitudinal range. Data recorded prior to the first outbreak, as well as observations at a comparable site with similar geoclimatic features, illustrated the collapse of the amphibian community in relation to potential drivers. Laboratory experiments and field observations showed that S. salamandra larvae were resistant to the disease chytridiomycosis despite sharing Bd-positive sites with dying Alytes. These results contrast with other higher elevation systems where salamander larvae often overwinter. This prolonged exposure increases the chances of infection and supports the idea that the impact of a pathogen can be mediated by host life history. The mediation of a pathogen impact by the host natural history and/ or particular behaviour was also demonstrated on newts. The lethal effects of Ranavirus annual exposure on the newt population were amplified by host phenology causing a strongly imbalanced adult sex ratio. Modelling showed how behaviour may influence recovery. Following mass mortality, population recovery will be faster if there is an even sex ratio. Bd-mediated declines and extinctions may occur in species with certain life history traits, whereas Ranavirus CMTV-like strains seem to have a broader impact across amphibian species. Good surveillance and monitoring are key steps for effective management and conservation of wild populations. Sustainable conservation of wild amphibian assemblages is dependent on long-term population persistence and co-evolution with these lethal pathogens.

Textile conservation, defined here as the preservation, investigation and presentation of textiles, is often viewed largely as a technical and aesthetic problem. This research develops an alternative view by understanding objects as being subject to both material and social change. The dynamic aspects of this material and social process is emphasised as ‘stuff happens’. This research proposes, and provides evidence for, a material culture approach to textile conservation, and demonstrates its development and application. An analysis of case studies shows how the material and the social interact at the point of assessment and intervention. Examination of the material aspects of textile conservation reveals that social values influence decision-making. Values held at the time of conservation are shown to depend on the categories used. Investigation of these categories demonstrates that any anomalous quality of the textile undergoing conservation allows for contestation of social values. As values change over time, analysis of each conservation assessment and intervention reveals a comparison of values held at different times viewed retrospectively. The resulting approach is centred on the interaction between things, persons and language where each mediates relations of the others. It is argued that this material culture approach enhances understanding of the dynamic material and social environment of textile conservation principles and practices.

The aim of this thesis is to investigate the Colombian-Lebanese community in Bogota, and specifically the identities of a particular group of Colombian-Lebanese. I explore the role of ethnicity in the construction of their identities, through the concepts of space, performance and community. The Colombian-Lebanese community has a particular position within Bogota society as part of Bogota’s elite. This privileged position means the Colombian-Lebanese community is a confident group that does not have to endure the negative aspects of ethnic labelling that other less privileged communities may have to sustain. Most of the Colombian-Lebanese participants in this study have been successfully upwardly socially mobile whilst keeping a connection with their ethnic community. At the same time, less upwardly mobile descendants of Lebanese immigrants are more likely to completely assimilate into Colombian society, or if they are recent Muslim immigrants, maintain their religious identity but their ethnic identity is likely to gradually dilute. By adopting an ethnographic approach, with an emphasis on interviews and participant observation, I focus on the Colombian-Lebanese organisations that work within this ethnic community, including a social club, a Maronite parish, a charitable organisation, and a cultural association. I analyse a number of activities and events organised by the Colombian-Lebanese, observing the locations where these take place, their participation in the events, as well as how identity is performed within them. There have been few studies of the Colombian-Lebanese in Colombia, most of those focussing on the history of migration and settlement. This thesis aims to address this by adding a contemporary view of the Colombian-Lebanese in Bogota. Moreover, it contributes to the growing literature on migrant communities investigating whether upward mobility is compatible with ethnic identification. I argue that social status is as important to Colombian-Lebanese identity as ethnicity, and that the two combine in order to belong to the organisations that work within the community. The social positioning of the Colombian-Lebanese in Bogota’s society positively influences their relationship with their ethnic identity, which they can choose deliberately when and where to perform.

This submission for a PhD BY published work examines archaeological historiography and lithic artefact studies concerning aspects of the Palaeolithic and Mesolithic archaeology of Wales. The critical analysis connects the published works through the theoretical approach of biography. It draws out themes of archaeological, straigraphic and museum context where appropriate. The critical analysis commences with an examination of publications concerning the history of research at Palaeolithic cave sites in Wales. It identifies the sources and methodologies used then analyses their effectiveness for presenting histories of caves. The historiography of lithic artefact studies is then examined before an analysis is offered of the methodological approaches of technology, chronology, typology and the chaine operatoire as used in the published works. By applying the concept that artefacts have biographies, the archaeological context for individual and surface assemblages of lithic artefacts is explored. This leads to a discussion of archaeological projects and examines the fieldwork techniques adopted in the publications to elucidate archaeological context. There is an examination of the factors that influence the resulting archive and a discussion of its use as a resource for determining past work at archaeological sites. By exploring thesetopics the concept of biographies of people, places , artefacts and projects emerges. These biographies are drawn together into an assessment of their use for presenting archaeological narratives for regions of Wales. The final conclusions draw the aims of the critical analysis of the published works together before offering concluding thoughts about the continuation of antiquarian traditions in collecting lithic artefacts across Wales.

International trade in wildlife is a major threat to biodiversity conservation. CITES, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, which entered into force in 1975, is the primary mechanism for maintaining sustainability in international wildlife trade. However, CITES boasts few conservation successes and its regulatory approach is proving ineffective in many cases. In this thesis I recommend reforms to international wildlife trade interventions both within and beyond CITES, which would enable the Convention to more effectively govern trade and lead to the improved conservation status of trade-threatened species. In chapter two, I review typical and atypical interventions in CITES and critically evaluate the effectiveness of the Convention. I argue that trade measures need to go beyond regulation and should be multi-faceted, reflecting the socio-economic, cultural and economic complexity of wildlife trade and I outline key areas of research to inform these interventions. In chapter three I focus on high-value wildlife and argue that a regulatory response to poaching for international trade is an inadequate long-term conservation strategy and interventions should involve incentivizing local communities to conserve wildlife, the re-examination of sustainable off-take mechanisms, including regulated trade, ranching, and wildlife farming, and demand management measures. In chapter four, I critically evaluate CITES from an economic perspective through a case study on the trade in pangolins (Pholidota: Manidae) in Asia. I assert that to more effectively manage trade CITES should seek to understand markets and the impact of trade controls and address demand for wildlife as well as supply. In chapter five, I investigate the influence of non-state actors on decisions to amend the CITES Appendices. I find that they are successful in influencing decision-making, but they also claim unwarranted campaign victories and seek to abuse CITES, and Parties should exercise caution when interpreting non-state actor policy advice. In chapter six I discuss the contribution this thesis makes to conservation science and implications for governing wildlife trade before drawing final conclusions.