Albert Cossery, known as the ‘story teller of Cairo’, weaves tales of the marginalized living in a city of the global South whose geographies have been impacted by colonial and neocolonial legacy. Cairo’s city and economic spaces have often been theorized as determined and dominated by the forces of neoliberalism, an approach that obscures the experience of residents who contest and evade these forces daily. For example, in “Les Couleurs de l’infamie”, the main character is a robin-hood archetype that revels in observing the resourcefulness of the city’s residents. ‘Alternative’ occupations and spatial uses abound: an unemployed philosopher teaches secretly out of the family crypt and a man has created his own trade in helping old women cross dangerous streets in the city. This paper approaches literature and the act of writing as being more-than-representational. It is a literary geography that considers how the city spaces and economic possibilities of Cairo are performed by Cossery’s writings, and how this performance can be considered an act of resistance.

The climate crisis is one of the most pressing challenges of the global development agenda. In recent years, young people have been publicly recognised as key stakeholders in efforts to address it. One of the platforms through which young climate activists and advocates engage in climate governance is the annual Conference of Parties (COP) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Typically accompanied by widespread media coverage, COPs provide opportunities for both State and Non-State Actors - including youth - for claim-making, agenda-setting, advocacy, and awareness raising.    Despite the growing attention to youth-led climate activism, research on the ways in which youth participate in the COPs, their experiences, and perceptions of their participation, has been limited and has tended to focus on youth from the Global North. To begin to address this gap, this research explores the experiences of youth climate activists and advocates from the Global South at the COP26 in Glasgow in November 2021. Informed by theories and frameworks of participation, the objective is to understand how these young people participated, the factors and dynamics which affected their experience, and how they viewed their participation. The findings are based on semi-structured interviews conducted in March and April 2022 with 11 young people who were all first-time attendees of the COP.   During COP26 they were engaged in activities in both the formal spaces of COP, such as side-events and negotiations, as well as informal or civil society spaces like marches and offsite events. Perceptions of youth participation varied among the interviewees and depended on the spaces or interactions discussed. Many expressed frustrations with the narrow opportunities for young people to engage in the official decision-making processes. However, despite the challenges to their participation in the formal spaces of COP26, young people experienced strong community connections with other youth, acquired new knowledge or skills, and established links and collaborative opportunities with other organisations and youth. In spite of the limitations, many saw value in the continued participation of young people in formal spaces of the COP and shared suggestions for enhancing young people’s engagement.

Accumulating evidence of the beneficial effects of contact with nature on children’s mental and physical health suggests that exposure to green spaces can support learning and enhance academic performance in children. A limited number of studies exploring the relationship between vegetation in the school environment and academic outcomes has found positive associations. However, most studies use students’ contextual data and outcomes aggregated at the school level, and therefore are unable to adequately control for individual characteristics of students known to influence academic performance. Furthermore, these studies have been carried out in developed countries of North America and Europe, and therefore the extent to which their findings are generalizable to different socio-economic, cultural, and ecological contexts is not well understood. In this dissertation, we advance our understanding on the use of remote sensing data to assess greenness exposure, in order to evaluate the association between greenness in the school environment and student-level academic outcomes in a country of the Global South. We first estimated the influence of spatial resolution of normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) on greenness exposure misclassification. We assessed residential greenness for a large cohort of children in Boston, Massachusetts using NDVI at different spatial resolutions and multiple buffer sizes, following methods commonly used in the environmental health literature. Using a reliability assessment framework, we compared continuous and categorical exposure estimates and found that exposure misclassification was higher with coarser spatial resolution, smaller buffers, and greater number of exposure quantiles. We conclude that greenness exposure assessment is sensitive to spatial resolution of NDVI, aggregation area, and number of exposure quantiles. Then, we linked satellite-derived greenness estimates for 2,931 schools in urban areas in Chile to administrative records of standardized test scores and contextual information at the individual and school level for 541,171 elementary-aged students. We evaluated the association between greenness in the school environment and individual-level academic performance in elementary-aged students in Santiago, Chile. Higher school greenness levels were associated with improved individual-level academic performance, with greater magnitude and strength of associations for students in public schools. Finally, we evaluated the individual-level association between greenness in the school environment and academic performance of students in schools in 16 cities across different climate zones in Chile. School greenness was positively associated with test scores and odds of attaining learning standards in mathematics and reading, although associations held only in public schools. The magnitude of associations varied widely across climate regions, decreasing from the desert region in the north to the more vegetated regions in the south. In light of the growing interest on health effects from urban green spaces, this dissertation provides insights on methodological decisions regarding greenness exposure assessment in environmental health research. Furthermore, it expands the evidence on a beneficial association between school-greenness and academic performance to different cultural, demographic, and climate settings. Our results highlight the nuanced nature of this association and the importance of considering students’ social and ecological contexts in urban greenspace management around schools to provide green spaces that effectively support learning. / 2024-12-05T00:00:00Z

The aim of this study is to explore the experiences that migrant parents from the global South have regarding the child developmental assessments carried out by the Child Healthcare Centers in Sweden.  Over the past half-century, the study of child development has been dominated by developmental psychology. Child Studies has taken a critical approach to traditional developmental theories, highlighting the social construction of childhood as opposed to purely biological or universal frameworks. This raises important questions, such as whether all children develop at the same rate, what it means for a child to be in development, and whether various cultures perceive child development in the same way. The data collection method for this study has been semi-structured interviews with five parents originally from the global South living in Sweden who have attended the developmental assessments with their children. The data analysis method has been reflective thematic analysis, resulting in four themes: Age-based developmental milestones according to parents’ cultural perspective, parent’s perceived lack of cultural appropriateness in the child developmental assessments, differences about parental roles in child development according to cultural backgrounds and the centrality of the environment in child development for parents from the global South. The findings of the study are 1. Parents from the global South possess an understanding of child development partially similar and different compared to the one endorsed by the Child Healthcare Centers based on their cultural backgrounds. 2.The difference in the understanding of child development created cultural barriers that affect parents' involvement and contribution in the assessment, and in the appropriateness of the services they received.

Prison privatization has received notable attention in academic circles, but discussion has focused on the Global North, particularly the United States. On the other hand, little attention has been given to incarceration systems in general or prison privatization in the Global South. In this qualitative and deductive thesis, the subject of privatization in the field of correctional services is investigated with regard to South Africa, which stands out in the Global South due to it having two fully privately-run prisons, but also by having a large incarcerated population. The analysis is conducted based on an original framework of four levels of privatization, ordered from private involvement in the least crucial aspects of corrections management to the most, as well as the aspects of scope of privatization and the types of actors involved. Based on the analysis, the conclusions reached imply that private actors are involved to some degree with some aspects at all levels as well as that a variety of different actors are involved on different levels, and that the scope of privatization in South Africa is significant although this varies across levels. In total, this implies a relatively high degree of privatization in South Africa.

This study looks at the capital of Colombia, Bogotá’s mobility department, and how this institution is using the bicycle as a tool to brand the city. Bogotá has had a remarkable increase in bicycle ridership for several years, this duo to the city's implementation of bicycle lanes and politicians that have incorporated planning that favors this transport method. Even so, the city still has challenges in making bicycle transportation inclusive for everyone. Research suggests that to make a city more inclusive, it is important to understand the struggles and dilemmas within the current planning. This study examines questions such as: Which group or specific users are a dilemma when planning and developing Bogota as a bicycle city? Why is this group or user a challenge or dilemma in the planning? And: Does this group fit into the planner's vision of a cycling city? Through interviews with important stakeholders, academics, and bicycle representatives, the study identified Bicycle messengers as a dilemma. Some representatives of this group are also interviewed. Together with field observation, the theoretical framework, and the found data, this study analyzes the three-research question and answers why bicycle messengers are a dilemma for planners, as they pose a security risk. This finding is further discussed in the paper along with the theories of place branding, the right to the city, and a southern theory approach. Exploring the fact that the mobility department's own vision and branding can be one of the causes of finding this group to be a dilemma.

This dissertation reveals the long-term implications of Transnational Advocacy Networks (TANs) on domestic environmental non-governmental organizations (ENGOs) in India. It asks two questions: i. what opportunities and challenges do Indian NGOs face while addressing environmental issues within a transnational framework? ii. in what ways can southern domestic activists reduce the challenges of TAN neocolonialism and Indian state repression? It argues that TANs fail to leverage indigenous interests in the global South and that TAN activity increases Indian activists’ exposure to state repression. Existing transnational relations literature downplays the neocolonial side of transnationalism in favour of the short-term benefits of international recognition and material and financial aid. Drawing on over 50 research participant interviews and print documents collected over the course of six-months in New Delhi and Bengaluru, the research teases out the everyday lived experiences and histories of domestic activists in TANs. It analyzes how certain traditional rural-based advocacies that adopt a Gandhi-based approach such as the Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA) and Pathalgadi movements reject transnational alliances with international NGOs for fear of dominance and oppression, while urban-based advocacies that receive material and financial security from abroad such as Greenpeace India, ActionAid India, and Amnesty International view TANs as a boon for the Indian environmental advocacy sector. The research argues that Indian environmentalists would benefit if they shifted away from TANs towards a ‘global solidarity’ model that incorporates intersectionality between movements and South-South Transnational Advocacy Networks (SSTANs). / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Brazil is one of the largest economies in the Global South. Because of the country’s strong agribusiness and large population, it has a huge potential for biogas production that has yet to be realized. Biogas systems could potentially address a broad range of social, environmental, and economic issues, such as improving accessibility to clean energy sources in rural areas, alternative cooking fuel, and providing proper treatment of organic waste. Hence, biogas systems can play an important role in sustainability transitions by improving the environmental performance of energy generation, waste management systems, and food production. However, despite the availability of substrate for biogas production and the multiple benefits that biogas systems could bring, there is still a large implementation gap.   Biogas systems go beyond technical components and involve a multitude of stakeholders, infrastructure, knowledge, and formal and informal institutions. Therefore, the diffusion of biogas systems cannot be explained only by analyzing the technical components of biogas systems. Previous studies have explored the influences of societal contexts on technological diffusion, but these explored countries in the Global North. However, social, economic, and political aspects differ significantly between Global North and Global South countries.   This thesis aims to explain how societal contexts influence the diffusion of biogas systems in Brazil. The thesis distinguishes between societal contexts, delineating them as societal environments and socio-economic structures. Societal environments refer to the circumstances and aspects surrounding the diffusion process where alignment processes between new socio-technical systems and society happen across five environments: user, business, regulatory, cultural, and trans-local. Socio-economic structures refer to societal arrangements that shape social and economic aspects of society. The Varieties of Capitalism framework provides a tool for comparison of the socio-economic structures of different countries in the Global North and South. The thesis relies on case studies based on quantitative and qualitative data from documents (scientific articles, news articles, technical reports, research reports, official documents by governmental agencies, and policies) and interviews.    Societal contexts appear to be more unstable and fragmented compared to counterparts in the Global North, influencing the diffusion of biogas systems. Hierarchical structures in Brazil lead to power disparities between administrative levels (municipal, state, and federal levels), impacting policymaking and hindering local-level biogas system configurations. The thesis highlights socio-economic diversity among Brazilian states and how it influences where and which biogas system configurations are formed. This thesis emphasizes that studies on biogas systems’ potential should consider contextual aspects beyond substrate availability to comprehensively understand biogas systems diffusion in diverse settings. / Brasilien är en av de största ekonomierna i den globala södern. Givet landets starka jordbruksindustri och stora befolkning finns goda förutsättningar för storskalig biogasproduktion. Men det är en potential som ännu inte har exploaterats i någon större utsträckning. Biogassystem har potential att bidra till lösningen på flertalet sociala, miljömässiga och ekonomiska frågor, såsom att förbättra tillgången till rena energikällor på landsbygden, erbjuda alternativa bränslen för matlagning och att tillhandahålla lämplig behandling av organiskt avfall. Därmed kan biogassystem spela en viktig roll i en hållbar omställning genom att förbättra miljöprestandan för energiproduktion, avfallshantering och livsmedelsproduktion. Trots de många fördelarna som biogassystem medför finns alltså fortfarande en stor klyfta mellan potentialen och vad som är realiserat.   Biogassystem sträcker sig bortom tekniska komponenter och inkluderar även en mångfald av intressenter, infrastruktur, kunskap samt formella och informella institutioner. Därför kan spridningen av biogassystem inte förstås enbart genom att analysera tekniska komponenter i biogassystemet. Tidigare studier som har studerat hur sådana bredare samhällsfaktorer påverkar spridningen av teknologi har huvudsakligen undersökt länder i västvärlden (det globala norr). Men sociala, ekonomiska och politiska aspekter skiljer sig betydligt mellan länder i det globala norr och det globala söder.   Denna avhandling syftar därför till att förklara hur olika samhällsfaktorer påverkar spridningen av biogassystem i Brasilien. Avhandlingen skiljer mellan olika sorters samhällsfaktorer och delar in dem i samhälleliga miljöer och socioekonomiska strukturer. Samhälleliga miljöer avser de omständigheter och aspekter som omger spridningsprocessen där anpassningsprocesser mellan nya sociotekniska system och samhället sker över fem miljöer: användarmiljön, affärsmiljön, den reglerande miljön, den kulturella miljön och den translokala miljön. Socioekonomiska strukturer avser samhälleliga arrangemang som formar sociala och ekonomiska aspekter av samhället. För att jämföra socioekonomiska strukturer i olika länder i det globala norr och globala söder används även ramverket ”Varieties of Capitalsim” som beskriver olika former av kapitalism. Avhandlingen baseras på fallstudier och använder kvantitativa och kvalitativa data från dokument (vetenskapliga artiklar, nyhetsartiklar, tekniska rapporter, forskningsrapporter, officiella dokument från statliga organ och policys) samt intervjuer. Resultaten visar att de studerade samhällsfaktorerna i Brasilien verkar vara mer instabila och fragmenterade jämfört med motsvarigheter i det globala norr, vilket påverkar spridningen av biogassystem negativt. Hierarkiska strukturer i Brasilien leder till maktobalans mellan administrativa nivåer (kommunal, delstatlig och federal nivå), vilket påverkar politiskt beslutsfattande och hindrar utvecklingen av biogassystem på lokal nivå. Avhandlingen lyfter fram betydelsen av socioekonomisk mångfald bland Brasiliens delstater och hur dessa påverkar var och vilka biogassystem som utvecklas. Avhandlingen understryker att studier om biogassystems potential bör överväga kontextuella aspekter bortom tillgång på substrat för att bättre förstå spridningen av biogassystem i olika sammanhang. / <p><strong>Funding:</strong> the Biogas Solutions Research Center (BSRC)</p>

[pt] Esse trabalho olha para como os aplicativos enactam a insegurança no/do Sul Global, de modo a compreender a mediação algorítmica da governança da segurança. Aplicativos são manifestações computacionais cujo poder reside em sua proximidade com o usuário final e em seu suposto papel democratizante e empoderante. Ao mesmo tempo, no entanto, esses apps estão embutidos e replicam uma geopolítica do conhecimentocomplicada que não pode ser entendida pelo que caracterizo como formas não monstruosas de teorização de RI, que, intencionalmente ou não, re-enactam a contenção da autoridade dentro das categorias do indivíduo, do estado e do sistema internacional. Em contraste, formas monstruosas de teorização, como aquelas que tentam explicar a política dos artefatos (digitais) e da sociomaterialidade, perturbam as fronteiras disciplinares, suas suposições e representações da política, a fim de expandir e estender o que é compreendido como política e autoridade. Ao engajar-se com uma compreensão da política de ambas na governança de segurança, esta tese argumenta que os aplicativos adicionam camadas de complicação ao nosso entendimento de governança, das quais lidarei com três: simplificação, formalismo e objetividade. Em um segundo impulso argumentativo, a tese sustenta que essas três camadas também são lógicas de computação que dão forma à autoridade de um aplicativo, mas não sem serem significativamente transformadas e reaproveitadas na prática. Na medida em que os aplicativos incorporam de forma decisiva contos sobre políticas democráticas e geopolíticas desiguais do conhecimento, cabe reconhecer que as questões práticas relativas ao seu trabalho de governança atravessam o Sul Global, entendido tanto como uma categoria de pensamento sobre os emaranhados pós-coloniais e as interações atravessadas pelas tecnologias digitais, como um marcador de hierarquias de conhecimento. Esta tese, portanto, fornece uma explicação alternativa para as interações de poder e autoridade que compõem a política de segurança (do Sul) global. Com isso, afasta-se da teorização abstrata para olhar para a governança computacional no chão, ou seja, nos contextos sociopolíticos em que opera, é concebida, criada e adaptada. Ao fazer isso, engaja-se em uma filosofia empírica baseada no uso de métodos etnográficos e no uso antropofágico de conceitos desenvolvidos por estudiosos de RI, filósofos da tecnologia, estudiosos de política digital e STS, e filósofos e sociólogos que pensando poder e desigualdade. O trabalho de campo foi realizado entre 2018 e 2021 com três aplicativos de segurança: Fogo Cruzado, EagleView 2.0, e UN SanctionsApp, e se compõe de uma colagem de métodos, que vão desde observações participantes, entrevistas, walkthroughs em aplicativos e pesquisa bibliográfica. Essa combinação confusa de métodos, objetos e lugares não pode ser vista como desvinculada do impulso conceitual mais amplo da tese, ou seja, mostrar que é na e por meio da autoridade dos aplicativos na governança no/do Sul Global, que podemos começar a abraçar os monstros que têm assustado a política de segurança por tanto tempo. E, ao o fazermos, seremos finalmente capazes de abrir o estudo da autoridade para suas manifestações processuais, transversais e múltiplas, por meio da computação, esta mesma entendida como um conjunto de práticas situadas, adaptáveis e contextuais, que tanto reproduzem como complicam hierarquias de poder e conhecimento. / [en] This work looks at how apps enact insecurity in/of the Global South in order to understand the algorithmic mediation of security governance. Apps are manifestations of computation whose power resides in their proximity with endusers and alleged democratizing and empowering roles. At the same time, however, apps are embedded into and replicate complicated geopolitics of knowledge that cannot be understood by what I characterize as non-monstrous forms of IR theorizing, which, wittingly or not, re-enact the containment of authority within the categories of the individual, the state and the international system. In contrast, monstrous forms of theorizing, such as those which attempt to account for the politics of (digital) artifacts and sociomateriality, disturb disciplinary boundaries, assumptions and representations of politics in order to expand and extend what is encompassed as the political and the authoritative. While engaging with efforts to account for the politics of both in security governance, this thesis argues that apps add layers of complication to our understanding of governance, of which I will be dealing with three: simplification, formalism and objectivity. In a second argumentative thrust, the thesis argues that these three layers are also logics of computation that give form to an app s authority, but not without being significantly transformed and repurposed in practice. To the extent that apps decisively embody both stories of democratic politics and unequal geopolitics of knowledge, we must acknowledge that practical questions pertaining to their governance work traverse the Global South, understood both as a category of thought about postcolonial entanglements and interactions traversed by digital technologies and a marker of knowledge hierarchies. This thesis, therefore, provides an alternative account of the interplays of power and authority in global (South) security politics. With this, the work moves away from abstract theorizing to look at computational governance on the ground, that is to say, in the sociopolitical contexts in which they operate, are designed, created and adapted. While doing so, it engages in empirical philosophy grounded on the use of ethnographic methods and an anthropophagic use of concepts developed by IR scholars, philosophers of technology, STS and digital politics scholars and philosophers and sociologists writing about power and inequality. Fieldwork was conducted between 2018 and 2021 with three security apps: Fogo Cruzado, EagleView 2.0, and UN SanctionsApp, and involves a collage of methods, ranging from participant observations, interviews, app walkthroughs and bibliographical research. This messy combination of methods, objects and places cannot be seen as untangled from the broader conceptual thrust of the thesis, namely, that it is in and through the work of apps as authoritative components of governance in/of the Global South, that we can start to embrace the monsters that have been terrifying security politics for so long. And if we do so, we might finally be able to open authority to its processual, transversal, and manifold enactments through computation, itself understood as a situated, adaptable and contextual set of practices, which both reproduce and complicate knowledge hierarchies.

This study develops a geographic theory relating to sub-imperial states and resistance to them. The theory is centred on what can be called the government-business-media (GBM) complex, whilst resistance to such states is characterised as counter-imperialist discourses. The theory is applied primarily to South Africa’s (SA’s) interactions with the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region. The aim is to assess the state of SA’s sub-imperialism and evaluate the claim that this sub-imperialism is in crisis. The research findings are based on media material drawn from, and interviews conducted in, Botswana, Zambia and SA. The thesis outlines how sub-imperialism should be regarded as a distinct analytical and theoretical phenomenon. It explores the theoretical context in which the GBM complex and counter-imperialist discourses may be viewed. Using this theoretical framework, the study then traces the historical geographical development of SA’s GBM complex. Building on this, the thesis identifies and examines regional responses and attitudes to SA’s post-apartheid political, business and cultural-media engagement with the region, by analysing counter-imperialist discourses to SA during this period. In order to assess the current state of SA’s sub-imperialism, case studies were taken from the following four areas which cover crucial aspects of SA’s post-apartheid engagement with the region: SA’s parastatal expansion (Eskom); SA’s peacemaking role (Zimbabwe); SA’s state-driven rhetoric of multiculturalism and tolerance (xenophobia); and SA’s hosting of mega-events (2010 Football World Cup). In each of these areas the intended geopolitical and geoeconomic discourses of the GBM complex, and the corresponding responses in the region, are investigated. It is concluded that there is a discrepancy between the intended discourses of the GBM complex and the responses from the region, giving rise to counter-imperialist discourses. These discourses support the claim that SA’s sub-imperialism is in crisis.