No description available.

Poor communities already face severe challenges in meeting their basic needs, whether because of poor income opportunities, inadequate service delivery, or degraded ecosystems that can no longer support the needs of people. Non profit organisations who provide support for development are also challenged by financial restrictions and social and political structures that prevent or limit project development. Climate change is understood to have the most severe impact on the most vulnerable communities and sectors of communities by reducing the availability and accessibility of basic resources such as water, food and energy, impacting severely on human health and wellbeing, and further reducing the capacity of ecosystems to support livelihoods. This will add a layer of significant new complications to the ability of poor communities to maintain or improve standards of living, and further challenge non profit organisations that support such communitiesAnticipatory adaptation to climate change can reduce some of the impacts of climate change, and also address some key development stresses. This thesis aims to provide a framework that is relevant for supporting adaptation to climate change within the context of resource poor communities in a developing country. Non profit organisations and donor agencies could support success and autonomy in adaptation processes by making provision for locally defined understanding of adaptation, and locally determined processes and programmes. This can be taken further into implementation of programming that addresses local short term development priorities alongside, or as part of long term adaptation work. The research followed a number of steps involving a multitude of techniques including literature review, interviews, a survey, consultation with an expert group, further consultation with stakeholders, and a final electronic review. Its outcome is a strategy that can be used to support climate change adaptation in resource poor communities. A definition for adaptation is proposed as an interpretation of adaptation that is relevant in this context. The intended end goal of adaptation as defined in this research is a better form of development that : supports a harmonious and respectful relationship between humans and their natural resource base; averts further destructive global change or at the very least prevents it from becoming unmanageable; and manages the impacts of past and ongoing destructive change so that there is lowest possible loss of natural, human, or cultural resources. The term transformative adaptation emerged from the research processes to describe adaptation to climate change that concurrently addresses development challenges, is grounded in community development aspirations, integrates programming work across multiple thematic areas and approaches, and addresses the causes of climate change within adaptation interventions. The following broad guidelines are used to inform programming within the framework of transformative adaptation : Human communities are faced with an enormous challenge resulting from global change and sociopolitical injustices; Well planned anticipatory adaptation can limit exposure and vulnerability to at least some of the projected impacts of climate change; Adaptation to climate change incorporates a reduction of vulnerability to underlying development stresses, alongside a reduction of vulnerability to specific climate change stresses; Existing development work forms the foundation for adaptation interventions, acknowledging the interdependence of social, natural and economic systems and the need to maintain their health; Adaptation decision making is community based, and acknowledges that resource poor communities are best placed to establish their own development needs, drive implementation of interventions in own spaces, and identify own limits to adaptation; Adaptation work incorporates mitigation objectives so that the causes of climate change are addressed as part of the strategy for coping with climate change; Adaptation programming acknowledges the strong interlinkages between, and integrates work across, the thematic areas of water security, food sovereignty, energy security, land security, human wellbeing and livelihood diversity; Adaptation uses a broad set of approaches that spans research, knowledge sharing, advocacy, and investment in technology and infrastructure; There is flexibility in project design and implementation to allow room for experimentation with new concepts, and also to change design as knowledge, understanding, and geophysical, biophysical and sociopolitical conditions change.

published_or_final_version / abstract / Geography / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

vii, 235 leaves : / Title page, contents and abstract only. The complete thesis in print form is available from the University Library. / Thesis (M.D. 1974) from the Dept. of Psychiatry, University of Adelaide

No description available.

No description available.

M.Phil. (Sport Management) / Available literature revealed a gap in the body of knowledge regarding the effect of environmental and related factors on the performance of elite under 17 judokas in South Africa in order to address the lack of available research. Scholars increasingly researched the social importance attached to the performance of athletes and the competitive environment, including the role of social agents and simulated training. The aim of this study translates into objectives, namely: i) to describe the sport competition environment through an extensive literature study, ii) to determine the effect of environmental and selected physical factors (sleep and nutrition) on the performance of elite judokas in South Africa in the under 17 age category with a self-designed questionnaire, iii) to determine psychosocial effects on judo performance with the Sport Competition Anxiety Test (SCAT) and the Sports Mental Toughness Questionnaire (SMTQ), iv) to determine the effect of environmental factors, selected physical factors and psychosocial factors on the performance of elite under 17 judokas with a focus group, v) to determine the effect of environmental, psychosocial and selected physical factors on the performance of elite judokas from the perspective of judo coaches by way of interviews, and vi) to conduct a comparative analysis based on various variables such as gender, locality, frequency of competition participation and access to resources. Both qualitative and quantitative data were gathered, constituting an exploratory research design. Questionnaires (SCAT and SMTQ) and qualitative data was gathered by way of interviews with judo coaches (n=8) and a focus group with judokas (n=8). In total sixty five (n=65) judokas participated in this study. A purposive sample of coaches and elite judokas were recruited as research participants. Results indicate that judokas have relatively moderate mental toughness (M=41.66) and that mentally tougher judokas experience relatively less anxiety whilst competing (r=-.48, n=60, p<.01). An increase in anxiety is correlated with a decline in performance and medal winning judokas were relatively more confident than non-medal winners. All research participants were negatively affected by not having adequate exposure to environmental simulated training conditions, with temperature as a main factor impacting on performance.

A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Humanities, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy , April 2017 / This study examines the impact of climate change on the livelihoods of female elderly headed households in Gutsa village, Murape Ward, in Goromonzi District of Mashonaland East province in Zimbabwe. It is based on intensive ethnographic fieldwork that I undertook for close to nineteen months in Gutsa village. The key questions that I sought to answer in this thesis were: How is local knowledge about weather and climate change constructed? What is the nature of contestations surrounding this knowledge, and in particular surrounding the attribution of climate change to particular causes or events? How are livelihoods organized in response to the impact of climate change? I examined elderly women heads of households' perceptions and understandings of weather and climate change, issues of conflict and consensus regarding attribution and causality of weather and climate, the concepts that are used to refer to climate change, elderly women’s struggles to make sense of, and respond to climate change and to organize livelihood activities in response to the ongoing impact of climate change. In order to answer my research questions I adopted the use of Participatory Rural Appraisal, participant observation, archival research, life-history interviews, narrative research and in-depth interviews as data gathering approaches. I focused on the situated experiences of ten elderly women heads of households in Gutsa village existing in a wider community. In doing so this thesis explored these women’s complex understandings and interpretations of weather and climate dynamics as well as the relationship between climate change and their multiple and competing responsibilities. The thesis also analyses the implications of the Fast Track Land Reform Programme in the district, peri-urban development, resource commoditization and commercialization, rapidly shifting markets, changing property relations, social networks, livelihood opportunities, gender relations, changing household structure, the politics of local authority and governance and the dynamics of ecosystems and interspecies interaction. The thesis argues that there is a central vernacular climatological theory that is widely shared among the elderly as well as among other situated individuals in the village and the wider community. / MT2018

This dissertation tests an original hybrid methodology to explore the rapid spread of the idea of human-made climate change that began in the 1950s after the idea had lain dormant for half a century. It describes the 1950s rhetorical events that triggered the idea’s diffusion, then traces how its rhetorical uses gradually gave root to the end-of-thecentury political impasse over how to respond to the societal implications of the idea. The research methodology rests on the simple logic that an idea can only spread by being used in human discourses. It combines traditions of rhetorical historiography with a philosophical view of intellectual history as the cumulative effect of a “natural selection” of ideas and their spread by human individuals over time and geography. It calls for sampling and analyzing rhetorical artifacts in light of the rhetorical situations in which they originate, focusing on how the idea of human-made climate change is used rhetorically in scientific and other discourses. The analyses form the basis of a narrative giving emphasis both to rhetorical continuities and to conversation-changing rhetorical events. They also show how these rhetorical dynamics involve interactions of human communities using or attacking the idea for their communal purposes. The results challenge science-focused understandings of the history of the idea itself and also suggest that the methodology may be more broadly useful. As to the history, the analyses highlight how changes in the rhetorical uses of the idea made possible its 1950s breakout in climate science, then led to uses that spread it into other sciences and into environmentalism in the 1960s, attached it to apocalyptic environmentalism in the 1970s, injected it into partisan politics in 1980s and shaped the political impasse during the 1990s. The data show that the methodology reveals elements of the discourses missed in histories emphasizing the “power of ideas,” suggesting that a focus on the usefulness of ideas may be more fruitful. A focus on rhetorical uses of ideas grounds the causation of intellectual change in human motivation and agency, expressed in material acts that multiply and disperse naturally through communities and populations. / Includes bibliography. / Dissertation (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2016. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

People's level of development is a significant determinant in their relationship to wild nature. People today characterized by a high level of development value wild natural resources primarily for non-consumptive aesthetic and humanistic purposes. Modern nature conservation has been dominated by developed peoples' concerns with wild nature. Concerns of developed peoples with wild nature are described by a resourcism-preservationism paradigm. In contrast underdeveloped peoples rely upon wild nature to maintain the integrity of their cultures and increasingly for purposes of physical survival and promoting, development; this involves consumptive use of wild nature. As all people increasingly become part of a global development trajectory, resourcism-preservationism is articulating itself as the global people-environment dynamic. Emergent relations between nature conservation agency staff and reserve neighbours in South Africa offer a unique opportunity to study competing concerns around wild nature and assess the ability of approaches which link conservation and development to meet developed and underdeveloped peoples' concerns. Evaluation of reserve-neighbour interaction at Giant's Castle and Kosi Bay areas is achieved through determining whether it empowers reserve neighbours and conservation agency staff; fundamental to empowerment is people managing natural resources themselves. Natal Parks Board's and KwaZulu Department of Nature Conservation's frameworks for extension do not empower reserve staff or neighbours at Giant's Castle and Kosi Bay respectively. Trends in competition between developed and underdeveloped peoples for use of wild nature evidenced in field studies mirror global trends in people-environment relations. Recent attempts in South Africa and internationally to address the concerns of underdeveloped peoples, witnessed in efforts to link development to conservation such as reserve-neighbour interaction, are efforts by developed people to protect their particular concerns with wild nature. As a result these attempts have not been integrated into a larger conservation and development process. Instead they have been plagued by short term vision among nature conservation agencies and reserve neighbours. Linking conservation and development is a process fundamental to the future of conservation, benefitting people at all levels of development. A fundamental redefinition of conservation agency objectives and restructuring conservation agency operations is required such that people are empowered to manage their own natural resources. Principles to guide and an approach for structuring such an undertaking are proposed involving collaboration with relevant agents. / Thesis (M.Soc.)-University of Natal, Pietermartizburg, 1996.