Based on primary and secondary evidence, the purpose of this thesis is to answer why people from Kerala have been migrating to Dubai for work since the early 1970s. Reflecting upon theories of migration and adopting Sassen’s position that any migration stream ought to be examined with precision, it concludes that the Kerala-Dubai migration system is a product of its unique political, economic, sociological, geographic and religious dimensions, bound in historical perspective, that have linked both places together. More specifically, the thesis demonstrates that the Keralite, Dubai, Indian and Emirati governments largely encouraged international migration since the 1970s through specific policies and institutional arrangements. This behavior shifted to a sense of discouragement by the UAE government in the mid 1990s as a result of ‘Emiratization’. The thesis also analyses the Kerala-Dubai migration system through a remittance-led perspective, explores the socio-economic, religious and regional composition of migrants, calculates the stock of Keralites in Dubai, the volume of remittances they send back home, and discusses the future migration relationship between both places. While arguing that conventional ideologies represent a narrow way of thinking about why migrations begin, the thesis demonstrates that migration is more than an act of coming and going; it is about the realities of migrant workers, how they are connected to different places and the historical, political, economic and social elements that link them together.

This study is rooted in the question about the changing nature of career. The notion of career tends to be conflated with rising up through an organisational or occupational hierarchy. It is widely assumed that the traditional form cannot be sustained in today's downsized, delayered and flexible organisations and attention switches to alternative forms and ways of understanding career. One prediction is that more people will look to developing a mixed pattern of employment, self employment and other activities which do not depend on full time contractual employment with any one employer. This is the notion of the portfolio career popularised by Charles Handy (1989, 1994).Kanter(1989)suggests that such individual moves add up to a macro transition in career forms. However, while there is much debate about changing career, there is a dearth of qualitative studies which seek to explore the issue from the view-point of situated individuals. In particular, there is little empirical evidence available about individuals who make their career outside of exclusive organisational employment. Drawing inductively on in depth interviews with 25 ex-NHS managers now operating various portfolio arrangements, the study set out to explore how individuals are making sense of this transition. This research contributes a qualitative, interpretative study of individual transitions from a managerial position, which may well have embodied the principles of the traditional career, to portfolio work. While focusing on individual interpretation, the study recognises that career is about both its objective features and individual's subjective interpretation of them. Barley's (1989) model of the role of career in the structuring process which draws on Giddens' structuration theory is used as the theoretical base for the study. Hence the particular contribution of the study is in providing a contextualised account of sense making about a personal career transition thought to mirror wider change in career within an explicit recognition of the link between individual action and social structures. The study contributes empirical data about organisational exit which was prompted in this case by a dynamic interaction of push and pull factors. It explores understanding of the concept, parameters and experience of portfolio working focusing, in particular on issues of training and development, social networks and revised views of career outside of employment. The theoretical contribution primarily focuses around a model of the transition which places it within the structuring process. The transition is theorised as less of a disjunctive move than as a shading from one context to another, as individuals bring forward to portfolio work many of the material and discursive practices of their managerial carccr. Several interpretative schemes are identified as relevant to the sense making process, not least the notion that individuals can maintain more personal integrity outside organisational employment. There is less evidence of a desire for instrumental relationships with organisations than the career literature might suggest and more evidence of constraints on development and growth outside of employment. The effects of the actions and perceptions of other people in individual's interpretations of their new career is highlighted. A major theme of the study is continuity within the change as individuals seek to maintain a congruence between the objective features of their new career and how they make sense of the notion of career.

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The Labour Party is New Zealand’s oldest continuous political Party. Steeped in Social Democratic tradition the Party underwent major conflicts as three major factions emerged between 1978 and 1990. Using Frank Baumgartner’s Conflict and Rhetoric in French Policy Making (1989), this thesis investigates why the three factions inside the Labour Party during this period used conflict in order gain influence over the Labour Party and its political and legislative agenda. What was to emerge was a party struggling to maintain unity as the factions began to tear apart the very framework that was the Labour Party. This was to ultimately have an effect on both articulation of Labour policy and the aggregation of support at the polls. Using interviews with various former and current members of the Labour Party this thesis sets out to piece together how the factions inside the party used conflict to their advantage in order to gain influence in a fragmenting party. The emergence of splinter parties in the 1990s on both the left and right of the Labour Party in particular ACT and the Alliance shows just how fractured and divided the party was during the tenure of the fourth Labour Government.

Canada and the US are highly integrated economies and yet persistent productivity gaps exist between them. This raises the question whether there is a relationship in productivity between Canada and the US, and if so, what industry-specific characteristics are important. This dissertation focuses on the manufacturing sector and its component three-digit industries. The first chapter investigates the interdependence of labour productivity (LP) between the two countries. It finds no evidence of long-run convergence of US and Canadian LP. There is, however, some evidence of short-run dependence within industries. Regarding industry characteristics, only industry-specific export intensity is found to be an important channel for the long-run productivity transmission. The second chapter develops measures of total factor productivity (TFP) that are comparable across Canada and the US. The third chapter investigates the interdependence of TFP between the countries. As with LP, there is no evidence of long-run convergence. In both the short and long run, the dependence of Canadian manufacturing industries upon their US counterparts is limited and non-uniform. The fourth chapter examines industry-specific characteristics. Export, import and foreign direct investment (FDI) intensities are found to be important channels in the short run for technology diffusion from the US. Surprisingly, a higher research and development intensity reduces short-run technology diffusion. In the long run, export and FDI intensities are shown to contribute to technology diffusion. / Graduate / 0501 / berylli@uvic.ca

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The profile and geography of employment in Britain is undergoing considerable change. This is demonstrated most visibly in terms of gender composition; in rising numbers of women in paid employment; the replacement of full time with part time employment; in de-regulation and the proliferation of temporary and insecure employment. With increasing numbers of 'wives' and 'mothers' in paid employment this restructuring is reflected in a new and changing geography of household divisions of labour. Paradoxically, this global push towards greater labour market flexibility has implications for reduced labour mobility. Conventionally, a mobile labour force is considered the mainstay of a flexible labour market. A paradox emerges from an understanding that, rather than being individuated, labour is situated within particular household structures. Moreover, within such structures the co-ordination of home and work imposes further significant (time-space) constraints. These constraints suggest that decisions concerning residential location must increasingly facilitate both male and female employment as well as daily household practices of consumption, production and reproduction. Frequently, such practices entail an intimate connection between the household and networks of paid and unpaid labour which are rooted in the locale. This thesis provides both a conceptual and an empirical link between housing and labour markets. It draws upon multiple method research to consider the extent to which a causal relationship exists between household employment structure and relative rates of residential mobility. Secondary data from the UK Census of Population provides an extensive backdrop of trends for Britain in the 1990's. Qualitative biographical research provides insight into the processes of residential mobility such as those of 'bargaining power' in household decision-making. Evidence from the extensive research suggests that single earner households are more mobile than households with two full time earners. Household biographies demonstrate, however, that residential mobility behaviour is inadequately explained by economic factors alone.