Thesis (M.A.)--University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 118-122). / ix, 122 leaves, bound ill., maps 29 cm

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Hawaii at Manoa, 1995. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 333-360). / Microfiche. / xvii, 360 leaves, bound ill. (some col.), maps 28 cm

By using ethnographic methods based on extensive participant observation, this thesis explores the role of pastoralism and rural work as a medium of social reproduction for families in rural Mongolia. This work is reported in four articles, which examine herder household management, decision making, and the spatial aspects of household social and economic production. As standalone pieces and as a united work, the articles make a case for understanding social change through the lens of spatialized performative relations. Pastoralism as a form of work and social system is one aspect of these relations. I contend that people consciously engage with herding as a form of work, which is an important reference point in political subjectivities and administrative practices that idealize the state. The policies and practices of government institutions, including non-state agencies, play powerful roles in the particular forms through which relations are spatialized. By taking this approach and prioritizing herder critical reflections on their own lives, I argue against the dual claim that herders exist outside the state and are bound to local environments. I show, in contrast, how herder efforts to access resources beyond local environments, such as formal schooling for children, spatially transform the labour, finance, and mobility systems of households. My work presents three key arguments with reference to these concepts. The first is that patron-client relations continue to play a strong role in family hierarchies and wider social alliances used to gain access to needed resources and services. Secondly, I argue that pastoralist work is an integral part of governance and the propagation of the moral authority of the state. Pastoralism as a form of work should be seen as a political enterprise as much as an economic or cultural one. Finally, attention to the spatial organisation of household economies, including household splitting and new types of mobility, reiterates the significance of place in human agency.

This thesis uncovers a deep and recurring link between two indigenista texts of the 20th Century: Balâun Canâan, by Rosario Castellanos, and "El problema del indio," by Jose Carlos Mariâategui. Mariategui's text, an essay, takes a deductive approach to prove that the "Indian's problem" in Peru is related to the concentration of land in the hands of his oppressors. Using Marxist theory, Mariâategui shows that only through more equitable distribution of land can the indigenous Peruvian's fortunes be improved. Castellanos chooses the years of the Cardenas presidency (1934-1940) for her novel, a work that deals with the legacy of the Mexican Revolution. Set in Chiapas, Mexico, autobiographical and fictitious elements and characters dramatize a conflict over indigenous rights to land and education on a criollo family's enormous estate. Supported by intellectual criticism from a number of fields, this thesis connects episodes from Castellanos's novel with the core premises of Mariâategui's essay. / by Blaire Modic. / Abstract in English. / Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2010. / Includes bibliography. / Electronic reproduction. Boca Raton, Fla., 2010. Mode of access: World Wide Web.

This thesis explores questions of gender equality in social welfare theory; methodologies; approaches and policymaking in the Global South in the context of land reforms. This stems from the realisation that gender equality issues in social welfare are increasingly receiving greater attention in the context of the Global North and less in the South. By adopting a Transformative Social Policy framework, the research departs from hegemonic livelihoods, poverty reduction and the ‘classical models’ of land reforms often designed from the mould of the neoliberal discourse of individual tenure to focus on land reform as a relational question. Empirical data was gathered using a sequential explanatory mixed-methods approach involving survey questionnaires; in-depths interviews; focus group discussions; key informant interviews and field observations. A total of 105 randomly selected households, comprising 56 male-headed households (MHHs) and 49 female-headed households (FHHs) participated in the quantitative component of the study, comprising a control group of nonland reform beneficiaries. Additionally, 30 purposively selected in-depths interviews comprising 20 FHHs and 10 MHHs were conducted in resettlement study sites. Findings from this this study indicates that despite the country’s depressed economic environment and the effects of climate change, transfer of land enhanced the productive capacities of individuals and rural households, including those headed by females. At micro-level, in-kind transfer of land to rural households proved to be a more superior social protection measure compared to either food or cash transfer. However, social relations and institutions proved resistant to change, posing a greater obstacle to social transformation. And more importantly, from a social reproductive perspective, the same land reform that enhanced the productive capacities of women, inadvertently, increased their social reproductive work with implications on the welfare of women relative to men. The thesis makes a contribution to social policy debates in Africa, which hitherto have been dominated by the introduction of cash transfers as witnessed in many countries across the continent. The transformative social policy approach brings novelty to the study of land reforms. By Conceptualising gender as a relational and social construct, the study adds knowledge on the nexus between gender, land reform and welfare using the Fast Track Land Reform Programme (FTLRP) as reference. With the FTLRP––as a leftist policy in a liberalised economy––there is a need for the government to re-align its social and economic policies to avoid inconsistencies in the country’s development path. On the gender front there is need to legislate resettlement areas as outside the jurisdiction of traditional structures; promulgate statutory instruments dealing with land and setting up designated land claims courts linked right up to the Constitutional Court. Specifically, for Chiredzi, there is a need to establish a corporate body to administer the affairs of Mkwasine following the pulling out of the Estate. Keywords: gender, land reforms, water reforms, transformative / Sociology / Ph. D. (Sociology)