This study explores the ways in which a group of local fishermen in Durban understand and negotiate their categorical exclusion from a public space. Several months prior to the FIFA World Cup 2010 in South Africa, three piers on the Durban beachfront were closed for upgrading. The fishermen had used two of these piers for nearly three decades, but when they were re-opened, access for fishermen was no longer allowed. Working in the constructionist paradigm and within the field of Cultural Studies, this study describes the fishermen as engaged in the politics of signification through the organisation of public action. To explore their understandings I applied a qualitative, mostly ethnographic approach, and focused particularly on those fishermen who fish on the beachfront and are active in the KwaZulu-Natal Subsistence Fishermen’s Forum (KZNSFF), a body that represents the fishermen in the public sphere. The study shows that the fishermen are a heterogeneous group who understand their exclusion in different ways. This variety and complexity of understandings in effect works against collective action and posed a challenge to the leadership of the KZNSFF who sought to construct a coherent collective action frame. Drawing on Social Movement theory, two public protests in which the fishermen negotiated their exclusion were among the central focuses of this study. The first was held during the World Cup and organised by KZNSFF. The other protest was less coordinated and held after the World Cup. Both protests are analysed through comparison, and indicate the importance of access to resources of leadership. The role of the media in effective Social Movement Organisation (SMO) is discussed in terms of ‘media standing’ and the legitimisation of actions and position of speakers. Further, it is argued that the presence of democratic institutions does not necessarily lead to democratic decision-making as civil society is often demobilised by political society. Additional to public protests, the fishermen negotiated their exclusion in the letters to the editor section of local press. Argumentative discourse analysis is applied in the analysis of a sample whereby strategies of othering are identified. The letter writers were engaged in an unequal contestation in which different sets of stake-holders sought to define what counts as truth in relation to access to the Durban beachfront. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2011.

The burgeoning of subsistence agriculture in the townships of Bulawayo, the second largest city in Zimbabwe symbolizes a change in the use of urban space in many cities of the global South. The activity of subsistence agriculture, which in both colonial and post-colonial Zimbabwe has been highly regarded as a rural activity is now a common sight in most townships of Bulawayo, Zimbabwe (RAUF, 2007). Indeed the rise of subsistence agriculture in the residential areas of Bulawayo particularly in the township of Gwabalanda is leading to what I refer to as the ‘ruralization of urban space’, where through practises of subsistence agriculture, elements of rural life have slowly seeped into the everyday life of urbanites (cf. Rogerson, 1993:33; Zeleza, 1999:45). The thesis uses Lefebvre’s (1974) theory of Production of Space to investigate some of the conditions and factors that have influenced the ruralization of urban space in the township of Gwabalanda, as seen in the intensification of a rural-oriented activity of subsistence farm. Using primary data from 17 semi-structured interviews with Gwabalanda residents involved in farming, the thesis intended to interrogate the perceptions and attitudes Gwabalanda residents hold towards the changes in the use of urban space and also examine the possible benefits of urban farming. The investigation of subsistence farming in Gwabalanda led me to identify three complementing and overarching themes or factors that drive urban farming and the ruralization of urban space. The first two themes are the political and economic factors which seem to operate on a macro-level, whereas the other theme of socio-cultural factors functions at an individual or household level. Economic and political factors such unemployment, lack of income, high transport costs of moving food, political alienation and freedom were identified by Gwabalanda residents as important drivers of urban agriculture. On the other hand, socio-cultural aspects which included identity, traditional religion, socialization and changes in migration patterns appeared to be crucial motivators for cultivating urban spaces. The research study also found out that urban households that are engaged in subsistence farming are more food secure and generate extra income from selling some of the produced crops. The income generated is used to pay school fees, pay bills and buy farming inputs for the next planting season. Furthermore some households were sending excess farm produce to their rural homes.

Thesis (M A(Psychology))--University of Pretoria, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references. Available on the Internet via the World Wide Web.

Thesis (M.Arch.) - Carleton University, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 79-83). Also available in electronic format on the Internet.

Thesis (M.A.)--Indiana University, 2009. / Title from screen (viewed on November 13, 2009). Department of History, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI). Advisor(s): Melissa Bingmann, Robert G. Barrows, Jeffrey S. Wilson. Includes vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 94-100).

Les espaces publics dépendent désormais d’une ville néolibérale et entrepreneuriale qui doit obéir à des impératifs de rentabilité économique. Cette thèse entend montrer comment les municipalités doivent redorer leur image pour attirer de nouveaux capitaux, ce qui implique de se débarrasser des « indésirables » (les sans-abris et autres personnes perçues comme des nuisances) qui ternissent l’image de leurs espaces publics. Elle s’intéresse à trois analyses de cas : les centres commerciaux The Grove et Americana At Brand, les Business Improvement Districts et Safer Cities Initiative, un programme de « tolérance zéro » mis en place par la municipalité de Los Angeles en 2006. Il s’agit de comprendre en quoi l’expérience de l’urbanité a été tempérée et régulée par de nouveaux codes où les aspects dérangeants ont tous été dissous dans un tissu urbain lavé de toute diversité socio-culturelle. L’exclusion systématique des indésirables incarne particulièrement bien cette volonté d’imposer une norme dominante. Ces nouveaux espaces semblent sûrs et sécurisés mais s’avèrent être des espaces contrôlés, surveillés, dépourvus d’authenticité, où les comportements sont attentivement scrutés. Il s’agit également de démontrer comment l’exclusion spatiale et l’exclusion sociale se renforcent mutuellement. Enfin, cette thèse analyse également les groupes qui se positionnent contre la privatisation de l’espace public et proposent de repenser la ville contemporaine. / Public spaces now depend on a neoliberal and entrepreneurial city that has to obey economic profitability priorities. This thesis aims at showing how municipalities try to bolster their image in order to attract new capital, which entails getting rid of its undesirables (the homeless and other people perceived as problems) who tarnish their public spaces’ image. This thesis includes three case studies : two malls The Grove and Americana At Brand, Business Improvement Districts and Safer Cities Initiative a zero tolerance policy program initiated by the city of Los Angeles in 2006. The goal is to understand to what extent the urban experience has been tempered and regulated with new codes, and in which all disturbing aspects have all been disolved in an urban fabric cleaned of all socio-cultural diversity. The automatic exclusion of undesirables embodies perfectly well this desire to impose dominant norms. All these new spaces seem safe and secured but they turn out to be controlled, surveilled, deprived of authenticity, in which bevahiours are heavily scrutinized. This thesis also aims to demonstrate how spatial and social exclusion mutually reinforce each other. Finally, it analyzes groups that are against public space privatization and offers alternatives to the redesign the contemporary city.

Abstract I want to talk about tactile experiences, words that extend beyond touch. A full-body experience of space that begins with the senses, creating a collective understanding when everything is combined. We step in unbeknownst, activating our senses through the shapes and textures that enthral us. With our eyes, we access the dynamic of the room.  The foundation of my work is texture, so I explore the surface through it and textile is my chosen material because it allows me to do just that. By distorting, adding and pulling apart I can always get a new experience of it. In this project I work with three-dimensional patterns on the surface of the textile, and with subtle changes in volume I try to capture the light that falls on it and emphasis the texture to make the experience of it even richer.

Este estudo tem como tema os movimentos sociais contemporâneos, em especial aqueles que utilizam a ocupação dos espaços públicos como estratégia de resistência. A partir de 2011, novas formas de insurgência tomaram as ruas em diferentes países e continentes. Guardadas as diferenças locais que marcaram estes encontros populares, tem-se a estratégia de ocupação do espaço público como linha que transversaliza essas expressões. A ocupação, nestes moldes, toma visibilidade e importância diferenciadas, configurando-se como uma expressão própria deste tempo. No acompanhamento de coletivos que se organizam pela ocupação do espaço público na cidade de Porto Alegre, foram mapeados as formas de subjetivação que estão envolvidas nesta nova modalidade de articulação política. Ao perguntar-me se este é um modo de resistência às formas subjetivantes hegemônicas, atento para as práticas que dão um caráter singular a estes fenômenos urbanos, analisando quais potências de invenção estão em jogo nestes processos. A noção de “ética do cuidado de si”, proposta por Michel Foucault, é um interessante articulador do pensamento para pensar sobre estas possibilidades éticas e políticas. No campo dos movimentos sociais e da atitude crítica coletiva torna-se pertinente a problematização do poder e da liberdade, temas sobre os quais Foucault também olha de maneira muito especial. Tomo como ponto de partida uma contextualização dos movimentos de ocupação dos espaços públicos e suas condições de possibilidade, em âmbito internacional e na cidade de Porto Alegre, para apresentar as duas linhas que, ao enredarem-se, compõem os modos de politizar-se que pretendo colocar em análise: a linha da ocupação do público e os modos de ocupação de si. A experiência de pesquisar se deu a partir do lugar de militante e, a partir dela, foram mapeados alguns efeitos destes novos encontros, na cidade e para os sujeitos que ocupam, atentando para as possibilidades de constituir uma militância ligada a modos de fazer éticos. / The present study is about the contemporary social movements; mainly, the ones that take the occupation of public spaces as a strategy of resistance. Since 2011, new ways of insurgency have taken the streets in different countries and continents. Taking apart the local differences, a typical characteristic of these popular meetings, the occupation of public spaces arises as a tendency that cuts across these expressions. The occupation, by these means, takes different visibility and importance, becoming a singular expression of our period. Following the works of collectives that support the idea of the occupation of public spaces in the city of Porto Alegre, were established the ways of subjectification related to this new way of political articulation. Wondering if this is a way of resistance against the subjecting hegemonic ways, I attend to the practices that give a singular aspect to these urban phenomenons, analysing its possibilities of invention. The idea of an ethics of the care of the self, proposed by Michel Foucault, is an interesting tool to promote the investigation about these ethical and political possibilities. In the present field – the social movements and the collective and critical attitude – it is important to analyse the institutions of power and freedom, subjects specially examined by Foucault. As a starting point, the investigation of the occupation movements for public spaces; later on, its conditions of possibility, internationally and in Porto Alegre, to present two lines that, by merging, compose the ways of politicization that are here put in analysis. These are: the occupation of something public and the ways of occupying the self. This experience of research is produced from a militant position. Also by this position, were established some outcomes of these new ways of meeting, in the aspects of the city and the subjects that occupy, thinking about the possibilities of creating a militancy linked to ethical ways of acting.

Reinterpreting the issues of urban density development in Hong Kong, this thesis studies the spatial-temporal production processes of Sham Shui Po as a high density social space. Lefebvre’s theory of ‘the production of space’ is applied for a qualitative-based theoretical-empirical analysis. This study criticizes past literature on urban density issues in Hong Kong, dominated by discourses built upon absolute space approach, for their reductionist methodologies and findings simplifying man-space relations and concealing in-depth socio-political implications. The analysis is centred on three dialectically related elements: spatial practices, conceived spaces (objective, abstract knowledge of space), and lived spaces (subjective values on space). Deciphering the geographical-historical interactions of the spatial trialectics over Sham Shui Po in general and at individual level, particularly residential and street-commercial spaces, this thesis suggests that Sham Shui Po is deeply influenced by the spatial abstractions of formal density control comprising planning knowledge, legal establishment, capitalist processes, and informal control on spatial practices. They have together rendered Sham Shui Po a space technically and functionally organized in terms of the development of residential and street spaces, resulting in massive property development, widespread space subdivision for high density dwellings, and unique street life with dynamic and transient concentration of corporeality and materiality. It is also found that recently inhabitants are subject to a dissipation of spatial resistance for alternative dwelling practices due to oppressions from continuously enhanced conceived spaces re-imposing on them and their living spaces. Individuals influenced by consequentially renewed social identities can also be found trapped into high density spaces physically and institutionally, as their spatial practices have been separated, confined and simplified within both interior-residential and exterior-street spaces. Sham Shui Po reveals itself as different spatial mismatches when inhabitants’ lived spaces for securing their spaces of everyday life are without proper response. Deepening the spatial traps and mismatches, the research area is as well undergoing redevelopment processes in reproducing other forms of high density physical fabric, at the expense of original socio-spatialities, through spatial default and historical disconnection

Magister Artium - MA (Linguistics, Language and Communication) / Street harassment refers to the unsolicited verbal remarks and nonverbal gestures that women are subjected to by men when moving through (public) spaces. The dominant discourse sees this phenomenon as firstly a gendered interaction. In this sense, men are construed as initiators and women as recipients, although this is not always the case. Secondly, the remarks are often viewed as solely sexualized in nature. Lastly, public spaces are seen as male realms in which the actions of males are context specific, whereby the public nature of space sees it as conducive for inevitable street harassing events. This study seeks to understand how street harassment unfolds in the South African (post-apartheid) context. Drawing on Phenomenological Discourse Analysis approach, the study focuses on interview accounts of six participants from across the demographics whose experiences represent a microcosm of harassed female skinscapes in and around Cape Town. Phenomenology is a useful entry point to understanding emotive recounts of traumatic events in the lives of the participants, specifically street harassment. Public space is approached through the lens of Linguistic Landscapes (LL) which focuses on language and linguistic artefacts as they are arranged or located in space. For this study, the perception of and bodies in space comes to the fore. Hence, it is the interplay between space, body and the phenomenological account of the body as a corporeal 'site' of harassment which is a focal point.