This thesis looks at the use of ‘American Dream’ language by the U.S. labour and civil rights movements during the first three decades following the Second World War. It examines, in particular, the use of such language by socialists and social democrats in three separate, unsuccessful, attempts to transform postwar American society along social democratic lines. While the limits of social democratic and other leftist efforts in and beyond the postwar period has been the subject of significant scholarly enquiry, the use of ‘American Dream’ language in these efforts has, for the most part, been neglected. The thesis begins by offering a definitional analysis of the ‘American Dream’, and suggests that it is an ideology that is built on the premise that the United States is the land of opportunity because of its capitalist system. Whereas the conventional wisdom emphasizes the flexibility and political capaciousness of the ‘American Dream’, this thesis argues that such capaciousness is overstated in the existing literature, most of which pays insufficient attention to the ideology’s relationship to capitalism. The empirical chapters test this claim through an examination of the meaning and role of ‘American Dream’ language in the three cases. Drawing from archival research, and using the analytical lens of the social movement framing perspective, the thesis explains how movement actors in each case invoked the ‘American Dream’ in hopes of redefining its hegemonic meaning, from one that legitimized, to one that fundamentally challenged, American capitalism. It also considers how and why those efforts were unsuccessful. This is done through an exploration of the decision-making processes leading to the movement actors’ use of ‘American Dream’ language, and by examining the nature of the failed attempts to mobilize around their redefined American Dream. The thesis finds that a common source of constraint on these movements in all three cases was the conflation of ‘Americanism’ and capitalism, and its pervasiveness in American political culture. In addition to casting doubt on the conventional wisdom surrounding the ‘American Dream’, the thesis also has implications for some of the broader debates about the impact of American political culture on the American left.

This study is an attempt to determine how tourism and tourism development policies, strategies and initiatives impact income generation and employment opportunities in a rural ethnic community. The research consisted of both qualitative and quantitative methods. In-depth interviews, focus group discussions and participatory observations from various stakeholders were used to obtain qualitative data. The quantitative data were gathered using a researcher-developed questionnaire to obtain data from 330 households in Had Bai Village, Chiang Rai Province, northern Thailand. The research findings demonstrate that the well-being of the poor and the impact of the Thai government‘s One Tambon One Product (OTOP) project in terms of livelihood improvement were distributed unequally across the village. The information from the qualitative and quantitative data revealed that the OTOP project improved slightly the livelihood outcomes of villagers in the group which fully participated in the scheme. By contrast, the villagers who were aware of OTOP but did not participate used their right to borrow funds to make independent investments and buy consumer goods. Members of this group were thus unable to repay their loans on time, had no return on their investment and had the highest amount of debt. Those villagers who were unaware of the OTOP scheme and did not participate were the poorest in the village. An analysis of this third group revealed that non-participation was largely due to a lack of access to information. Moreover, these families did not regard themselves as poor. They were happy with their simple life and did not perceive any benefit in participating in the pro-poor tourism project introduced by the Thai government. Pro-poor tourism may benefit the poor in many parts of the world; however, in the case of Thailand it works mainly as a catalyst to improve the overall livelihood outcome of the poor and cannot be expected to enhance the individual livelihoods of the poorest. This study contributes to the literature in various ways. First, it is the first of its kind to investigate thoroughly Thailand‘s pro-poor tourism development policy. Second, it has attempted to assess pro-poor tourism from many vantage points: international standards, livelihood impacts, and the assets and vulnerability of the poor. Third, the key success model developed from the outcome of the thesis can be used by Thailand and other developing countries in their efforts to develop more effective pro-poor tourism policies in the future.

To what extent have refugees in Ulyankulu settlement, Tanzania, developed a sense of belonging and de facto citizenship through their agency despite government control? This question forms the basis of the research design of this thesis. Refugees have lived in protracted exile in many countries. The aim of this thesis is to assess such a situation by theorising and empirically unravelling refugees’ practices of belonging in a rural settlement. While studies within forced migration literature have been mostly empirical, some theoretical ones suggest that camps are spaces of exception that turn refugees into victims without agency, or spaces of myth-making. Acknowledging these theorisations, this thesis develops a conceptual framework in which, despite control by governments and international agencies, refugees’ agency in developing a sense of belonging and claiming de facto citizenship is underlined. Ultimately, this understanding also suggests important recommendations for policy. Taking the case study of Burundian refugees in Tanzania, who arrived in the 1970s, this research is based on qualitative field research methods using techniques such as participant observation and interviews with refugees, Tanzanian citizens, agents of humanitarian organisations and the government in Ulyankulu settlement and Dar es Salaam in 2012. It analyses discourses concerning the naturalisation of Burundian refugees, and it evaluates practices and narratives of first and second generation refugees concerning their experiences of waiting for citizenship, and everyday negotiations of belonging. This thesis aims at contributing to forced migration literature, and by its considerations of spatiality and temporality to human geography. As a theoretical contribution, it offers a conceptual framework examining the interplay between exclusion from citizenship and a sense of belonging in the space of refugee camps. Empirically, it analyses the various forms of control over refugees, and sheds light on their interactions with refugees’ ‘pragmatics of belonging’ and ‘pragmatics of waiting’ for citizenship.

The Bolsa Família (BF) is considered to be a well-targeted cash transfer programme for poor families, with benefits conditional on meeting health and educational requirements. Extreme poverty in Brazil is concentrated in rural areas, and is highest among those who rely on agriculture in historically underprivileged areas of the semiarid interior. Although there is no comprehensive study of chronic poverty in Brazil due to lack of longitudinal datasets, one can infer that, the more remote small, poor rural municipalities are, the higher is the probability of persistent and severe poverty. Therefore, it is questionable whether the BF, with conditionalities attached to frequently limited services, is the most appropriate social protection policy for reaching the working-age able-bodied rural poor living in isolated areas. I identified the rural poor in remote and non-remote municipalities using geographical information systems. In this thesis, through four pieces of analytical work, I thus investigate how effectively the BF programme reaches the persistently poor in remote and non-remote rural municipalities. First, I used quantitative methods to investigate whether BF participation rates are higher in poor remote rural municipalities. Second, based on a qualitative analysis of eight interviews at the federal administration level, I investigated the question of whether the policy design and national implementation considered how to reach the persistently poor in remote rural areas. Third, I examined how local administration ensured that the persistently poor were given priority in the implementation. I conducted 14 interviews in four case studies, two in remote and two in non-remote poor rural municipalities. Lastly, I analysed how the rural poor took up benefits with 22 household interviews in rural villages. This thesis concludes that, despite the BF’s cost-efficiency, it does not effectively address the needs of the persistently poor living in remote rural municipalities, where services are non-existent, difficult to access, and of low quality.

The anatomy of disadvantage in Chile and in Santiago is a product of a long history and is broad and deep, with great income inequality and widely dispersed populations. These conditions are also not unusual in other middle-income countries and fast growing economies, many of which are also investing heavily in urban transport systems at this time. In the mid-2000s, in an effort to confront some of these problems, there was a large expansion of Santiago’s (Chile) subway network (Chapter 2). This thesis investigates the socioeconomic impacts of the much-improved urban transport accessibility. This expansion occurred within a short period of time (2004 through 2006). Because of a conjunction of efforts by the Chilean government to evaluate the effectiveness of the country's social policies, there is much data available characterising the socioeconomic conditions both before and after the expansion. For example, in this thesis I use a panel survey with circa 5000 interviewees with labour market outcomes, administrative panel data with standardised test scores of 100,000 students in eighth grade, and police crime records with all reported crimes to the police in Santiago. To control for workers (Chapter 4), students (Chapter 5) and small crime areas (Chapter 6) individual and unobserved characteristics that do not change in time, I use a fixed-effects method. Depending on the outcome, the unit of observation was an individual or a spatial unit. In addition, to allow for differential pre-existing trends in the outcome variable, in the first-differenced form I control for relevant baseline characteristics. There are three socioeconomic conditions examined in detail in this thesis. These are impacts on the labour market (in Chapter 4), student achievement (in Chapter 5), and property crime (in Chapter 6). In Chapter 4, my general findings are that greater proximity to the subway network increases labour market participation, employment hours, and labour earnings. However, the main policy implication of this part of the study is that accessibility of transportation is a crucial factor affecting the female employment rate. This is extremely important in cities with a low female employment rate and a low or non-existent coverage of rapid transit systems such as subways. In Chapter 5, I find that increased proximity to the subway network is associated with substantially lower test scores. Policy implications to consider are that schools that will soon be more accessible to rapid transit systems should consider the possibility of undesired increases in class sizes due to more demand because of the increased availability of nearby rapid transit stations. In Chapter 6, I find that greater proximity to subway stations increased both robbery and larceny in the public space within one year after the opening of the subway stations. One policy implication is that the police should redistribute its personnel whenever the flows of pedestrians and commuters may be affected because of changes in the transport network. In light of the well-established fact that citizens appreciate improvements in the subway network that increase their accessibility to employment and to services in general, this thesis provides evidence that a relevant advantage of better urban transport is an improvement in labour market conditions.

This thesis is based on an ethnographic study of the lives of Sub-Saharan African migrants residing in Morocco. Over the past two decades, an increasing number of these migrants live in the urban centres of the country, mostly without migration status and with very limited access to formal employment, social services and legal protection. While many of these migrants wish to move on to another country, return to their home countries or, in some cases, settle permanently in Morocco, most are unable to do so and are 'stuck' in a situation of 'forced immobility' for indeterminate periods of time. The study describes how migrants narrate their particular migratory trajectories to Morocco, their arrival in the country, their dealings with fellow migrants and their efforts to survive. It analyses the processes by which they become alienated in space and time from their existential quest for a better life. While in Morocco, migrants' lives are focused on the present and their social relations are often marked by hierarchical and exploitative structures of dependence. These circumstances make them question their feelings of belonging, their values and their ideas about themselves and the meaning of migration as an existential quest. Drawing on Albert Camus' idea of the absurd, migrants' feelings of alienation are compared with an absurd situation, in which old values lose their meanings in an apparently senseless world. Rather than approaching migrants as passive victims or hopeless individuals, the study seeks to explore how migrants' lives in liminal times and spaces are shaped by the various strategies they employ in an attempt to take control of their own destiny. Social theories of waiting and time are used in this context to highlight how migrants' action - or inaction - can be understood as purposeful from their own perspective. From an existential point of view, waiting for onward migration constitutes a kind of revolt against the absurd conditions they are facing in forced immobility and gives at least some meaning to their lives. The thesis is framed against conventional discourses of transit migration, which conceive of migrants in Morocco as criminal trespassers of borders or else as victims who have little choice over their actions. This discourse often serves as a justification for increasingly restrictive migration policies and measures to control and prevent migrants from settling or moving through countries bordering the European Union. The thesis argues that the 'transit migrant' is a normative and political construct that does not reflect the reality of migrants coming to Morocco. Furthermore, policies designed to control migrants' movement and stay do nothing to improve their situation in Morocco but rather contribute to their increasing marginalisation. The thesis also draws attention to problems with the relief-based nature of much short-term humanitarian aid granted to migrants in Morocco, showing how these type of activities do not address or take into account migrants' complicated relation to the present.

Health systems worldwide fail to produce optimal health outcomes, and successive reforms have sought to make them more efficient, more equitable and more responsive. The overarching objective of this thesis is to explore how to motivate healthcare providers in improving performance in service delivery in low income countries. The thesis explores whether financial incentives for healthcare providers raise productivity and how they may affect equity in utilization of healthcare services and responsiveness to patients’ needs. The thesis argues that, as performance-based financing (PBF) focuses on supply side barriers, it may lead to efficiency gains rather than equity improvements. It uses data from a randomized controlled impact evaluation in Rwanda to generate robust evidence on performance-based financing and address a gap in the knowledge on its unintended consequences. Statistical methods are used to analyze four aspects: the impact on health workforce productivity; the impact on health workforce responsiveness; the impact on equity in utilization of basic health services; and, the impact on spatial disparities in the utilization of health services. Findings indicate that performancebased financing has a positive impact on efficiency: it raises health workforce productivity through higher workload and lower absenteeism; and, it encourages healthcare providers to be more responsive which positively impacts the quality of care perceived by patients. Findings also indicate that the impact on equity is uncertain as PBF can deter equity in access for the poorest in the absence of a compensating mechanism; however, PBF is a powerful reform catalyzer and can reduce inequalities between regions and households when combined with appropriate reforms that control for its potential perverse effects. This thesis advocates that strategies aiming to raise healthcare providers’ motivation should be used to raise performance in service delivery in low-income countries with particular attention to their effect on end users.

The thesis presents the findings of a field study conducted in a small rural parish situated in a farming area that was severely affected by the agricultural depression of the second half of the nineteenth century. Part One is introductory. The development of agriculture in Hertfordshire is sketched, and a brief outline of urban growth in the county is given. Again this background, the present-day social composition of the parish studied is described, Some 50 per cent of the employed population travel to urban areas daily. But in the parish itself, agriculture is by far the principal field of employment, and the population is predominantly of rural stock. Part two gives a review, covering the past century, of trend in demographic structure, in migration, and in the social recruitment of the population. the greater part of this review is based on date drawn from original census schedules and from marriage certificates. Part three is concerned partly with the development of the family situation of the working-class inhabitant, and partly with the social relations obtaining between kinsmen resident in the parish to-day. A type of extended family organisation is found, but social relations between kinsmen nevertheless constitute a vital part of the individual's total life. Part Four presents an analysis of the parish's community system. the method of analysis used is that of studying the nature of all organised and semi-organised leisure-time groups in the parish. The conclusions arrived at are that while there have been certain changes in recent years, basic traditional values remain important determinants of the form and structure of the community.

This thesis consists of three essays on intragenerational and intergenerational inequality. It focuses on the largest developing country, China, and examines historically and currently under-represented groups. The first chapter, “Does Adversity Affect Long-term Consumption and Financial Behaviour? Evidence from China’s Rustication Programme”, investigates the longterm effects of early experiences on economic behaviour, by referring to the largest forced migration experiment in history. Focusing on the historically under-represented group of people who were sent from urban to rural areas to do manual farm work during their adolescence, I demonstrate that they behave conservatively over the long term. They spend less on housing, accumulate more savings and insurance, and invest less in risky assets. One mechanism for the conservative behaviour lies in the habits formed during adversity. My study sheds light on how a policy, experienced especially in the early stage of life, influences a generation over the long term. In addition to inequality, the second and the third chapters examine intergenerational mobility. The second chapter, “The Great Gatsby Curve in China: Cross-Sectional Inequality and Intergenerational Mobility”, estimates the extent of the decline in intergenerational mobility in income and education during China’s economic transition. The decline is more evident for the currently under-represented groups: females, and residents of rural areas and the western regions. To correlate intergenerational mobility with cross-sectional inequality, a Great Gatsby Curve with a negative slope is presented, and related institutional factors are discussed. This chapter is written jointly with Junjian Yi and Junsen Zhang. The third chapter, “Intergenerational Income Persistence and Transmission through Identity: Evidence from Urban China”, investigates the mechanism of the decreasing intergenerational mobility in income during China’s transition. I demonstrate a shift in the leading contributor to the intergenerational income persistence conditional on income group and age cohort. Specifically, education is a leading contributor for all families before the market reform, and for households with below-average income in the post-reform era. However, a new transmission channel, political identity, plays a leading role in households with above-average income in the post-reform era. It sheds light on the necessity of intensifying reform in contemporary China.

The thesis examines care-seeking for first births in low-income settlements of urban India. Care-seeking is framed as a dynamic, social process. The thesis shifts the research focus from non-use of maternity services to a more holistic notion of care-seeking strategies, and examines how they are shaped by patterned social relationships and their content. The study combines a prospective, qualitative design with multiple household perspectives. Seventy-seven in-depth interviews were conducted in 16 households. Matched data were collected for primiparous women and other household members, and interviews were conducted prospectively during pregnancy with a follow-up after birth. The study was conducted in Indore, a large city in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh, where a range of maternity care providers operate in a complex urban health system. This population could be characterised as strategic care-seekers, aware and discriminating across the range of care options available. Managing perceived risks was central to strategies, but solutions differed due to variation in perceptions of risks and their management. The notion that childbirth requires medical management was dominant. Yet, health facilities were also regarded as a potential source of risk. Strategies were plural and contingent, combining different providers across and within sectors, giving households control and flexibility in dealing with unfolding circumstances. Local narratives apportion responsibility for care-seeking to the household in which the woman is staying for the birth. The value placed locally on household-level ‘responsibility’ contrasts with the focus on women’s autonomy in the literature on maternal health. A corollary of responsibility is blame in the event of an adverse outcome, which impels households to seek care that meets expectations among their social ties. The thesis generates new insight on an issue that has previously been examined largely with static approaches, underpinned by individual rational actor assumptions. Findings reveal care-seeking strategies that go beyond a decision on whether or not to use a health facility. This partly derives from a complex urban health system providing choice, but it is also a response to the challenges households face in negotiating the health system to receive care they perceive to be ‘safe.’ The findings have implications for the policy goals of increasing births with a skilled attendant and improving quality of care.