If I am anything, I am a Kentuckian, which means I appreciate a good storyteller. In my writing, I hope to bring back some dignity to the “lost cause” of the good values from a broken culture. While I am not quite “southern” enough to qualify as a writer of Southern Gothic fiction, I can relate to this brand of identity crisis in which someone wants to maintain an archaic mindset in a culture charging towards “progress.” As technology and corporate success take precedence over a genteel and pastoral soul, our collective competitiveness has crippled a quaint future of back porch comforts. Being well-read or holding open doors won’t pay for student loans, and there is no such thing as stars in our crowns anymore. For many regions of Kentucky, there is this conflict within the graying of small town communities. My region is one of these. As time marches on, the agrarian lifestyle itself becomes industrialized, and these old family farms, upon which small towns are built, are not self-sustaining. In my stories, I capture the perspectives of a rural community’s personalities. My Regionalism may be dated, but then so are the small town values. With these short stories, I hope to create a collection of characters whose backgrounds may be singular but whose messages are universal. My stories are about the universal fear of loneliness. Perry and White, the cameo characters, pop up throughout because they epitomize this with their irrational companionship. “The Ancient Art of Smile-Making,” “A Well Meaning Marionette,” “The Peacock Cloister,” and “In the Garden, Swallowing Pearls” are essentially about this innate need for company. “Murdered in a Good Dress” and “Myrtle Slog” illustrate the homesickness experienced by those who divorce themselves from closeness of the rural community. Sometimes we call “friendship” kitschy and cliché. And why is that? I made Perry and White’s bond a bit absurd because it is almost ridiculous that there could be a person in the wild world who would sacrifice themselves.

In this thesis I recount the historical relationship between settlement and food lands in Southern Ontario. Informed by landscape and food regime theory, I use a landscape approach to interpret the history of this relationship to deepen our understanding of a pertinent, and historically specific problem of land access for sustainable farming. This thesis presents entrenched barriers to landscape renewal as institutional legacies of various layers of history. It argues that at the moment and for the last century Southern Ontario has had two different, parallel sets of determinants for land-use operating on the same landscape in the form of agricultural policy and urban planning. To the extent that they are not purposefully coordinated, not just with each other but with the social and ecological foundations of our habitation, this is at the root of the problem of land access for sustainable farming.

The ocean is the largest sink of anthropogenic carbon from the atmosphere and therefore the magnitude of ocean carbon uptake largely determines the airborne fraction of emissions and the ultimate severity of surface climate change. However, climate-feedbacks on ocean carbon uptake over the historical period and in the future are uncertain. In particular, much uncertainty in the ocean carbon response hinges on the influence of wind-driven changes in the Southern Ocean, which is the most significant region of anthropogenic carbon uptake. Here I show that the Southern Hemisphere westerly winds simulated by the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 3 (CMIP3) and CMIP5 climate models have significant biases in their pre-industrial and satellite era-climatologies, relative to observationally based estimates. I also show that the models project the westerlies to intensify and shift poleward under anthropogenic forcing over the 20th and 21st centuries, but that they significantly underestimate the trends over the satellite era. I then use a novel experimental design, wherein I isolate the influence of the models pre-industrial wind bias on simulations of ocean carbon uptake and climate. I do this by using the UVic Earth System Climate Model (ESCM) with an ensemble of members, each forced by the winds from an individual CMIP model. I show here that the climate model pre-industrial wind bias can significantly increase ocean carbon uptake in transient climate change simulations, reducing the airborne fraction and projected climate change. By contrast, the simulated wind-changes over the 20th and 21st centuries reduce ocean carbon uptake, largely through an increase in outgassing from the Southern Ocean. However, I show that this transient- wind effect is i) smaller than the pre-industrial bias effect and ii) does not occur when using a variable formulation for the Gent-McWilliams coefficient of eddy diffusivity in the coarse resolution model, under simulated or observed wind-changes. I then go on to demonstrate that the simulated transient wind-changes significantly reduce the Antarctic sea-ice area simulated by the UVic ESCM. I also test the influence of fresh water input to the Southern Ocean from dynamic Antarctic Ice Sheet mass loss, which is a forcing absent from the CMIP5 models. The magnitude of the fresh water effect is small and has little influence on the sea-ice area trends simulated by the CMIP5 models over the historical era. These results have significant implications for previous model-based studies of the ocean carbon cycle, as well as for the quantification of the wind-induced uncertainty in future climate projections by current Earth System Models. / Graduate / 0725 / 0425 / 0415

This thesis is an ethnographic study of the life of female migrants in Cape Town. The thesis is based on material gathered through informal conversations, semi-structured interviews and participant observation conducted among female migrants in Cape Town. South Africa is today the strongest economy in the Southern African region which attracts people from other poorer African countries. They migrate to South Africa for a chance to a better life or an opportunity to support themselves and their families. However, South Africa´s restrictive immigration policies make it difficult for many migrants to obtain the right documents and be able to ‘legally’ cross the South African border. Even if migrants get an asylum-seekers permit they are not allowed to legally work in the country. They are included and excluded at the same time. The constant ‘criminalization’ of migrants´ acts makes it hard for migrants to access any human rights and protection in general, which makes them more vulnerable to exploitation. More and more women are crossing the borders to South Africa to get work and physical security as a part of the global ‘feminization’ of migration. Women´s movement therefore questions the picture of the man as the sole breadwinner. Even though this is the reality women are excluded from the discourse about migration and existing immigration policies in South Africa. Female migrants are not acknowledged as important actors and are even more vulnerable in the forced and marginalized position of ‘illegality’, then male migrants. This study explores the female migrants´ own experiences of struggles like getting documented, work, secure housing and being exposed to xenophobia. The women have also developed different strategies to handle these difficulties. This thesis criticizes the ‘victimization’ of female migrants, which ascribes them with powerlessness and being without agency, and shows that they are active in seeking solutions and creating strategies to increase their scope of action.

The ocean is the largest sink of anthropogenic carbon from the atmosphere and therefore the magnitude of ocean carbon uptake largely determines the airborne fraction of emissions and the ultimate severity of surface climate change. However, climate-feedbacks on ocean carbon uptake over the historical period and in the future are uncertain. In particular, much uncertainty in the ocean carbon response hinges on the influence of wind-driven changes in the Southern Ocean, which is the most significant region of anthropogenic carbon uptake. Here I show that the Southern Hemisphere westerly winds simulated by the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 3 (CMIP3) and CMIP5 climate models have significant biases in their pre-industrial and satellite era-climatologies, relative to observationally based estimates. I also show that the models project the westerlies to intensify and shift poleward under anthropogenic forcing over the 20th and 21st centuries, but that they significantly underestimate the trends over the satellite era. I then use a novel experimental design, wherein I isolate the influence of the model’s pre-industrial wind bias on simulations of ocean carbon uptake and climate. I do this by using the UVic Earth System Climate Model (ESCM) with an ensemble of members, each forced by the winds from an individual CMIP model. I show here that the climate model pre-industrial wind bias can significantly increase ocean carbon uptake in transient climate change simulations, reducing the airborne fraction and projected climate change. By contrast, the simulated wind-changes over the 20th and 21st centuries reduce ocean carbon uptake, largely through an increase in outgassing from the Southern Ocean. However, I show that this transient- wind effect is i) smaller than the pre-industrial bias effect and ii) does not occur when using a variable formulation for the Gent-McWilliams coefficient of eddy diffusivity in the coarse resolution model, under simulated or observed wind-changes. I then go on to demonstrate that the simulated transient wind-changes significantly reduce the Antarctic sea-ice area simulated by the UVic ESCM. I also test the influence of fresh water input to the Southern Ocean from dynamic Antarctic Ice Sheet mass loss, which is a forcing absent from the CMIP5 models. The magnitude of the fresh water effect is small and has little influence on the sea-ice area trends simulated by the CMIP5 models over the historical era. These results have significant implications for previous model-based studies of the ocean carbon cycle, as well as for the quantification of the wind-induced uncertainty in future climate projections by current Earth System Models. / Graduate / 0725 / 0425 / 0415

Theoretical work indicates that HIV-1 epidemics in sub-Saharan Africa will cause major demographic changes. The current study assesses the extent to which these changes can already be seen in two rural areas of Manicaland, Zimbabwe and investigates the determinants of the epidemic and its demographic impact. The study utilizes demographic survey methods and qualitative sociological techniques. Data analysis is conducted using statistical packages and is guided by insights generated from mathematical models of the epidemiology and demographic impact of HIV-1 infections. HIV-1 prevalence is high in both areas. Among women, HIV-1 infection is associated with age and marital status. Indirect evidence indicates that religion, education, migration and socio-economic characteristics of husband may also be important determinants. Each of these factors influences the pattern of sexual behaviour. Rates of sexual partner change are heterogeneous for women but appear more homogeneous for men. Mixing patterns are disassortative: men form partnerships with women with high and low rates of partner change. Mortality has undergone a recent upturn, almost certainly associated with HIV-1 infections. Adults aged 20-45 years and men, in particular, are most affected at this (early) stage of the epidemic. Religion is an important local determinant of demographic patterns, whose influence on mortality appears to be changing vua its effect on sexual behaviour and the spread of HIV-1. Orphanhood has increased, but, as yet, there is little change in population structure. Fertility has declined since the late 1970s. It is too early in the AIDS epidemic to see an impact of HIV-1 at the population level. However, some signs of behaviour changes which affect the proximate determinants of fertility were detected. These changes may accelerate the decline in birth rates, especially at younger ages. New demographic projections for Zimbabwe are developed, based on observed trends in HIV- 1 infection and fertility, and underlying behaviour patterns. These indicate substantial further increases in mortality, particularly among women and young children, greatly reduced population growth, relative shortages of young children and older adults, and further increases in orphanhood. Families and communities will require support in facing this slowly unfolding disaster.

The Southern Baptist Convention has experienced both tremendous growth and intense turmoil in its relatively short history. After experiencing increasing internal conflicts throughout the late twentieth-century, a decade-long battle over the direction of the denomination resulted in a permanent schism within the Convention. The Shift, as I name it, forever altered the landscape of the Southern Baptist Convention. Notably, The Shift witnessed an apparent replacement of traditional Southern Baptist church-state separationism in favor of overt involvement in partisan politics. In this dissertation, I provide a historical sketch of the Southern Baptist Convention and explore the denomination‘s evolving positions on church and state by analyzing the Southern Baptist political rhetoric at the individual, agency, and Convention levels after The Shift. Considering the work of H. Richard Niebuhr, I argue that Southern Baptist participation in politics can be understood as an attempt to transform culture to a biblical worldview. However, drawing from the work of Richard Hofstadter and Kenneth Burke, I argue that the Convention struggles to achieve its goal because its political rhetoric is characteristic of the paranoid style and employs scapegoating to blame others for society‘s ills. This dissertation reveals that the Southern Baptist Convention suffers from a rhetorical problem of audience. I argue that while the denomination‘s political rhetoric galvanizes its conservative base, it alienates non-religious individuals, members of other religious faiths, and even some within the Southern Baptist Convention. I conclude that in order to be a transformative agent in society, the Southern Baptist Convention‘s political rhetoric must undergo a shift in topoi that has more universal appeal. Namely, I argue that the denomination needs to return to its ―Old Rhetoric‖ and, in doing so, appeal to choice, freedom, religious liberty, free exercise, and free expression.

Water resources in Canada are of major environmental, social and economic value. It is expected that climate change will be accompanied by more intense competition for water supply in water-stressed agricultural areas such as the southern Prairies. Beyond physical impacts, drought can be seen as a socio-economic and political problem which ultimately has implications for community-level vulnerability to climate change. This thesis presents empirical vulnerability case studies focused on the exposure-sensitivity and adaptive capacity of Coronach and Gravelbourg in southern Saskatchewan. The results illustrate the fact that farmers or ranchers are not merely passive victims of drought. They also take an active role in shaping the environment around them, thus affecting their own vulnerability to drought. Therefore, by understanding the causal linkages of the coupled social-environment system, a more comprehensive understanding of community vulnerability is achievable and informed decisions can be made based on this thorough understanding of local conditions. In the second part of this thesis, the potential of soft water path is evaluated as a possible adaptation strategy. Based on the results gathered in the first part of this thesis, adaptation measures are tailored to address specific needs of different sectors in the Town of Coronach and the Town of Gravelbourg while ensuring ecological sustainability. Examples of possible paths (adaptation measures) are suggested in order to increase community adaptive capacity to water shortages in light of future climate changes.

Predation is a frequently studied subject, but estimating crushing predation in mollusk communities is challenging. Shells record successful attacks, but it is not always possible to identify attacks on an individual basis. Repair scar frequency is a common proxy for crushing mortality, but shell repair does not directly measure mortality, so results are ambiguous. Borrowing a technique from Vermeij (1982), crushing mortality frequencies were estimated in a recent shell assemblage. Because crushing damage can be confused with taphonomy, a taphonomic baseline was established: the cause of death of drilled shells is known, so additional damage is postmortem. The frequencies of several damage types were tallied for drilled shells to estimate a taphonomic baseline for the assemblage. The same frequencies were calculated for undrilled shells (cause of death unknown). In many cases, undrilled shells had significantly higher frequencies than drilled shells. The differences in damage frequencies likely are caused by crushing predation.

Graduation date: 1988