This thesis explores environmental justice issues in Latino communities in the Treasure Valley in Idaho. Given the little work focused on environmental justice issues of Latino communities, specifically in the Treasure Valley in Idaho. This thesis aims to, firstly determine whether environmental justice issues of Latino communities are relevant to environmental and social organizations in the Treasure Valley. As part of this, I also aim to unpack why environmental issues in Latino communities are or are not relevant to local social and environmental organizations. I suspected this may be connected to the complex immigration status of Latino groups, however, I discovered that the lack of funding and research, and community awareness challenged these organizations to attend to environmental justice issues. Second, this thesis aims to bring visibility to the Latino community that is often neglected in policy and research regarding environmental justice, which has mostly focused on African-American communities. Finally, a third and related aim is to contribute to the development of a wider vision of environmental justice issues of minority groups by expanding this framework to Hispanic-Latino communities in the Treasure Valley, Idaho. / Master of Arts / Disproportionate exposure to toxic waste, proximity to highways and industry facilities, and lack of access to clean water and food, are some of the environmental justice issues that minority groups in the United States daily face daily. The term environmental justice has evolved with different approaches and lines of thought that built on of vulnerable communities’ mobilizations for social justice issues present in vulnerable communities. This study explores to what extent environmental justice issues in Latino communities are relevant to environmental and social organizations in the Treasure Valley in Idaho. Building on the existing literature on environmental justice and based on semi-structured interviews, this study finds that environmental justice issues are relevant to these organizations, but that social injustices, -a lack of political attention to this issue and a related absence of strategic funding and research hinder these organizations’ ability to address environmental justice issues.

No description available.

No description available.

The Canadian identity narrative typically centres on two features: universal healthcare and a longstanding tradition of welcoming newcomers – in particular, refugees. In 2012, this mythology was troubled when, without warning, asylum seekers’ healthcare access was dramatically limited. In an equally dramatic fashion, physicians and the greater healthcare community took to the streets, occupied offices, and interrupted politicians in an effort to restore refugee claimants’ access to healthcare. While this physician-led response was unprecedented in Canada, physicians had previously rallied in a similar fashion in two other universal healthcare countries: England (2003) and Germany (1993). Across all three cases, formidable physician responses emerged following efforts to remove or restrict asylum seekers’ healthcare access. In Canada, asylum seeker health restrictions, and the successful social movement they spurred were unexpected entirely. In England, attempts to restrict access are expected, but the government’s failure to implement wide-scale reforms are not. Finally, in Germany, restrictions are potentially expected, but one also expects the decades-long advocacy movement to have created national-level change; instead, ripples of impact are seen unevenly across the country. This prompts two central questions: what conditions are necessary for a national government to successfully implement restrictions on asylum seeker healthcare? And, what conditions will support physician-led social movements’ efforts to reverse these legislative changes? This thesis examines these two questions in a three-case comparison of Canada, England and Germany. Drawing on over 60 qualitative interviews with physicians, policymakers, and politicians, this study takes an ecological approach to understanding what factors facilitate reform, and what factors shape advocacy movements. In particular, this study identifies factors at each of the macro, meso, and micro-levels of analysis to map advocacy movements against their institutional contexts and political climates. By examining social movements as creatures of their policy and ideational contexts, this thesis provides a holistic examination of the people, organizations, and institutions that shape asylum seeker healthcare. This study identifies features of movements and contexts that will impact advocacy efforts; these findings are of use to scholars of social movements but also everyday advocates and persons driving change in asylum seeker social policy. / Dissertation / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Thesis (M.A. in National Security Affairs)--Naval Postgraduate School, June 2005. / Thesis Advisor(s): Anne Marie Baylouny, Vali Nasr. Includes bibliographical references (p. 81-87). Also available online.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--State University of New York at Binghamton, Department of Sociology, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 2006. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 253-277).

This is the first focused study of the Society of the Muslim Brotherhood, the most influential and organised social and political movement in Kuwait, from its beginnings in 1946up to2000. It focuses on the circumstances surrounding the emergence and development of the Muslim Brotherhood as part of a general Islamic revival in Kuwait. It argues that the Muslim Brotherhood was driven first and foremost by cultural considerations and that Kuwaiti secularists regarded it as a challenge to their growing influence in both the political domain (traditionally controlled by the ruling family) and the social domain (historically under the control of the religious establishment). The resulting conflict with secularists over the social domain posed a serious threat to the Muslim Brotherhood who considered themselves an extension of the traditional religious establishment. They also viewed the secularists’ attempts to reshape Kuwaiti identity as a threat to Kuwait’s Islamic identity. This prompted the Muslim Brotherhood to channel all their social, educational and political efforts towards reclaiming the social domain. This study focuses also on the mechanisms adopted by the Muslim Brotherhood, ones which combined Islamic values with modern mobilisation strategies producing a dynamic Islamist movement seeking to revive the golden age of Islam through modern means. The movement maintained a pyramid hierarchy and it refashioned modern economic theory to make it more compatible with Islamic teachings. It also established a Muslim Boy Scouts movement and an Islamic press, while it reformed other organisations to make them compatible with Islamic values. All this was done in an effort to implement Hasan al-Banna’s vision of fashioning a pious Muslim individual, a virtuous family and, finally, a true Muslim state. The Muslim Brotherhood’s comprehensive and sweeping agenda seeks the complete transformation of social conditions. The Muslim Brotherhood in Kuwait was not very different from its mother organisation in Egypt. It played a pioneering role in revising Islamic banking, developing charity work and challenging secularism. The Kuwaiti political system supported the Muslim Brotherhood in its struggle against secularists, but the Muslim Brotherhood nonetheless stayed out of politics, focusing on rehabilitating the social domain, in the interests of maintaining on good terms with the ruling family.

As a founding member of the Via Campesina (1993) and active participant in the Global Justice Movement (the altermondialiste movement in France), the Confederation paysanne (CP) - which literally stands for 'peasant confederation' - has been presented in academic and activist circles as a key player in the struggle against neoliberal globalisation, and as a contributor to the emergence of new transnational activist networks and a 'global civil society'. As a trade union representing the interests of 'peasants', the CP has been praised as an innovative form of professional organisation whose originality lies in its ability to defend farmers' interests while at the same time responding to a broader set of challenges for the planet and those who populate it (environmental degradation, cultural homogeneity, social injustice). As a result, the CP - and in particular its emblematic leader Jose Bove - was rapidly propelled to the forefront of a new progressive avant-garde whose discourse on the cultural and economic threats of neoliberalism found a positive echo in farming and non-farming circles alike. -- Yet, as I shall argue throughout the following pages, the CP's success was not only related to its successful response to the new challenges for the 'peasantry' and society but also to its re-appropriation of popular and essentialist representations of 'peasantness' as a timeless and intrinsically egalitarian condition. From the moment that we recognise this, our understanding of the union's evolving popularity changes. Many observers and activists, for example, explained the CP's disappointing result in the 2007 professional elections by arguing that the CP was ahead of its time.

This thesis aims to provide an understanding of the phenomenon of citizen censorship in India and its implications for free speech. It is especially concerned with public protests where groups of citizens demand government action in order to ban or censor controversial material. These groups tend to invoke feelings of offense or hurt religious sentiments as a justification for restriction. The point of departure of this thesis is research on social movement outcomes and the history of Indian censorship. A quantitative approach is adopted, which includes data of protest events from 2010 to 2015. The author will demonstrate that restrictions on free speech coincide with protest events in three out of ten cases. A shorter case study of the controversy surrounding the film Vishwaroopam provides a concrete example of the dynamics of citizen censorship and aims to highlight some aspects that might have affected protest outcomes. Ultimately, the author concludes that protests are likely to be influential for restrictions on free speech, and that the role of the citizen as censor should not be ignored.