Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2004. / Supervisor: Ian R. Manners. Vita. Includes bibliographical references. Also available from UMI.

O trabalho é um elemento transformador, não apenas do homem que trabalha, mas também da natureza, fonte – já não tão inesgotável de recursos -, além de modificador também das relações que se estabelecem na sociedade. A ampliação do processo do trabalho ensejou que o trabalhador passasse a ter garantido, por meio de leis e regulamentos, certos direitos frente ao tomador de seus serviços. Todavia, ainda que tenha havido progressos nesse âmbito, visto que constantemente novos direitos vão sendo incluídos no rol dos já existentes, nada ou quase nada foi feito para se garantir que os trabalhadores fossem capazes de tomar ciência dos efeitos de seu trabalho sobre o meio ambiente, assim como pouco tem sido feito no sentido de se procurar novas alternativas menos agressivas, no sentido de incluir o trabalhador na busca de desenvolver atividades cada vez menos nocivas à integridade dos recursos naturais. Primeiramente, porque a eles, na maioria das vezes, não cabe maior poder de decisão sobre a administração da organização; segundo, porque a busca por novas alternativas demanda, inicialmente, um dispêndio de valores que nem sempre as corporações estão dispostas a bancar. Todos os avanços referentes ao trabalho do ser humano demandam uma nova adaptação frente à degradação ambiental: é preciso uma educação ambiental para que ainda haja tempo de preservar o que resta da natureza. / Submitted by Ana Guimarães Pereira (agpereir@ucs.br) on 2015-09-25T18:02:29Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertacao Fabio Rodrigues.pdf: 1204403 bytes, checksum: e44c5cd9b63435e643623ed1b27ae4c7 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2015-09-25T18:02:29Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertacao Fabio Rodrigues.pdf: 1204403 bytes, checksum: e44c5cd9b63435e643623ed1b27ae4c7 (MD5) / The work is a transforming element, not only for the man but also for the nature, a source not more as an inexhaustible resource, as well as a modifier mean of the relationship that has been established in the society. The expansion process of the work brought the opportunity and the guarantee to the employee by a series of laws and regulations and mainly by the rights against the employer. Although, some progress has been taken in this area, and another rights has been constantly included in this list, little or almost nothing has been done to ensure that the workers will be able and conscious from the effects of their work on the environment. Moreover, only few actions have been done in order to look for alternatives less aggressive, and to include the employee in the source and the development of new activities less harmful to the integrity of natural resources. First of all, to them, most of the times they don’t have greater power of the decisions on the administration of the organization, and second, because of the search for new alternatives request, initially, an amount of values that the corporations are not always willing to spend. All progress in the work of human beings requires a new adjustment against the environmental degradation: it is necessary an environmental education for that there is still time to preserve what remains of the nature.

O trabalho é um elemento transformador, não apenas do homem que trabalha, mas também da natureza, fonte – já não tão inesgotável de recursos -, além de modificador também das relações que se estabelecem na sociedade. A ampliação do processo do trabalho ensejou que o trabalhador passasse a ter garantido, por meio de leis e regulamentos, certos direitos frente ao tomador de seus serviços. Todavia, ainda que tenha havido progressos nesse âmbito, visto que constantemente novos direitos vão sendo incluídos no rol dos já existentes, nada ou quase nada foi feito para se garantir que os trabalhadores fossem capazes de tomar ciência dos efeitos de seu trabalho sobre o meio ambiente, assim como pouco tem sido feito no sentido de se procurar novas alternativas menos agressivas, no sentido de incluir o trabalhador na busca de desenvolver atividades cada vez menos nocivas à integridade dos recursos naturais. Primeiramente, porque a eles, na maioria das vezes, não cabe maior poder de decisão sobre a administração da organização; segundo, porque a busca por novas alternativas demanda, inicialmente, um dispêndio de valores que nem sempre as corporações estão dispostas a bancar. Todos os avanços referentes ao trabalho do ser humano demandam uma nova adaptação frente à degradação ambiental: é preciso uma educação ambiental para que ainda haja tempo de preservar o que resta da natureza. / The work is a transforming element, not only for the man but also for the nature, a source not more as an inexhaustible resource, as well as a modifier mean of the relationship that has been established in the society. The expansion process of the work brought the opportunity and the guarantee to the employee by a series of laws and regulations and mainly by the rights against the employer. Although, some progress has been taken in this area, and another rights has been constantly included in this list, little or almost nothing has been done to ensure that the workers will be able and conscious from the effects of their work on the environment. Moreover, only few actions have been done in order to look for alternatives less aggressive, and to include the employee in the source and the development of new activities less harmful to the integrity of natural resources. First of all, to them, most of the times they don’t have greater power of the decisions on the administration of the organization, and second, because of the search for new alternatives request, initially, an amount of values that the corporations are not always willing to spend. All progress in the work of human beings requires a new adjustment against the environmental degradation: it is necessary an environmental education for that there is still time to preserve what remains of the nature.

Conventional approaches to water management have traditionally treated social systems and ecosystems as distinct, and to a large degree have failed to achieve outcomes that are simultanously efficient, equitable, and sustainable. Perhaps nowhere has the need to reform the way water is managed and even conceived been more apparent than in South Africa in the last decade, where a tremendous opportunity for change has been created in the form of the National Water Act of 1998. In this thesis I propose that water management in South Africa – which encompasses its water resources, ecosystems and their services, people they support, and institutions that govern them – is a social-ecological system: a coupled, inseparable system of human beings and nature. Using a combination of approaches, I demonstrate that a social-ecological systems perspective is needed to understand the true nature of these challenges. First, drawing from the experience of the Southern African Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (SAfMA), I construct and apply a framework for evaluating past water management responses. Second, I review a scenario planning exercise as an approach for identifying robust decisions amid high levels of uncertainty about future ecosystem services. Third, I use an agent-based model to explore the evolution of decision-making and learning by water managers under alternative paradigms. Lastly, I compare the ability of two existing frameworks to increase understanding of resilience as it applies to South African water management. Results of this work indicate that: congruence of impacts, awareness, and power is key to achieving effective water management in South Africa; future water management planning needs to take account of cross-scale trade-offs; decentralisation holds most promise when supported by a national policy framework but which allows for local learning; learning may be constrained by temporal variability, water stress, access to learning networks, and use of inappropriate indicators; and the concept of resilience may provide a mechanism for uniting social and ecological research on water management. As most past water management failures have resulted from a misunderstanding of social-ecological system dynamics, work of this kind can make a significant contribution at this pivotal point in South Africa’s water management history. Copyright 2006, University of Pretoria. All rights reserved. The copyright in this work vests in the University of Pretoria. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the University of Pretoria. Please cite as follows: Bohensky, EL 2006, A Social-Ecological systems perspective on water management in South Africa, PhD thesis, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, viewed yymmdd < http://upetd.up.ac.za/thesis/available/etd-12112006-101202 / > / Thesis (PhD (Environmental Studies))--University of Pretoria, 2006. / Zoology and Entomology / unrestricted

The goal of this thesis was to reposition individual preparedness within a social environmental context. First, a theoretical model was developed to more accurately represent the social environmental considerations neglected in current preparedness research and policy. A series of three studies tested this model using a mixed-methods approach: First, subjective conceptualizations of preparedness were explored in a qualitative analysis (N = 12). Findings revealed that participants evaluated their readiness not in terms of prescribed activities, but perceptions about their current resourcefulness as well as past local hazards. Participants’ had positive social environments which also reinforced their perceived coping ability in future emergency events. Subsequent thesis studies investigated the role social environment further, using quantitative data. The second study explicitly tested whether perceptions of risk and coping could explain differences in preparedness based on demographic attributes linked to variations in social environment. Data from a survey examining Canadians perceptions regarding terrorism threats (N = 1503) revealed that greater anticipated response was significantly associated with increased age, as well as female gender, higher education levels, and higher income levels. Statistically significant differences in threat appraisals were also reported based on these demographic groupings. However, mediation analyses demonstrated that with the exception of gender, differences in anticipated response could not be explained via risk perceptions or perceived coping efficacy, suggesting that social environment’s role in preparedness is not related to the internal processes often targeted in current campaigns. The third study used a multilevel design to investigate the contextual role of neighbourhood social environment in anticipated emergency response. Results demonstrated that a more deprived social neighbourhood context was related to lowered anticipated emergency response. This relationship was maintained after controlling for significant individual-level factors such as previous experience and sociodemographics, highlighting the importance of neighbourhood social context in facilitating emergency preparedness. Taken together, these findings provide novel evidence that focusing preparedness strategies to primarily target internal processes is misguided, and that future research and policy must position preparedness efforts in the context of existing social environmental resources and barriers in order to build capacity for effective emergency response.

Planning is the ultimate expression of a community responding to growth and change, shaping its future through a collective set of values, goals and strategies. Over the past four decades planning policies and practices have largely focused on issues related to the growth of urban regions. Given the realms of change that will shape communities over the coming decades, these policies and practices need to reorient themselves away from aggregate notions of growth and towards the relevant agents of change. The goal of this research is to articulate a framework for the investigation of issues that will shape communities over the coming four decades; specifically how demographic change will impact on the future of community housing, land and financial resources. Although it presents one region as a case study (the Central Okanagan Regional District in British Columbia, Canada) the framework is intended to be used by any community or region to evaluate the extent of demographic change and its impact on issues related to community and regional planning. The first finding of the framework shows that over any strategic time horizon planning issues will be related to changes in a population's composition rather than aggregate notions of its growth. It is the patterns of lifecycle and lifestyle change that will shape issues ranging from land uses, housing markets and transportation demand to school enrolment, medical requirements or even funeral services. None of which can be accurately represented by the aggregate size of a region's population, as each are impacted by changes in its underlying composition. The second finding is that it is current residents, rather than new migrants to the region, that will direct changes in the age composition of a population. This leads to the assertion that we have a good approximation of the region's future population in those who are residents today: they will be slightly older, wiser and possibly a little wearier. Finally, this research also calls attention to a substantial lack of information. A lack of information concerning the fundamental processes of community change, and a lack of information regarding the economic, environmental and social costs associated with the location, density and timing of future development. Most importantly, current planning decisions are still largely predicated on aggregate notions of population growth, without sufficient information about the external costs and tradeoffs associated with these decisions. The future quality of life in any region will be directly determined by the degree to which both planning jurisdictions and the general public acknowledge and, more importantly, choose to respond to the challenges presented by change. / Applied Science, Faculty of / Community and Regional Planning (SCARP), School of / Graduate

This study proposes a systematics for South African cultural landscapes. This study further aims to strengthen the analytical potential of the system by identifying a suitable platform for collaboration to supplement biophysical ecologies with the cultural ecologies. Item 4 of the aims of the National Heritage Resources Act No 25 of 1999 specifically states: that it is necessary to introduce an integrated system for the identification, assessment and management of the heritage resources of South Africa. Although all the aims mentioned in the Act are required for a complete management system for South African cultural resources, without a workable identification and assessment process, management will be ineffectual. This study addresses and proposes a systematics to accomplish this fundamental requirement of a complete management system. The research project is a proposal to the South African community of concerned individuals, institutions and agencies dealing with the conservation and protection of the cultural resources of the country. It is presented for consideration and adoption as alternative and supplemental management procedures. This research for cultural landscape management tools and techniques will supplement current programs by the relevant agencies who are considered to be holistic, combining African cultural perspectives on environmental values with the traditional western approach to conservation, thus amalgamating cultural and biophysical issues. The study is both qualitative and quantitative. It identifies and describes current conditions, and through the review of case study field data to test and correlate the documented data. All hypotheses are successfully proven and substantiated with both the critical review of the literature, the key interviews and the case study reviews. The sub-problems investigated each of the aspects to compile such a systematics. This thesis thus successfully proposes a systematic for the cultural landscapes of South Africa. This study recommends that the research into cultural differences and the relationship of various cultures to the biophysical landscape be extended and, furthermore, an alternative to the western way of documentation and mapping culture must be sought. / Thesis (PhD(Landscape Architecture))--University of Pretoria, 2004. / Architecture / unrestricted

My study is a sub-study of the Resilient Youth in Stressed Environments (RYSE) Project (ethics clearance UP17/05/01). RYSE aims to develop a more in-depth understanding of the resilience of youth who live in environments challenged by the petrochemical industry and associated risks, specifically the community of eMbalenhle. In particular, the purpose of my qualitative sub-study is to explore which resilience-enabling factors in social ecologies (SEs) of tertiary education institutions (TEIs) shape the resilience of older adolescents from the eMbalenhle community who are engaged in tertiary education. Despite the common assumption in current South African literature that students who come from backgrounds challenged by disadvantage (the disadvantages that challenge them are often a variety of stressors in their immediate surroundings, with few public resources or services where help can be accessed) are doomed to failure at TEIs, some students from backgrounds challenged by disadvantage progress to TEIs and succeed in completing their studies. However, only a few such students succeed in completing their studies. Research shows that TEIs are not sufficiently prepared to accommodate students coming from backgrounds challenged by disadvantage. Therefore, my study of limited scope might potentially give voice to the perspectives of older adolescents from communities challenged by disadvantage regarding resilience-enabling factors in the SE of TEIs. Phenomenology was the epistemological assumption of my study and a qualitative methodological approach was used. I made use of a phenomenological research design, purposefully selected my six participants (with an average age of 20), and made use of photo-elicitation with conversational interviews to generate data. To analyse the data I made use of Braun and Clarke’s (2006) six-step guide to inductive thematic content analysis. The main themes that emerged from my study were that university structures, a sought-after qualification (underpinned by a certain view of the future), and fellow students (with the subthemes same course and different course) were resilience-enabling factors. The usefulness of these themes to resilience theory is that older adolescents entering TEIs might potentially demonstrate resilience when experiencing the identified resilience-enabling factors in the SE of their TEI, and, therefore, my suggestion would be for TEIs to consider prioritising these protective factors. / Dissertation (MEd)--University of Pretoria, 2019. / Educational Psychology / MEd / Unrestricted

In the current state of the world, embassies provide a crucial perspective to world matters as an inspectional office to view the status quo from the front row of the global politics. The embassies as organizations are sensitive and reactive to the events in the global politics, making them organizations worth studying for more profound in the various levels they impact. The critical focus on the international event in this study was the Russian launched full-scale war on Ukraine and how the embassies and their employees reacted to it. The end goal of this study is to report the possible change and its impacts on the core work of the employees inside the embassies and how much they have to adapt and further develop their daily tasks and duties. This study was done from the qualitative perspective by conducting interviews and then analyzing the critical themes of the data and viewing the results in this research problem through the Social System’s Theory, which emphasizes the reactiveness and interdependencies of the different systems that work together and the Social Ecological Model that builds the understanding on three different levels on the world society and how they correlate from one to another. The change in the core work was reported to go from a broader perspective to individual employees and the other way around from employees to the organizations, producing change in multiple levels of the system. It was interesting to find out how individual experiences correlate with the broader worldwide reactions and how the work motivation is experienced in a situation such as this.

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