This thesis examines Alberta and Manitoba sugar beet farms as carceral sites for displaced Japanese Canadians during the Second World War. Previous literature has focused on the relocation of Japanese Canadians but has not addressed the many distinct sites that marked the boundaries of incarceration for Japanese Canadians. By exploring issues of citizenship and history, this thesis examines the many ways that regulation was imposed on Japanese Canadians by state and extra-state organizations and individuals. This subject was explored using critical discourse analysis of the Calgary Herald and the Winnipeg Free Press for a twelve month period beginning February 1, 1942, two months prior to the announcement of the Sugar Beet Programme and ending January 31, 1943, as original beet contracts covered only the 1942 crop year. My analysis follows two major themes: sugar beet farms as carceral sites and the use of citizenship narratives to both legitimize and erase Japanese Canadian labour. Utilizing Fbucault's notion of 'carceral', I show how disciplinary strategies were used to strip Japanese Canadians of their social, economic and political citizenship. While Japanese Canadians were never formally incarcerated, I argue that the term carceral needs to be reworked in order to include losses of liberty that are not formally sanctioned. I examine newspaper reports regarding official state policy, local community responses, protests and individual letters to the editors, and conclude that, indeed, Japanese Canadians underwent surveillance, supervision, constraint and coercion, all markers of incarceration. Citizenship discourses were a crucial tool of both state and non-state agencies. Further, 'whiteness' was central to these discourses. Citizenship discourses such as patriotism and duty were directed at 'white' citizens to encourage their acceptance of Japanese Canadian relocation. Further, these same discourses were used to recruit a volunteer 'white' labour force. However, despite the significant contributions of Japanese Canadians to this wartime industry, never were these types of discursive rewards or the subsequent material benefits offered to them. Further, the voices of Japanese Canadians were also silenced by the media. Thus, Japanese Canadians became invisible and silent workers who could claim no voice and thus, no membership in the nation. / Arts, Faculty of / Sociology, Department of / Graduate

The sugar beet (Beta vulgaris) plant has in recent years been added to the Biofuel Industrial Strategy (Department of Minerals and Energy, 2007) by the South African government as a crop grown for the production of bio-ethanol. Sugar beet is commonly grown in Europe for the production of sucrose and has recently been cultivated in Cradock and the surrounding areas (Engineering News, 2008). The biofuel industry usually ferments the sucrose with Saccharomyces cerevisiae to yield bio-ethanol. However, researchers are presented with a critical role to increase current yields as there are concerns over the process costs from industrial biotechnologists. The beet factories produce a pulp by-product removed of all sucrose. The hemicellulose-rich pulp can be degraded by microbial enzymes to simple sugars that can be subsequently fermented to bio-ethanol. Thus, the pulp represents a potential source for second generation biofuel. The process of utilising microbial hemicellulases requires an initial chemical pre-treatment step to delignify the sugar beet pulp (SBP). An alkaline pre-treatment with ‘slake lime’ (calcium hydroxide) was investigated using a 23 factorial design and the factors examined were: lime load; temperature and time. The analysed results showed the highest release of reducing sugars at the pre-treatment conditions of: 0.4 g lime / g SBP; 40°C and 36 hours. A partial characterisation of the Clostridium cellulovorans hemicellulases was carried out to verify the optimal activity conditions stated in literature. The highest release of reducing sugars was measured at pH 6.5 – 7.0 and at 45°C for arabinofuranosidase A (ArfA); at pH 5.5 and 40°C for mannanase A (ManA) and pH 5.0 – 6.0 and 45°C for xylanase A (XynA). Temperature studies showed that a complete loss of enzymatic activity occurred after 11 hours for ManA; and 84-96 hours for ArfA. XynA was still active after 120 hours. The optimised lime pre-treated SBP was subsequently degraded using various combinations and percentages of C. cellulovorans ArfA, ManA and XynA to determine the maximal release of reducing sugars. Synergistically, the highest synergy was observed at 75% ArfA and 25% ManA, with a specific activity of 2.9 μmol/min/g protein. However, the highest release of sugars was observed at 4.2 μmol/min/g protein at 100% ArfA. This study has initiated the research within South Africa on SBP and its degradation by C. cellulovorans. Preliminary studies show that SBP has the potential to be utilised as a second generation biofuel source.