Studien syftar till att undersöka attityderna kring polygyni bland unga ogifta män i Gambia. Kvalitativa enskilda intervjuer har utförts på män i landets stadsområden, och svaren har sedan analyserats utifrån ett socialkonstruktivistiskt perspektiv. Resultatet påvisar att polygyni har många negativa aspekter och inte alltid är frivilligt, ens för männen. Det indikerar även att traditionen håller på att avta i landets urbana delar. Attityderna förändras och polygyni anses, av många, vara ett problem mer än ett privilegium. Studien är relevant för socialarbetare och andra yrkesgrupper som arbetar med människor, speciellt de som arbetar internationellt i länder där liknande familjestrukturer är vanliga.

Degree project in Business Economics, School of Business and Economics at Linnaeus University, Bachelor thesis Course 2EB00E, spring 2011 Authors: Joakim Söderling 860920, Oscar Carlsson 861021 Supervisor: Michaela Sandell Examiner: Richard Nakamura Title: Aid through trade – An ethnographical minor field study in the Gambia Background: Since Sweden’s fund giving started the overall aim has been to raise people’s living conditions in poorer countries. By having this goal Sweden’s fund giving has changed over the last 50 years during four different eras; Trickle Down, Social Satisfier, Economical Reforms and Governance. Lately, however, criticism regarding whether aid is contributing or not to a less developed country has arisen with questions such as that aid are designed by the fund givers and lack of fieldworkers. Gambia is a development country situated in the poorest area of the poorest continent. The Gambia’s general annual salary is 12,000 Dalasi (3,000 SEC) and poverty is widespread. Entrepreneurship has, however, been noticed as a key-factor for the people and the country’s development. Research question: How should aid for entrepreneurship be designed to promote development in the Gambia? Purpose: To retell the Gambian point of view regarding aid and what type of aid for entrepreneurship that is promoting domestic development in the Gambia. Delimitations: We have chosen to sort out fund organizations of social nature, such as schools and healthcare organizations. We have also delimitated out study to micro-level. Method: We have implemented a qualitative abductive micro-ethnographical field study in which we took the open role as participants as observers. The thesis’ selections are based upon snowball effect and convenience sampling. Conclusions: Aid should be given to women up-country, privately and openly, in the form of material and within a cooperation between fund giver and fund taker. We have also created a model as a recommendation made from our experiences of the Gambian people. Keywords: The Gambia, aid, funds, entrepreneurship, ethnography, development.

The aim of this thesis is to study and analyse how the manifestation of the British colonial era is presented and interpreted in Gambian secondary school history teaching. The sources used in this study are the history syllabus, history textbooks and a few teachers. The research questions are: To what extent is the colonial era projected in the history teaching, if so, why is so much emphasis focused on the colonial times? What attitudes do the people have regarding the colonial era and the British; what is positive and what is negative with the strong focus on the colonial times? The reason why I have chosen to study the colonial era and its magnitude and impact in the history teaching in the Gambia, is that this is an unexplored subject and I found it interesting to focus on this subject and put it in relation to such a small country as the Gambia. The reasons mentioned above is what it makes it interesting to study how the colonial era is viewed in the history teaching in the Gambia and how teachers handle this subject. How do they handle this period of history in a former colony? In this study I have used the qualitative method. My empirical material has been collected through history schoolbook analysis, interviews with three teachers and participated classroom observations in the history subject. My theoretical framework includes concepts like learning procedure, learning dilemmas and attitudes about colonialism, which are described and discussed. The colonial era is frequently emphasised in the history teaching in the Gambia, almost all the history teaching consist of this subject area. Furthermore, the attitude towards this era and the British colonisers varies among interviewed teachers. One conclusion is that it is important to convey both a positive and a negative view about this matter.

<p>The aim of this thesis is to study and analyse how the manifestation of the British colonial era is presented and interpreted in Gambian secondary school history teaching. The sources used in this study are the history syllabus, history textbooks and a few teachers. The research questions are: To what extent is the colonial era projected in the history teaching, if so, why is so much emphasis focused on the colonial times? What attitudes do the people have regarding the colonial era and the British; what is positive and what is negative with the strong focus on the colonial times?</p><p>The reason why I have chosen to study the colonial era and its magnitude and impact in the history teaching in the Gambia, is that this is an unexplored subject and I found it interesting to focus on this subject and put it in relation to such a small country as the Gambia. The reasons mentioned above is what it makes it interesting to study how the colonial era is viewed in the history teaching in the Gambia and how teachers handle this subject. How do they handle this period of history in a former colony?</p><p>In this study I have used the qualitative method. My empirical material has been collected through history schoolbook analysis, interviews with three teachers and participated classroom observations in the history subject. My theoretical framework includes concepts like learning procedure, learning dilemmas and attitudes about colonialism, which are described and discussed.</p><p>The colonial era is frequently emphasised in the history teaching in the Gambia, almost all the history teaching consist of this subject area. Furthermore, the attitude towards this era and the British colonisers varies among interviewed teachers. One conclusion is that it is important to convey both a positive and a negative view about this matter.</p>

Adolescence is a life history transition of individual and evolutionary importance: the body begins to allocate energy available above maintenance costs away from somatic growth and towards reproductive function. This study investigates how both distal, intergenerational effects and proximal, seasonal changes in energy availability impact the way adolescent female bodies allocate energy among linear growth, fat and lean mass, activity, and metabolic function. The research follows up on a prenatal supplementation study conducted by the British Medical Research Council in rural Gambia between 1989 and 1994. Pregnant women were randomized to receive daily supplements of 1015 kcal either from week 20 of pregnancy until delivery or during the first 20 weeks of lactation. The 67 adolescent daughters included in the follow up study were born to women in both groups during the rainy agricultural season, the period of the year associated with weight loss, poor perinatal outcomes, and high impact of the pregnancy supplement on birth weight. Anthropometry, body composition, daily saliva, weekly serum, and weekly fasting urine samples for C-peptide of insulin were collected during one month each in the 2009 rainy agricultural season, the 2010 dry harvest season, and the 2010 rainy agricultural season. Participant heart rates were calibrated to oxygen consumption each season, and 24-hr accelerometer and heart rate data were recorded to estimate free-living energy expenditure. It was found that pregnancy supplementation status did not predict infant or adolescent phenotype in the study sample. Maternal postpartum weight, however, was a powerful positive distal predictor of adolescent size. The daughters of heavier mothers produced less leptin per unit fat mass. Under conditions of high energy expenditure and low intake, adolescent women who were growing in height mobilized adipose stores and acquired lean mass, while developmentally older women maintained fat stores at the expense of lean mass. Married adolescents in the sample were older, had lower fasting C-peptide of insulin, had higher absolute energy expenditure, and spent more of their total energy budgets in activity than did unmarried peers. / Human Evolutionary Biology

Irregular migration is one of our times challenge and the news about migrants dying in the Mediterranean Sea seems to be more and more common these days. African migrants are risking their lives migrating by routes through the desert on trucks packed with migrants to get to Libya; this route is called the back way. From Libya they are crossing the Mediterranean Sea in small over loaded boats with the hope to reach Italy. This study focus on young Gambian men who say that they are prepared to risk their life by going the back way in order to reach Europe. Gambia is a small country in West Africa, a country that has been free from violence and war, a peaceful country. Yet the back way is something that is on everybody’s lips in Gambia today and a lot of people, especially young men, are trying to get to Europe through that way. This research is looking into why these young men are prepared to risk their lives to reach Europe; it is showing what it is that make people take their decisions to go. In order to find answers to this, interviews with young men in Gambia has been done and the material have then been analyzed with the help of the push and pull model, the rational choice theory and Charles Tilly’s ideas about durable inequality. What can be understood from the findings in this research is that people migrate in order to improve their lives. They consider the back way only because that is what is available to them since the legal ways of getting to Europe are few and hard to get for somebody from the developing world. The research also shows that your position in the family and in the society plays a crucial part in the decision of going or not going.

Maternal nutrition, breast milk micronutrients and infant growth in rural Gambia The World Health Organization recommends exclusive breastfeeding for the first six months of an infant’s life. However, the evidence base to support the adequacy of breast milk with respect to infant micronutrient status, across the duration of exclusive breastfeeding, among women who enter pregnancy and lactation with a poor nutritional status is limited. The research presented in this thesis explores the relationship between maternal nutritional status, breast milk micronutrients and infant status in a rural sub-Saharan context. Existing evidence for associations between maternal dietary intake and nutritional status and breast milk micronutrient composition were systematically reviewed. Most effected by maternal nutrition were breast milk water-soluble vitamin concentrations (except for folic acid), fat-soluble vitamin concentrations were less influenced, and mineral concentrations were generally unaffected (except for iodine and selenium). Next, the impact of feeding practice on infant growth in rural Gambia was explored. In this population, where growth faltering across the first two years of life is endemic, exclusive breastfeeding to six months of age had limited benefit on infant growth. Finally, the impact of maternal multiple micronutrient supplementation on breast milk iodine, thiamin, riboflavin, vitamin B6 and B12 was explored. Supplementation during pregnancy positively influenced maternal status for all investigated micronutrients, and modestly increased breast milk iodine and riboflavin concentrations across the first six months of lactation. No effects on breast milk concentrations of thiamin, vitamin B6 or B12, and limited effect on infant postpartum status, were observed. The research presented in this thesis suggests that concentrations of breast milk micronutrients may be insufficient in settings where maternal micronutrient status is poor, with likely consequences for infant health. This research supports the need for interventions to improve the nutritional status of pregnant and lactating women in resource-poor settings alongside the promotion of exclusive breastfeeding for optimal health outcomes for infants as well as their mothers.

No description available.

This thesis seeks to analyse the role of the Gambian diaspora activists in Gambian politics particularly during the December 1st, 2016, Presidential election in which the long-time dictator Yahya Jammeh was defeated by the less experienced and known Adama Barrow. Despite an extensive mobilization effort over the past twenty-two years, spanning across continents, the fragile and disorganized Gambian diaspora has been unable to exert influence in Gambian politics due to unfavourable domestic conditions such as the unwillingness of the opposition to unite as well as state repression. However, the formation of coalition 2016 provided the diaspora activists an opportunity to engage effectively in mobilizing against the Jammeh regime through their online media platforms as well as financial contribution.  By using a multi-level research design using interviews and document analyses, the thesis explores the mobilization strategies of the Gambian diaspora as means of influencing at both the homeland and international levels.

No description available.