The purpose of the study is to provide a descriptive analysis of food insecurity within the adult First Nations population in Manitoba. A bivariate analysis is used to determine strength of relationships between food insecurity and socio-demographic variables as well as self-reported general health and psycho-social health. This research study also includes a gender-based analysis (GBA), which allows for possible food insecurity prevalence differences between women and men The data obtained for this research study is from the second wave of the Manitoba First Nations Regional Longitudinal Health Survey (MFNRLHS, 2002/2003). Select socio-demographic variables as well as self-reported general health status, ‘life balance,’ and elements of psycho-social health, including self-reported health, ‘life balance,’ depression, intense anxiety, stress level, and domestic dispute were included. A P-value of 0.05 was used to identify significant differences. Significant results from this study include elevated food insecurity in Manitoba First Nations (37.2%). The bivariate analysis reveals that food insecurity is marginally associated with age group, with the highest food insecurity among young and middle-aged women; middle-aged men, and those with lone-parent status. Food insecurity is also significantly associated with total household income, the number of incomes per household, as well as employment versus government support over a two-year period. Food insecurity is elevated in both southern (29.4%) and northern (51.4%) regions of the province.

Conditions of hunger and lack of access to affordable healthy foods exists within Canada. Canada has committed itself to international Declarations, Covenants, and Conventions focused on reducing world hunger; however, it has neglected to address domestic hunger issues. Using mixed methods, this study quantified food insecurity rates and severity within four First Nation communities in northern Manitoba. The study also explored the communities’ perspectives regarding barriers to healthy eating and potential solutions to addressing this multi-faceted problem. Results indicate that the four First Nation communities within this study are amongst the most food insecure and hungry within Manitoba and Canada, with 92% of households experiencing some form of food insecurity and 50% of households experiencing severe food insecurity. The research has revealed that solutions for improving food security must be embedded within the realm of food sovereignty and be led by First Nation communities.

This project studies the paradoxical juxtaposition of the modern nation-state's guarantee of life and security to its citizenry, along with the spectacular (encounter killings, torture chambers and cells) and banal (border control practices, population policies) forms through which it exercises the power over life and death in the sphere of everyday life in particular borderland areas. I argue that a study of exceptional locales like India's eastern borderlands elaborates the paradox of state sovereignty in two ways: first, it illustrates that so-called "margins," like colonies and borderlands, are necessary for the institution of modern state sovereignty, and second, it enables a critical scrutiny of the function of forms of violence as essential tools of modern governmentality. India's eastern borderlands are a crucial locale for such an inquiry because they lie at the crossroads of the three area-studies formations of South, Southeast and East Asia. The institutionalization of the official borders of the nation-states that rim this region--India, China, Myanmar, Bangladesh and Bhutan--are comparatively recent historical developments. Specters of pre-nation-statist spatial connections still survive in the region, and often come into conflict with modern state technologies such as citizenship laws and statutes regulating cross-border socioeconomic contacts among people. The central focus of my project is on post-1980 Anglophone and local language literary fictions by Amitav Ghosh, Siddhartha Deb, Parag Das and Raktim Xarma. These fictions demonstrate how the eastern borderlands are figured in popular Indian discourse as a "state of nature" that occupy a position of being both inside the rationalized territorial body of the nation-state and outside the regime of normalized law and order. Focusing on figures as diverse as bureaucrats, army officials, journalists, guerrillas and refugees (among others), they show how socio-historical changes over a longue durée, and the practices and policies employed by the state apparatus, coalesce to produce new modalities of subjectivity and politics in these zones of exception in the Indian nation-state.

This thesis examines the unstable nature and dynamic impact of contemporary nationalism on the arduous process of reconstituting a modern multinational state. The basic research question concerns the relationship between nationalism and multinational democracy, or more specifically how nationalist forces may facilitate or impede the intricate process of political transition, democratic transformation and stabilization of the newly formed Bosnia and Herzegovina as a state. The findings indicate that nationalism and exclusive ethno-nationalist politics create serious inter-group security challenges and significantly hinder the process democratization, state-building and political transformation. The main obstacle to a coherent political system is based on the fact that nationalism causes an unconstrained reconfiguration of political space. This is apparent in BiH where exclusive nationalist politics continue to dominate the domestic and inter-national political agenda, thus limiting the capacity for political reforms, security and stability. As nationalism is a grave security threat to multinational states, there is a pressing need to manage nationalism with confidence building mechanisms that strengthen the state’s capacity to ensure enduring security and stability.

Several organizations, most prominently the United Nations and the World Bank, have emphasized that ex-combatant reintegration is crucial to consolidating peace after war. Strategic thinking about peace-building and opportunities for international involvement in post-conflict states after the Cold War have focused attention on programs to disarm, demobilize, and reintegrate fighters. Despite the resources and effort invested in reintegration programs, however, the evidence from Namibia, Mozambique, and Sierra Leone shows that significant problems linked to incomplete reintegration persist after formal programs end. These problems include widespread unemployment among former fighters, ex-combatant involvement in criminality, re-recruitment into neighboring conflicts, and political and social polarization of reintegration grievances. Left unmanaged, such problems threaten security even if they do not lead a state back to war. The thesis explains the persistence of reintegration problems in terms of two variables: the capacity (defined as resources, operational expertise, and authority) and preferences (defined as the explicit and implicit interests and assumptions that guide programs) of reintegration actors. The capacity and preferences of these actors are aggregate independent variables that are themselves the product of endogenous (organizational and bureaucratic) and exogenous (systemic) pressures that literature on political economy and international relations theory helps to elucidate (i.e., helps to determine how reintegration actors' own behavior exacerbates or ameliorates problems). Drawing on documentation and interviews, the thesis constructs a narrative of reintegration in each case and employs process tracing within cases to identify reintegration problems, measure their impact on security, and determine whether and how the capacity and preferences of reintegration actors contributed to the persistence of reintegration problems. The thesis uses comparative analysis to generalize inferences about the variables observed, and suggests potential solutions to improve the management of reintegration problems and creation of economic opportunities. Unless deeper issues of reintegration governance related to problem management and opportunity creation are addressed, targeted remedies to improve program design will not succeed.

Kashechewan, a flood-prone remote First Nation in northern Ontario, is the focus of this thesis. It is an exploration into the factors that have contributed to the community’s decline and current state. By looking at how these factors influence built form, the principles, possibilities, and concepts that are latent within it are used to re-establish ways in which the people can view, value, and act upon the land to create lasting change. The discussion has larger implications about how we, as Canadians, live with the land and built forms, and react to one another both as a collective, and as individuals. It is an attempt to dissolve the distinction between ‘aboriginal’ and ‘colonizer’ to open up greater design possibilities. Composed as a series of explorations into the physical and spiritual form of the community, this thesis weaves together three parts of its larger story connected with the thread of narrative poem. Part I opens a discourse that considers the impact of the system and establishment of Aboriginal Reserves on the community. Part II explores the notion of remoteness alongside methods of movement and transportation of people and materials. Part III engages the ephemeral, discussing memory and the meaning of transient moments. Stemming from these streams of exploration, three individual designs are proposed. The first explores flood-resilient architecture as a sensitive response to the river and engages the future expansion of the community beyond the walls of the dike. The second envisions an integration of movement into a centralized community hub. The third lays out an approach to abandoning the site while preserving its sacred spaces. In each case, the design explores built form as a tool for fusing back together the spirit of the land and the narrative of the people. Through the metaphor of flooding as a conversation between the light and the dark, this thesis looks at the history of abuse between aboriginal and colonizer, and the current abuse of substance and soul from which an architectural premise moves forward. The thesis attempts to embrace the complexity and difficulty of designing with such inherent obstacles to overcome by taking inspiration from the simple and sublime beauty of the place and distilling it into built form.

This thesis studies the Swedish advertising business as an actor in the national formation of Sweden. It argues that earlier research has ignored to see advertising businesses as possible forces of these formations. The essay investigates how this appears historically through collaboration with an informational organisation that had risen due to the Second World War and that was a part of the national defence. I can, by investigating a discussion that focused on this informational organisation and the advertising businesses relation to it, show how the business as an effect of a civic engagement expressed an interest to participate in the informational work. The thesis will also, through the pamphlet Om kriget kommer. Vägledning för rikets medborgare i händelse av krig, that was part of a campaign made by this organisation, and through a correspondence between the informational organisation and some people of the advertising business that were included in the elaboration of the pamphlet, show how the business successively gained influence over this work. It was through advertising theoretical frameworks that the business could gain influence on the informational campaigns. By applying these skills on the informational work, the advertising business guaranteed a thorough circulation of the national definition that was presented in the pamphlet. The inclusion of the advertising business in the informational work is furthermore highlighted by the civil deeds that were dictated in the same pamphlet – actions, that if practiced, in turn would secure and possibly form the nation.

This thesis examines the unstable nature and dynamic impact of contemporary nationalism on the arduous process of reconstituting a modern multinational state. The basic research question concerns the relationship between nationalism and multinational democracy, or more specifically how nationalist forces may facilitate or impede the intricate process of political transition, democratic transformation and stabilization of the newly formed Bosnia and Herzegovina as a state. The findings indicate that nationalism and exclusive ethno-nationalist politics create serious inter-group security challenges and significantly hinder the process democratization, state-building and political transformation. The main obstacle to a coherent political system is based on the fact that nationalism causes an unconstrained reconfiguration of political space. This is apparent in BiH where exclusive nationalist politics continue to dominate the domestic and inter-national political agenda, thus limiting the capacity for political reforms, security and stability. As nationalism is a grave security threat to multinational states, there is a pressing need to manage nationalism with confidence building mechanisms that strengthen the state’s capacity to ensure enduring security and stability.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Victoria University (Melbourne, Vic.), 2007. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Washington State University, December 2008. / Title from PDF title page (viewed on Dec. 31, 2008). "Department of Political Science." Includes bibliographical references (p. 154-170).