Mémoire numérisé par la Division de la gestion de documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal

Mémoire numérisé par la Division de la gestion de documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal

Poverty and unemployment are critical challenges that confront the post-apartheid government. Over a decade has passed since the implementation of the neoliberal Growth, Employment and Redistribution strategy (GEAR), and the policy has largely failed to address the socio-economic inequalities in South Africa. As a result of the lack of job opportunities in the country, many South Africans participate in the growing informal economy. Although there are more men employed informally, women tend to dominate certain sectors such as street trading. Research indicates that many female street traders are the sole providers for their dependants, and thus rely heavily on the small income that is generated. As women, female traders are also tasked with managing their households and taking care of their families. The thesis aims to explore the identities that female street traders construct in relation to their work experiences at home and in the informal economy. The empirical research for this study was conducted in the Hill Street informal market, which is located in the central Pinetown area, within the eThekwini Municipality. In order to address the research problem, this study adopts a feminist approach that highlights the engendered binary logic that pervades western spatial thought. Spatial binaries, such as the space/place and public/private dualisms, are intimately linked to gender. Whilst notions of home in the private sphere are thought to embody feminine characteristics, public space is typically encoded masculine. Feminist geographers argue that how space is conceptualised matters to the construction of gendered identities, in that gender and space are mutually constitutive. In this study a range of qualitative, interpretive techniques are used to explore the meanings that female street traders attach to their work spaces and to their identities as women. By exploring the everyday work activities of female street traders, as they move between engendered public and private space, attention is drawn to how the working experiences of these women both challenge and reproduce traditional ways of conceptualising space and gender. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2009.

Street-involved women with co-occurring disorders experience distinct and overwhelming health and social issues, while facing considerable barriers to appropriate and helpful services. Street Connections, a Population and Public Health program, provides services to this and other street-involved aggregates using Harm Reduction and mobile outreach to prevent sexually transmitted infections and blood borne pathogens. Three conceptual frameworks, Gender-based Analysis, the Comprehensive, Continuous, Integrated System of Care, and Harm Reduction guided the practicum. The purpose of the practicum was to develop policy/practice recommendations for Street Connections regarding service enhancement for this aggregate. Literature-based best-practices were compared to three agency case studies of programs providing services to this aggregate including Street Connections, the Program of Assertive Community Treatment, and Dream Catchers. Data, consisting of agency documents and person-centered interviews with nine staff, were analyzed using open coding to identify themes. Recommendations incorporate gender-based analysis, recovery, access, engagement, screening, integrated services, and staff development/support.

This research explores culture-led regeneration; specifically, how and why small, community-based culture-led regeneration projects potentially affect their respective communities. Methodology is founded on an in-depth case study of The Edge Artist Village in Winnipeg, supported by a literature review, quantitative research examining property values, and archival research. The practicum shows that The Edge Artist Village has had a tremendous impact on the community of North Main Street. While various stakeholders interpreted The Edge‘s impact in different ways, perceptions of safety in the community have improved, and long vacant buildings in the neighbourhood are finding new tenants. This study makes recommendations as to how planners can potentially play a role in encouraging culture-led regeneration projects such as The Edge Artist Village, and suggests ways in which private developers and municipal government can collaborate more effectively to support their communities.

Harsh Reality is a print resource aimed toward the population of street-involved youth. Created by a working group of street-involved youth in partnership with a research nurse, Harsh Reality is a unique hybrid of factual information, and art and written experienced submitted by street-involved youth themselves. Harsh Reality contains information about a variety of topics, notably sexually transmitted infections and HIV/AIDS. A case study method was used to evaluate aspects of both project process and outcomes. The case study was guided by three areas of study: street-involved youth's perceptions of the resource, retention of specific knowledge outcomes from the resource, and method of resource distribution. The primary sources of data were street-involved youth themselves. Findings of this study include a description of the target audience's perception of the resource, an analysis of specific knowledge uptake, an assessment of various methods of resource distribution, and possible suggestions for future resources.

This study focuses on the implementation of national intervention programs for street children in the province of Yogyakarta, Indonesia. A two-fold research methodology was employed, a combination of analyzing the pertinent documentation relating to policy and intervention programs along with interviews of key informants from government offices and non-governmental institutions. The current programs fail to address the root causes of the economic, political, and social barriers encountered by street children. National policies and programs are not intertwined with efforts of empowerment at the provincial and regional levels. To compound these deficiencies, adaptive strategies incorporating local culture, conditions, and needs are also absent in the planning and implementation of official programs. Alternative efforts are required to rectify the inadequacies endemic to current approaches for assisting street children. A number of recommendations are presented in this study, which take into consideration the complex problems presented by existing programs and suggest a rethinking and a redesign of contemporary methodologies in Indonesia.

Much recent UK gang research has failed to adequately answer: do gangs exist and if so, are they organised? internal gang dynamics, criminal behaviours and motivations for joining remain largely unexplored; as does the upsurge in violent crime in gang-affected areas of south London. This research set out to answer these questions by investigating gangs in Lambeth, their activities and the daily experiences of those affiliated to them. The study begins by profiling the case study area, currently prevalent street gangs and links to violent crime. The investigation then examines in detail inter-gang and intragang dynamics and community relationships. A further objective is to establish whether, and if so to what extent, gangs were expanding and becoming more deeply embedded in the neighbourhood. This work situates contemporary UK gang research within the literary arc of classic and contemporary US gang research, from Chicago School to Hagedorn. Current UK studies are categorised into three distinct arguments, then critiqued from a Left Realist perspective. Addressing the question, how do we explain an increase in gang related violence?, the work establishes the gang as a social arena (field) of competition where actors struggle for distinction. But what are the characteristics and boundaries of this social -Field? What motivates young people to enter it, and how do you succeed within it? How significant are personal relationships and networks? What is the role of social capital and how do you become a competent actor in this field? These issues are explored using the theoretical perspectives of social field analysis and habitus from Bourdieu alongside various elements of social capital theory. An inductive ethnometholdogy was adopted. The paper presents findings from 30 qualitative interviews of residents, professionals and gang -affiliated young people in Lambeth. The ethical challenges of gang research, such as access and anonymity are addressed. The findings support the proposition that gangs in south London exist, are active and internally organised into three structural tiers. Success within the field is determined by building and maintaining Street Capital -a tradable asset. To acquire this, members strategise by employing tested techniques from the Gang Repertoire, derived from the habitus. Youngers and Olders employ different Repertoires. All actors within the social field are subject to sanctions with new arrivals at increased risk. The field is highly gendered and girls are central to the gang strategising using information and the gang Network. Importantly the findings support the argument that gangs in Lambeth are evolving and becoming more embedded. Increased gang related violence is an outcome of new dynamics in social field, including the imperative to acquire Street Capital and the role of new technology. Increased tensions and violence have cumulative stressful impacts for young people. To address this, they increasingly risk manage their lives through self exclusion or a fatalistic immersion in the social field.

The thesis had its starting point in the first paragraph of the eleventh chapter in the Swedish social services act, which discusses the immediate risk assessments that has to be made when the social services receive a report about a child. The thesis highlights an area that has received a lot of attention in media since the spring of 2014, when an eight year old girl was fatally abused by her legal guardians. The social services had at the time received a report about the girl but it was left unread. This tragic case has brought attention to the routines used by the social services for dealing with reports and risk assessments. This thesis was conducted through individual interviews with social workers working with children and families in the social services, with the aim to acquire an enhanced understanding of how social workers perform immediate risk assessments and what these assessments are based on. The results of the study showed that several of the municipalities had a routine for how to handle incoming reports, but lacked specific routines regarding the immediate risk assessments. Without specific routines, the informants stated experience, intuition and cooperation with co-workers and managers as important factors of making risk assessments. / Studien tog avstamp i socialtjänstlagens elfte kapitel, första paragrafen, vilken behandlar den omedelbara skyddsbedömning som ska göras av socialtjänsten vid en inkommen anmälan gällande ett barn. Studien belyser ett medialt uppmärksammat område som sedan våren 2014 blivit vida diskuterat då en åttaårig flicka misshandlades till döds av sina vårdnadshavare. Socialtjänsten hade då fått in en anmälan om flickan men som ingen ännu hade läst. Detta tragiska fall har uppmärksammat socialtjänstens rutiner kring anmälningar och hur de genomför skyddsbedömningar. Studien genomfördes genom individuella intervjuer med socialsekreterare som arbetar inom Barn och familj i socialtjänsten och syftet med studien var att få en ökad förståelse för hur socialsekreterarna utför skyddsbedömningar och vad som ligger till grund för dessa bedömningar. Studiens resultat visade att det i flera av kommunerna fanns en rutin för hur en inkommen anmälan skulle hanteras, men att det saknades specifika riktlinjer för hur de omedelbara skyddsbedömningarna skulle göras. I avsaknad av specifika riktlinjer uppgav informanterna att erfarenhet, intuition och samarbete med kollegor och chefer utgjorde viktiga delar av att göra skyddsbedömningar.

This study is constructed upon narratives of fourteen young women, who have been working in prostitution since they were street children in central Lima, and acknowledges their stigmatization in the Peruvian society, and how they challenge their socially constructed position. By combining narrative method with an intersectional analysis I have, through a multi-layered loupe, interpreted the young women’s interpretation of themselves and their social world. I will bring forward how these young women view their subordinate and stigmatized position through their narratives surrounding their bodies as shameful, culpable, sexual and fixed. This stigmatization is intersectional as it surrounds all parts of their lives and situatedness within the Peruvian society. This situatedness is complex, involving hierarchical structures that have been present in Peru since colonization and imperialism (cf. Wade 2009). In addition, I will bring forward how the young women engage in strategies to challenge this stigmatization by applying measures to increase their respectability (cf. Skeggs).