Master of Arts / Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Social Work / L. Susan Williams / This study focuses on experiences of women workers in Brazilian street markets, as told in their own words. Feminist epistemology informs this study, including face-to-face interviews as well as participant observation. Participants share how they became informal entrepreneurs, offering a unique perspective of market work that is local and personal. Two major concepts inform this study. First, local gender regimes emphasizes context as influential in women's practices and perceptions; both opportunity structures and cultural milieux restrain earning potential. Equally important is the second concept, luta, or "fighting energy," a concept that emerged from interviews. Luta expresses agency that guided these women toward an entrepreneurial decision. Interviews reveal that traditional expectations, conducive to acceptance of gendered experiences for these women's mothers and grandmothers, were transformed into new meaning in the marketplace. However, they do not openly deny dominant ideological practices. In a process that includes both resistance and accommodation, they maintain their business, but keep religious ideologies of obedience and responsibility for household tasks. These ideologies, mostly unacknowledged, may keep some of them as feirantes –market vendors who see themselves and their business as limited. To others, the street becomes a preparatory stage to engage in larger business endeavors; they become empreendedoras informais, who demonstrate an entrepreneurial vision to take the business beyond a small market stall. Findings support the feminist postulate that gendered structural factors significantly shape experiences of women, but also that a strong element of agency marks practices of Brazilian women in the marketplace. In particular, this study contributes to an international scholarship by and for women, exploring cultural influences on their life processes and perceptions. Literature on women and the informal economy should continue to include the pervasiveness of gendered ideologies without neglect to women's capacity for producing change through human agency.

M.A. / Please refer to full text to view abstract

Magister Public Health - MPH / This study is aimed to assess the extent of street food vendor information and education on food safety. Aim: To determine the knowledge, attitudes and practices (KAP) of street food vendors, within the City of Johannesburg, with regard to food hygiene and safety. Methods: A descriptive, cross-sectional study utilizing a quantitative research approach. Data was collected through face-to-face interviewing of street food vendors, with observations of general hygiene and cleanliness. Data was captured in Excel and imported into CDC Epi Info version 3.4.3 (2007) for analysis. Numerical data was analyzed using descriptive statistics and categorical data was analyzed using frequencies. Bivariate analysis was used to establish differences between regions with high and low proportions of street food vendors with regard to knowledge, practices and attitudes variables. / South Africa

Magister Philosophiae - MPhil / This study investigates ways in which migratory trajectories relate to the gradual insertion and eventual integration of immigrants. It therefore shows the contribution of social capital in the migration and insertion into the entrepreneurial city of the host country. The focus of the study is on immigrants of African origin. It is hypothesized that immigrants of different nationalities in South Africa use particular assets to engage in street vending as a way of insertion into their new environment. Data were obtained through a survey of two hundred and eight (208) respondents conveniently selected. The survey was carried out in five suburbs of Cape Town and as well as at some major road junctions where these vendors are found. The Statistical package for Social Science (SPSS) was used to analyse the data. The results showed that nationality was an important determinant of the migratory trajectories of immigrant vendors. Migration has been on the increase with the improvement in technology and globalization. In the same light, migration into South African cities mainly from the rest of Africa and Asia took an upward trend especially after the fall of Apartheid Regime and the advent of democracy in the nineties. Street vendors form part of these immigrants in South Africa. Many of them especially from other African countries find it a suitable means of survival. Faced with the difficulty of getting jobs in South Africa, immigrants resort to informal trading as a starting point for survival. They may change to other activities depending on certain variables like duration of stay, level of education, age, sex, marital status, social capital and networks. Coming from different socioeconomic, cultural and political backgrounds, these immigrants resort to different ways of migrating and forms of adaptation aimed at sustaining their livelihood in their new environments. Most studies in the field of migration and entrepreneurship focus on remittances by the migrants as well as their impact on both their place of departure and on the place of destination. Little attention is paid to the way they migrate and how they insert themselves in the entrepreneurial city. / South Africa

Master of Public Health - MPH / Urban health policy has remained a neglected area in India. The homeless remain the most deprived, neglected and stigmatized group amongst the urban poor. While they suffer from a large burden of disease, there are a variety of reasons that prevent them from accessing the available health care services – particularly in the public health sector. Some interventions by concerned non-governmental organisations have attempted to circumvent the barriers to health care access faced by the homeless but these have not been well documented or assessed. This study seeks to establish both the barriers and facilitating factors for access to health care and health care seeking amongst adult street dwellers in an area of New Delhi which is known for a high concentration of homeless persons. Using a qualitative approach 18 adult street dwellers (both male and female) were individually interviewed – along with 6 key informants working in the public and non-governmental health sector. This was accompanied by a process of participant-observation. The results were analyzed by identifying recurrent themes associated with barriers and facilitating factors for access to health care by the homeless, following which a set of recommendations related to the homeless, have been developed so as to inform those working in the public health sector. In terms of ethics, informed consent was taken from each interviewee and they were explicitly given the option not to participate without adverse consequences to themselves. If any participant was found with acute health problems immediate assistance was facilitated. The study reveals a number of barriers faced by the homeless in attempting to access health care services. While minor ailments are taken care of by local private practitioners, they need to access public health care services for major problems. There they encounter many barriers due to the lack of money, delays and being shunted from place to place. Moreover, they are not able to get admission for reasons such as lack of address and the lack of an attendant. Facilitating factors include assistance for transportation, facilitation of admissions, arranging money for out of pocket expenditures on drugs and consumables, arranging blood and providing after-care. The role of social contacts in enabling access is also demonstrated through this study. The recommendations that emerge from the study are intended to assist in policy advocacy towards a comprehensive health care system for them, as well as assist health care providers to provide a better service for homeless people.

I detta arbete har jag undersökt vilka möjligheter och metoder som finns för att skapa konst i utemiljö. Hur kan skapande i offentlig miljö utföras inom skolan? Vad går att göra med hänsyn till olika regler och lagar? Syftet med studien är att synliggöra tillvägagångssätt för skapande i offentlig miljö som kan utföras som platsspecifikt görande tillsammans med elever. Empirin består av flera olika delar; en intervjustudie, litteraturstudie och dokumentation från konstnärlig forskning. Som komplement till detta undersöks telefonsamtal och mejlkorrespondens med olika företag och myndigheter. Den konstnärliga forskningens empiri består av en skriftlig och en visuell dokumentation från när jag prövat olika praktiker som gatukonst eller land art, och undersökt skapandeprocessen genom mitt eget görande. Dessa experiment är gestaltningar i sig själva, men fotodokumentation från dessa försök ligger till grund för gestaltningen som visades på Konstfacks vårutställning. Där sammanställs de olika försöken och sorteras i två olika grupper, lagliga metoder eller olagliga. Resultatet av projektet visar att det trots den juridiska gråzonen kring skapande i utemiljö finns goda möjligheter att genomföra undervisning lämplig att genomföra tillsammans med elever i skolan, med hjälp av flera användbara metoder från land art och gatukonst. Gestaltningen visar fotodokumentation på några av dessa möjliga metoder och kan även användas som diskussionsunderlag tillsammans med elever.

This study focuses on certain urban forestry aspects of the City of Tshwane (previously Pretoria) and in particular that of growth rate and carbon sequestration estimates of street trees with the aim of quantification of the value of these trees. The relationships between tree height and crown dimensions to stem diameter and tree age, as well as the relationship between stem diameter to tree age enable the development of growth rate equations that predict tree dimensions and carbon storage. This permits the calculation of monetary values of urban trees and thus the modelling of costs and benefits of urban forests. The main objectives were (1) to develop tree height, crown diameter, crown height, and crown base height to stem diameter relationships for the indigenous street tree species Combretum erythrophyllum, Rhus lancea andRhus pendulina, (2) to develop tree height, crown diameter, crown height, crown base height and stem diameter to tree age relationships for the above street tree species, (3) to determine the 30 year carbon sequestration estimate and monetary value of 115 000 street trees to be planted mainly in poorer previously disadvantaged communities during the period 2002 to 2008 and (4) to determine the monetary value of the 33 630 Jacaranda mimosifolia street trees in the City based on the quantity of carbon stored in the trees. Combretum erythrophyllum had the most rapid growth rate in many instances, thereafter came Rhus pendulina and then Rhus lancea, which consistently had the slowest growth rate for the investigated parameters. It is estimated that the 115 000 street trees to be planted will sequestrate more than 200 000 tonne CO2 equivalent and have an estimated monetary value of more than US$2 million if a market related CO2 price of US$10.00 per tonne is assumed. The Jacaranda street trees have an estimated carbon stock of 41 978 tonne CO2 equivalent and this would value the Jacaranda urban forest at US$419 786. Copyright / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Plant Science / unrestricted

Why do governments tolerate the violation of their own laws and regulations, and when do they enforce them? Conventional wisdom is that state weakness erodes enforcement, particularly in the developing world. In contrast, I highlight the understudied political costs of enforcement. Governments choose not to enforce state laws and regulations that the poor tend to violate, a behavior that I call forbearance, when it is in their electoral interest. / Government

Based on qualitative interviews with social workers is the aim with this study to examine a social worker's perspective concerning their work and development with street children in Bloemfontein, South Africa. The interviews were analyzed thematically focusing on how social workers describe the problems and their work/strategies with street children. The result is divided in two themes; Problems and Solution. Problems refer to how the local context concerning street children in Bloemfontein are described by social workers. Solutions refer to how the social workers describe their work and which solutions that are available in Bloemfontein. According to the participant’s street children are viewed as victims, thief’s and naughty by the society. The social workers stated that the main approach of effort in social work with street children are trustful-relationships, negotiation and support. Therefore, a relationship of trust must be gained before the children can receive help. The participants divided children of the street in to types, the ‘manipulative’ child and the ‘naive’ child. The social worker’s tasks are to work with both types of children in order to create change and to restore trust. The findings from the result are analyzed from one of Helen Fuchs Bach’s theoretical concepts from The Exit Process. This concept is called the Turning Point and refers to that there comes a point where a change is needed which affects the former identity and role for a person. Understanding the results using the Turing Point has helped us understand the importance of creating trusting relationships and making each street child feel special in order to enable change in a street child’s life.

The Clairvoyant of Calle Ocho tells the story of Mariela Valdes, who discovered she was clairvoyant in her teens, but renounced her gift when she failed to foresee her mother’s fatal illness. When her lover is found dead mere yards from her front door, she embarks on a quest to solve the mystery of his death, regain her gift for knowing, and free herself of the fear that has kept her from “seeing” her way to happiness. Though the novel contains a murder and several mysteries, it is not primarily a murder mystery. Instead, as in the novels of Dame Muriel Spark, crime is just the catalyst for the unraveling of the motivations, secrets, and true characters of a small community. As Mariela conquers her fear of seeing, she discovers the importance of sisterhood among women and comes to a new definition of marriage, infidelity, and forgiveness.