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Magister Legum - LLM / Timely, adequate and affordable access to finance is pivotal to bolstering the participation of small and medium-size enterprises (SMEs) in both domestic and international trade. Regrettably, despite their immense contributions to the economy, most SMEs in Nigeria and across Africa find it extremely challenging to access finance from banks and the stock market. As a result, they cannot fund their working capital and trade financing needs conveniently, and this undermines their growth and capacity to contribute even more to the economy. This situation has made it imperative to continue exploring alternative sources of finance that may be more accessible and align better with the peculiarities of SMEs.

京都大学 / 0048 / 新制・課程博士 / 博士(医学) / 甲第20805号 / 医博第4305号 / 新制||医||1025(附属図書館) / 京都大学大学院医学研究科医学専攻 / (主査)教授 高橋 淳, 教授 古川 壽亮, 教授 小杉 眞司 / 学位規則第4条第1項該当 / Doctor of Medical Science / Kyoto University / DFAM

dissertation thesis: Construction of motherhood and feminity in the three generations Author: Mgr. Romana Marková Volejníčková This dissertation aims to analyze the norms of "good" motherhood, discourses, and social practices related to these norms, and their connection and interrelationship with the issue of agency and women's/mothers' free choice under specific conditions over the course of three defined periods. In particular, in this study, I focused on the prevalent conditions (be it legislation, i.e. family and social policies, expert discourses in the field of psychology, demography, pediatrics, etc., but also societal expectations of women within family and employment) during the three defined periods. I analyzed how individual standards of "good" motherhood and "proper" child care are defined and conceived under these circumstances, in which the interviewed mothers carried out their motherhood projects. Furthermore, I focused on what choices mothers could make in these normative conditions, what choices they considered available to them and realistic in each one period, and whether some of the mothers' personal traits may have bolstered or diminished their ability to make informed choices concerning their motherhood project. In the three periods examined, the manifestations of biopower...

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Global humanitarian standards increasingly call for greater refugee participation in the decisions that affect refugees’ lives, with the dual aim of developing more equitable relations with refugees (transformative participation) and improving the effectiveness of aid interventions (instrumental participation). However, the limited research available suggests past approaches to refugee participation have habitually failed to meaningfully include refugees in the decision-making processes of humanitarian programs and policies. Rather, humanitarian organizations are criticized for paying lip service to refugee participation while maintaining control over important decisions and, thus, their power in relation to refugees. Though this issue has long been recognized as problematic, few studies have tried to understand and explain why efforts to implement meaningful refugee participation continuously fail to achieve this concept’s empowering and transformative objectives. The following dissertation responds to this query through an in-depth case study of refugee participation in the context of Beirut, Lebanon with the objective of understanding: how urban refugees are able to participate in decision-making processes of the humanitarian interventions that impact their lives; what barriers exist that impede their participation; why these barriers endure; and what the consequences of a lack of meaningful refugee participation are to refugees and to the wider humanitarian response. I answer these questions by drawing on semi-structured, qualitative interviews with a diverse group of refugee participants (44 interviews) and humanitarian organizational participants (42 interviews). This data is triangulated by comparing and testing the information received from interview participants with each other and against documentary evidence, such as government and NGO policy documents and reports, quantitative studies, newspaper articles, field notes, and academic studies. My analysis is further strengthened by a conceptual framework built on three approaches: the concept of meaningful participation and what this really entails; a Foucauldian concept of power to explain how discourses of power/knowledge shape and produce the relations between refugees and humanitarian organizations; and the Capabilities Approach as a comprehensive framework that can strengthen and guide participatory processes to ensure they maintain their transformative objectives. Relying on the perspectives of both humanitarian organizations and refugees, my research reveals conflicting understandings of what refugee participation means to these groups. Most humanitarian organizations view their efforts as generally successful and think that they listen to refugees. In contrast, refugees feel that their voices are frequently dismissed or ignored, particularly when their requests fail to match up with what organizations have already decided. This failure to listen to refugees’ voices and what they see as important creates a continuous gap between how humanitarian organizations, the Government of Lebanon, and refugees frame the problems at hand and the solutions to address these problems. In turn, this gap limits the impact of humanitarian efforts that aim to ‘protect’ refugees–in the fullest sense of this word–as refugees’ real needs go unmet. This forces refugees to respond in the few ways open to them, by resisting, manipulating, or avoiding humanitarian interventions all together, further undermining the effectiveness of these interventions. It is often implicitly assumed that refugee participation will naturally lead to its intended outcomes of greater program effectiveness and more equitable power relations between refugees and humanitarian organizations. However, this thesis demonstrates that neither of these objectives can take place unless refugees have influence and control over the decisions that affect them. Building on these findings, I offer a number of concrete recommendations to address the barriers identified in the research and help make meaningful refugee participation a reality.

This study examines questions about the relationships that seem to exist between the goal of supporting personal agency in student writers and a specific meditation practice as implemented in the second semester of freshman composition. With both whole-class and individualized data sources, the study seeks to address changes in students' attitudes toward the meditative practice as well as their own senses of personal agency. In addition the study seeks to identify to what extent and in what ways do students articulate relationships between their use of meditative techniques in class and their own perceptions of their personal agency in writing. The individualized case studies examine students' reflective writings completed during one semester of data collection, in addition to their verbalized reflections discussed during an oral interview conducted at the end of that semester.

The history of European hegemony in the Western hemisphere has been marked by “objectivity” or a collective subjectivity in which European historians and scholars believe that their viewpoints and perspectives about the world are dominant, causing them to push their ideologies as universal. This objectivity is problematic because it leads to the deliberate omission and falsification of the histories and cultures of other groups of people. This is especially true for Africans who have been relegated to the margins in most European narratives about world history. The most apparent display of this marginalization occurs in the educational sector, specifically at U.S. public schools, where African children are indoctrinated to believe that they lack both a history and culture and therefore, must assimilate to European ideals in order to fare well in society. This narrative is detrimental because it aids in agency reduction. In order to restore African agency in the classroom and to correct the miseducation that African children receive in Eurocentrically grounded school systems, Black scholars and educators began creating Afrocentric schools, a branch of Independent Black Institutions (IBIs) that prioritize the history and culture of Africans across the diaspora, in the late 1960s. Although many of these schools have and continue to combat this successfully, many have collapsed and closed over time thus presenting a significant and alarming issue since they are still relatively new institutions and play a crucial role in unlocking the African genius. The purpose of this study then, is to Afrocentrically examine the history and effectiveness of Afrocentric schools in order to further advocate for their presence in the U.S. in light of these closures. This will be done by discussing the characteristics of Afrocentric schools as well as the ways that they have and continue to impact African people, by analyzing the criticisms that they receive from Eurocentrically aligned Africans and Europeans, by assessing literature from Afrocentric scholars who have explored the closing of some Afrocentric schools, and most importantly, by comparing Eurocentric and Afrocentric curricula to highlight the importance of agency restoration and cultural reclamation for Black children in centered learning. This study will also proffer suggestions for African community members, educators, and activists to promote Afrocentric education beyond institutional settings. This study is framed by several research questions, specifically: (1) What is an Afrocentric school and why are they important for African people? (2) What are the components of Afrocentric Education? and (3) What corrective measures can Afrocentric educators, scholars, activists, community members, and institution builders take to maintain the status and stability of Afrocentric schools and more importantly, promote Afrocentric education beyond institutional settings? / African American Studies