Sustainable transport planning is a complex issue and has become a great challenge for today’s decision makers. One of the biggest concerns is how sustainable mobility can be reached; where social and economic interests can work together with environmental interests. By looking into a special case of transport planning in Åriket, Uppsala this paper analyses the decision making process as well as the response from other stakeholders presented as contesting story lines. The results show there are weaknesses in the planning process, where too few alternatives have been looked at and the methods used has not been able to handle the complex issues of sustainable development in an adequate way. From the contested story lines the different opinions in the question has been identified as either being a part of the old conventional transport paradigm or a part of the new sustainable mobility paradigm, which can be used as a guideline for the decision makers in what way to go for reaching sustainable mobility.

Research Doctorate - Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / This thesis is a feminist exploration of how violence against Filipino women in Australia is represented in the Australian and Philippine media and the relationship between the women’s lives and media images of their abuse. It is fundamentally concerned with the problem of the absent and silenced voices of Filipino women in media portrayals of violence. It aims at creating a space in which the women’s stories can be told. Based on interview data and discourse analysis of Australian and Philippine newspaper articles, the study investigates how the homicides and disappearance of seven Filipino women are represented. Case studies drawn from interviews with family members and friends of these women comprise the core of the study. An exploration of additional articles and interviews further reinforces the issues and themes that emerge in the case studies. The case studies contextualise the women’s experiences. Analysing media images in light of the interviews reinstates the absent and silenced voice in media accounts of violence. By charting the lives of these seven women, their hopes and aspirations as well as the pain and fear they suffered at the hands of abusive male partners, the case studies illuminate the way media accounts have largely misrepresented their experiences. Many of the Australian articles, in particular, bore little resemblance to the women’s lived realities. Juxtaposing Australian with Philippine portrayals further illuminates the racism and sexism of a large section of the Australian print media. A major theme to emerge out of this study is that the relationship between media image and actual violence also involves struggle and conflict over constructions of identity. It is a site of contested realities. Most of the articles analysed in this study failed to tell the story from the deceased woman’s perspective. It is argued that to hear these women's voices, journalists need to move beyond using sexist, racist and class-based stereotypes, such as mail order bride, to describe Filipino women or explain their abuse. It also means accounting for the history of domestic violence that was a large part of their lives.

An investigation into a possible counter strategy that challenges destructive spatial practices in contested urban territories by cultivating networks of opportunity. The study focusses on interventions that deal with the micro level and is applied in a South African urban context, specifically Festival Street in Hatfield, Pretoria. / Dissertation (MInt(Prof))--University of Pretoria, 2009. / Architecture / unrestricted

Civil and political strive in Africa is in the main, this is due to an increase in disputes over who won elections. The disputed elections in Kenya, Zanzibar, Zimbabwe, Lesotho, Ethiopia and more recently Ivory Coast to mention but a few, indicate how disputes over election results in Africa have been escalating. ‘Over the last couple of decades, many elections in Africa have been marred by ‘extreme controversy’. Elections ‘rigging and brigandage’, violence and elections invalidation are common phenomena in Africa. The report prepared by the British-Angola Forum (BAF) following a conference on the challenges for free and fair elections in Angola, reveals that many elections in Africa are ‘subject to human error and manipulation’ and this is mainly because those who are in power want to cling onto it especially ‘in countries where there is a perception that politics means money’. Adejumobi argues that in Africa most elections in their current form appear to be ‘a fading shadow of democracy’ jeopardising the frail democratic project itself. According to the African Union Panel of Wise (AUPW), while in some countries elections have built ‘democratic governance and prosperity of citizens’, in others they have led to disputed results and violence among the political actors. / Thesis (LLM (Human Rights and Democratisation in Africa)) -- University of Pretoria, 2011. / http://www.chr.up.ac.za/ / nf2012 / Centre for Human Rights / LLM

Urban public space is arguably far from the pacified, freely accessible, democratic space which Western normative literature proposes. It is a site of contention, where different interests, norms and perceptions over appropriate uses and presence come into conflict. The visual is a relevant dimension to understand this process: in fact, claims to space by people with a visible migratory background are often problematized by the media and often responded to with securitization practices. This study contributes to gain insight into spatial practices and the manner in which visibility and invisibility are experienced and strategically influenced by Othered subjects in Piazza Duca D´Aosta, a Milanese square. The result is a case study on the paradoxical meanings that are associated with re-territorialization practices in public space, on a continuum between domestication and detachment, as well as an exploration of the complex relation between visibility as an experience and a practice.

This body of work explores the World’s Columbian Exposition 1893 and looks at how African American challenge the built environment of the Fair. The African American community contested the white constructed spaces by reimaging and claiming them for the self. At the Fair, black subordination was achieved and was maintained by the unabashed use of white power structures. After Reconstruction Black people began to turn to racial solidarity as a means of survival. Prior to Emancipation Blacks had been segregated and denied equal participation in the larger society regardless of their individual achievements. The result has been that race pride had, to a large degree, been conspicuously absent. The Fair pushed African Americans towards greater solidarity through inadvertently promoting pride in their racial heritage. Through examining the Fair, this work illuminates that the World’s Columbian Exposition 1893 served as a nexus for pivotal African American movements. I argue that the fair served as a turning point for African Americans and sparked radical movements that focused on Black independence at home and abroad. The Fair became a pivotal site of protest that paved the way for the Black Nationalist Movement, Pan-African Movement, the creation of the National Association of Colored Women, and the New Negro Movement.

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This thesis explores the dynamics of narrative production and contestation within individuals’ stories and the collective stories of the communities in which they live. The research is focused on trying to understand the relationship between public stories constructed about place and community, and the stories told by the inhabitants of those places. A case study in the city of Bradford provides a focus for inquiry. A qualitative research design is utilised, combining theory with primary data collection and analysis. A narrative analysis of national, academic and local stories about Bradford is used to disaggregate collective narratives of the city and explore the relationship between popular, political and academic discourses. It provides a context for the analysis of in-depth interviews with a range of inhabitants from a selected geographic area within Bradford, centred on how their individual stories relate to the identified collective stories of Bradford. Analysis of the fieldwork data shows that individuals are often engaged in complex negotiations of public discourse in ways that may reinforce and contest existing stories, but also complement them with parallel stories that neither reinforce nor contest but construct a different narrative. It reveals and reflects on apparent contradictions within everyday storytelling, for example, how nostalgia can be displayed about harsh times of socio-economic decline, or how attitudes to change over time can be variably positive and negative depending both on the speakers’ positioning of themselves and of the interviewer, and the speakers’ purpose in the interaction.

Cette thèse porte sur le marché dit « volontaire » des services de compensation carbone. Sur ce marché, des entreprises, qui n’ont aucune obligation de souscrire à ces services, achètent à des opérateurs privés, ONG ou entreprises, des « crédits carbone » pour « compenser » leurs émissions de gaz à effet de serre (GES). Pour obtenir ces crédits carbone, les opérateurs du marché mettent en œuvre des projets de réduction des émissions de GES dans les pays du Sud. Ces nouveaux échanges marchands du début des années 2000 ne sont pas sans susciter de critiques. Journalistes, ONG environnementales et scientifiques considèrent que ce marché, d’une part, ne permet pas de réduire efficacement les émissions de GES et, d’autre part, que les populations du Sud encourent de potentiels dangers avec la mise en œuvre de tels projets. La thèse interroge ainsi l’apparent paradoxe du choix des entreprises d’investir dans des services environnementaux contestés alors que ces derniers ne constituent pas une obligation réglementaire et peuvent mettre en danger leur réputation. En considérant le marché « volontaire » comme un « marché contesté », selon le sens donné à cette notion par Steiner et Trespeuch (2014), la thèse rend compte des conditions d’existence et de maintien de ce marché. A partir d’entretiens, d’observations et de l’analyse de sources écrites, elle examine le rôle de divers dispositifs, du travail marchand ainsi que de l’appropriation de l’offre par les acheteurs dans l’organisation de ce marché. La thèse interroge plus généralement le rapport entre économie et environnement et s’intéresse aux ressorts de l’engagement « volontaire » des entreprises pour le climat. / This dissertation deals with the so-called “voluntary” carbon offset market. In this market, companies, which have no obligation to subscribe to these services, purchase “carbon credits” to “offset” their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from private operators (NGOs or businesses). To obtain carbon credits, operators implement GHG emission reduction projects in Southern countries. These new trade exchanges, which date from the early 2000s, provoke critics. Journalists, environmental NGOs and scientists believe that this market on the one hand does not effectively reduce GHG emissions to fight against climate change, and on the other hand that people in the South face potential dangers linked to the implementation of carbon offsetting projects. The dissertation thus questions the apparent paradox of the choice of companies to invest in contested environmental services when they are not a regulatory obligation and may endanger their reputation. By considering the “voluntary” market as a “contested market”, according to the meaning given to this notion by Steiner and Trespeuch (2014), the dissertation explores the conditions of existence and maintenance of this market. Through interviews, observations and written sources, our research analyzes the role of various market devices, but also commercial work as well as the appropriation of the offer by buyers in organizing this market. In doing so, it questions more generally the relationship between economy and the environment and is interested in the determinant factors of the “voluntary” commitment of companies for the fight against global warming.