Philosophiae Doctor - PhD / The main theoretical and empirical interest of this study is the critical examination of the life of David Cecil Oxford (D.C.O.) Matiwane. In it, I critically examine the politics of representing Matiwane’s life and the methods employed in such a discourse. I do this by focusing on the question of representation of political, social and economic struggles launched by D.C.O. Matiwane against segregation and apartheid in South Africa in the twentieth century. This study then questions the notion of creating a biographical supernarrative of his achievements. It confronts the binary approach in the representation of his life and argues that Matiwane’s life is an embodiment of various, even contradictory, philosophies. This study puts forward an argument that Matiwane's representation should be contextualised in relation to the struggles of his contemporaries, and that his narrative should not be seen as a product of a single political route. It unpacks various communal, individual, economic and political strategies employed by organisations and persons against apartheid and colonialism. It looks at how these strategies were implemented to overcome apartheid, and analyses how Matiwane's contribution is documented, especially in relation to contributions made by others. This research project also analyses how different layers and patterns in Matiwane's narrative have been created in an attempt to present his auto/biography as a cohesive discourse in spite of fragmented archival and oral memory. It argues that his memory has been appropriated to pursue different political and personal ends. This study further asks the following question: to what extent and why have different political systems given Matiwane’s voice a platform or silenced his point of view? Are there trends in his representation compared to narratives of his contemporaries? What are the underlying reasons behind such trends, if any? Are there continuities or discontinuities in his representation? What were the ambiguities embedded in their struggles? This study evaluates factors that led to him being declared a persona non grata. It closely examines why and how Matiwane has been represented as a source of controversy, as a lone political activist and as a pragmatist.

This dissertation research examines how shared aspects of identity are constructed among the Druze in Lebanon and how it contributes to conceptualizations of heritage. Assessing the educational resources focused on aspects of Druze heritage, the barriers to cultural preservation were elucidated. Utilizing a number of qualitative research methods, participants’ feedback constructed a narrative that considers what they believe to be at risk for their community. These issues included addressing a perceived knowledge gap wherein the majority of Druze expressed a need to expand the educational resources in their community. Participants defined the kinds of resources and social supports that are lacking and explained how existing texts, lectures, and seminars should be improved, increased, and made more accessible. This dissertation is a result of ethnographic fieldwork which I conducted throughout 2014. Having lived in the town of Aley, Lebanon, I conducted research interviews with individuals that represented a broad spectrum of society, taking into account women and men of different ages with diverse social, economic, and educational backgrounds. Through participant observation, I shared many of the daily experiences of research participants and observed the Druze in their regular lives, their social gatherings, and at sites of historical significance. Using a political economic theoretical framework, this research also explored the diversity of ways in which social phenomena are contested among the Druze in Lebanon. While much of the anthropological and social science research on heritage focuses on its material components, utilizing pre-established models that conflate heritage with tangible symbolic expressions, a political economic approach insists that the context of social structures are taken into account. This also lends itself to a conceptualization of heritage as a process by which individuals create meaning in their lives, which are shaped by social contexts such as history and contemporary culture. This research highlights the fact that a priori models that fail to consider both social structures and the fundamental perspectives of participants are based upon ideologies that lack a critical academic lens. This dissertation demonstrates that while Druze particularism often necessitated a level of conformity and ascription to traditional values, the diversity of individual approaches to shared identity contributed to the plasticity of cultural forms and varieties of self-expression. As well, expanded and improved educational resources that encourage individuals to learn more about their history and the basic tenets of their faith were widely seen as a valued means of ensuring the society’s continuation.

This document is a comparative synthesis of the reports on regional case studies written by PERCEIVE's partners. Each report is based both on an original data collection and on the analysis of the focus group's section that addresses communication issues. Each partner collected national and/or regional communication plans, which were mostly used for the first chapter of this report: "Communication strategy at different levels and LMAs' organization."

Le foncier, entendu comme des relations entre les humains à propos de la terre, est au cœur de la répartition des pouvoirs, particulièrement dans les sociétés à dominantes agraires. Encadrer sa gestion à travers la formulation d'une politique publique signifie altérer les rapports entre l'État et les pouvoirs locaux, et la manière dont l’État entend construire un pouvoir de contrôle sur les hommes et le territoire. À travers l'exemple de l'Ouganda sous le régime du National Resistance Movement (NRM), cette thèse en science politique analyse la manière dont une politique publique foncière se fabrique en interaction avec les structures de pouvoir. Nous touchons ici aux rapports entre polity, politics et policy. Appréhendée comme une activité politique, la fabrication d’une politique publique foncière en contextes africains n’est pas qu’une affaire d’État. Elle est une source de légitimité politique pour les acteurs intégrés au processus. Son instrumentalisation peut profiter à un changement de rapports de force. Ce processus commence à partir de la fabrication des énoncés de problème et aboutit à la négociation d'une solution. Cette recherche inductive se fonde sur des méthodes de recherche qualitative : observations participantes, entretiens semi-structurés, recours à la littérature grise et aux archives. Elle est le fruit d'un travail de terrain de quatre ans en Ouganda. Cette thèse innove d'un point de vue théorique en intégrant l'approche discursive et pragmatique de l'action publique à l'approche structurationniste. Elle lie cette approche à la notion « d'historicité de l’État importé ». Ce cadre théorique permet d'étudier les mouvements d'ordre et de désordre de la société qu'engendre la formulation des énoncés de problème et de solution. Elle fournit aussi un apport empirique détaillé à l'étude de la politique foncière en Ouganda. Cette thèse contribue ainsi à l'étude de la démocratisation en Afrique, de celle du foncier en Afrique, et de celle des politiques publiques en contextes africains. / Land tenure, defined as the set of relations among humans that determine their interaction with land, lies at the heart of power struggles, especially in agrarian societies. Governing land management through public policy means changing power relations between the state and the local institutions that exercise social control. Using Uganda under the regime of the National Resistance Movement (NRM) as its case study, this thesis in political science explores the manner a public policy concerning land is constructed through the interactions among various power structures. We are dealing here with the interactions among polity, politics and policy. Examined as a political activity, the construction of a public policy concerning land in African contexts goes beyond a matter of concern for the state alone. This activity is a source of political legitimacy for those actors participating in the process. Its instrumentalisation can lead to changes in power relations. This process starts with the construction of the problem and ends with the negotiation of a solution. This inductive research is based on qualitative research methods : participant observation, semi-structured interviews, analysis of grey literature and of archives. It is based on four years of field work in Uganda. This thesis innovates theoretically as it integrates the discursive and pragmatic approach of public policy to structuration theory. It ties this approach to the notion of « historicity of the imported state ». This theoretical framework allows us to study the ordering and disordering of society that are triggered by the formulation of problems and solutions. It provides a detailed empirical study of public policy concerning land in Uganda. This thesis contributes, more generally, to the study of democratisation in Africa, land tenure in Africa and public policy in African contexts.