Academics, experts and politicians have come to the conclusion that democracy is in trouble. The contemporary understanding is that new competitive pressures from the outside and unruly publics from the inside have drastically changed the way politics is enacted. Where it was previously provoked by ideological programs it is now engulfed in issues, and where it used to be framed by established democratic institutions it is now characterized by informal governance arrangements. In this environment, it is argued, only the reformed institution can bridge the gap between politics and democracy and restore legitimacy to the decision-making process. In Swedish planning, these reforms have positioned the citizen as the point of departure for democratic politics, manifested in procedural citizen dialogues and in authorities’ relinquishment of political responsibilities. But when unplanned publics do emerge, they are intuitively dismissed as NIMBYs and obstacles to the planning process – preemptively foreclosing opportunities for public democratic enactment. The aim of this paper is to analyze this process by examining the public controversy surrounding the ongoing redevelopment of Slakthusområdet in southern Stockholm. It draws heavily on Noortje Marres’ work. She suggests that politics pursued outside of established institutions could be occasions for democracy since the activity might indicate that issues are finding sites that are hospitable to their articulation as matters of public concern. However, her issue-focused reasoning also positions the citizen as the focal point for democratic politics, meaning that those who fail to accept this role inevitably have themselves to blame. Her work is therefore supplement­ed with Laurent Thévenot’s understanding of how forms, that is, ideals, rules, and procedures, can be just as important as issues in informing the decisions among actors. Through interviews with those involved, this paper highlights the ease in which the city disarticulates the attempts at public democratic enactment, a proficiency largely stemming from its “reformed” management form. Moreover, while the public finally managed to settle their issue at stake, it came with the substantial cost of eroded faith in democracy. Drawing on this, the paper concludes that both issues and forms, publics and the public sector, are crucial in facilitating the enactment of democratic politics.

This paper studies the relationship between individual characteristics of displaced workers and the probability of re-employment. A competing risks hazard model is used, distinguishing between exits from joblessness to self-employment and to paid-employment. All individuals between 25 and 55 years of age, at the time of displacement, that suffered from at least one year of joblessness after being displaced between 1990 and 1998 due to establishment closures that occurred between 1990 and 2001 are included. This allows for the closure procedure to be between one and three years long. Each individual is followed, from the year of displacement until the year of re-employment or at the latest, ten years after displacement. Semi-parametric estimation techniques for discrete time data are used, and in consistency with previous research the results show that subgroups of the jobless individuals experience different re-employment probabilities. The results suggest that a non-immigrant, high income-earner in the mid-thirties, with short tenure at the closing establishment, and who was not displaced early in the closure process and who has lived in the same city for a long time, faces the greatest probability of becoming re-employed. Furthermore, men and individuals with self-employment experience face lower probabilities of re-employment in paid-employments compared to their counterparts. This relationship is however reversed when studying the probability of leaving joblessness for self-employment. Men, immigrants, high income-earners, displaced from smaller establishments, previously self-employed and those with shorter tenure in previous employment are found to be more likely to enter self-employment than their counterparts. A positive duration dependency is prevalent in re-employment probability, suggesting that search activity is increased over time. The probability of self-employment entry is however decreasing the first years of joblessness following displacement, displaying an initial negative duration dependency.

After the excavation of a cut slope ongoing deformations on the slope surface can often be measured. These deformations can be induced due to various processes and can also be used as an indicator of slope stability. If the reasons for the deformations are known, selective stabilization methods can help to decelerate, or stop, the movements. The potential for the recognition of displacement patterns in excavated slopes is studied in this dissertation. In the laboratory, the analysis of displacement patterns due to various processes is difficult as identical initial test conditions can hardly be reproduced. Furthermore, measurements of displacements can only be conducted to a limited degree. Therefore, numerical calculations using the finite element method were applied to simulate excavation processes and analyse the displacements. In addition, a suitable mathematical model has to be used to represent the stress-strain behaviour during the unloading process. Three different advanced constitutive soil models were chosen to calculate an excavation process of an idealized slope assuming drained conditions: - elasto-plastic Modified-Cam-Clay model - rate-independent hypoplastic model according to Masin - rate-dependent visco-hypoplastic model according to Niemunis Before conducting the excavation simulation, the soil parameters of the constitutive models were calibrated by means of numerical element tests, depicting the stress paths of conventional laboratory tests. Within the literature, those conventional laboratory tests are recommended for the determination of parameters for the constitutive models. A parameter set for the visco-hypoplastic model was chosen from literature. The parameters were adapted for the remaining models. Thus, all three models predicted approximately the same stress-strain behaviour during conventional laboratory tests. Despite the correlations during the element tests, the constitutive models predicted different displacements during the calculation of the excavation of an idealized slope under drained conditions. Thereupon, load-controlled triaxial compression tests were conducted reproducing the characteristic stress paths during an excavation process. At the same time, numerical calculations were carried out to reproduce the triaxial compression tests, and the measured and calculated displacement behaviour was compared. Different processes such as pure unloading due to excavation, excavation in overconsolidated soil, excavation coupled with consolidation, excavation coupled with previous ground water lowering and consolidation as well as the influence of creep effects were considered in the analysis of the displacement patterns during an excavation. It can be stated that the evaluation of displacements and changes in displacements in a single point on the slope surface cannot provide sufficient information about a certain physical process. Only the combination of displacement paths at different survey points will lead to a reliable conclusion. Thus, representative displacement patterns for different processes are recognizable during and after the excavation, which can be used for the identification. During the numerical simulation of an in-situ model test, where a slope was brought to failure by excavation, the calculated displacements were analysed for identifiable displacement patterns. It can be stated that despite different slope systems, consistencies were found within characteristic survey points. These points can be used to identify patterns within the displacement contours.

Given the use of a social constructionism approach, the emphasis within the research is to include the listener in the on-going conversation when considering expropriation and the construction of identity around that experience. The question of how the experience of expropriation contributes to the construction of meaning and identity for the Zimbabwean farmer is posed. Gergen (1994) emphasised that identity is not an entity that is possessed by the individual nor a product of an individual’s cognitive processes; rather it is a possession of social interchange and relationships in a given context. The “self” or identity is “a linguistic implement embedded within conversational sequences of action and employed in relationships in such a way as to sustain, enhance or impede various forms of action” (Gergen, 1994, p.188). This particular story from farming to eviction offers the reader a unique look into the construction of reality by Zimbabwean farmers as well as an opportunity to examine the fluidity of identity as it is constructed around agreed meaning or conversations and context. / Dissertation (MA)--University of Pretoria, 2011. / Psychology / unrestricted

Magister Artium - MA / As the title indicates, this research is concerned about the displacement and resettlement situation in Arada sub-city, Addis Ababa. The City Administration is implementing an urban redevelopment program to improve the poor infrastructural facilities, service provision,sewerage, sanitation, housing quality and supply. The implementation of these projects displaces households from their residential area exposing them to various impoverishment risks. The Impoverishment Risks and Reconstruction Model (Cernea, 2000), which is a tool used for managing risk identification, prevention and mitigation, stipulates displaced people could encounter one or more of the eight potential risks of landlessness, joblessness, homelessness, social disarticulation, marginalization, increased morbidity and mortality, food insecurity and loss of access to common property resources. Thus many development practitioners advocate the importance of democratization of the displacement and resettlement processes to reduce potential risks.The purpose of the research is to investigate how the displacement and resettlement process has been undertaken and to describe the impoverishment risks displaced households faced.This will contribute to the improvement of the program and other similar programs in the future as it is implemented with short, medium and long term plans. Thus it will indicate more constructive ways of implementing the displacement process that reduces risks by informing concerned agencies of more sustainable ways to configure and implement their work.Academically, the research will test the feasibility of the risk variables described by the IRR model to an inner area of urban context.Therefore, the research will answer the following questions: What impoverishment risks do the households face due to displacement and resettlement to the temporary and condominium houses? What coping mechanisms do households employ to adapt to the new circumstances? Was there access to information? Was the displacement and resettlement process participatory? The research noted that the displaced residents are exposed to impoverishment risks of homelessness, marginalization, lack of services, health hazard and economic impacts.The construction of the Condo house is of a much better standard than the temporary shelters.As a result the transfer of households to the Condo house has relieved them from the risks they had faced at the temporary shelter. However, the design of the Condo building, omission of basic facilities like a customary kitchen and the adopted communal neighborhood regulations imposes new type of risks such as the discontinuation of informal business and unsuitability to daily and cultural practices. The discontinuation of informal business both at the temporary shelter and later at the Condo house severely affected household income generation potential of poor households. These households are afraid that they may end up homeless as they are unable to pay the much more expensive house rental fee.The research concludes the impoverishment risks that displaced households faced could be mitigated by making the displacement and resettlement process participatory, transparent and by coordinating the activities of the implementing agencies. Moreover, this can be achieved by curbing the “demolish and relocate” approach used in the displacement and resettlement process to “relocate and demolish”. This will help to avoid housing the displaced in temporary shelters and associated governance shortcomings from the process which occurred due to the “demolish and relocate” approach.

By investigating the scope of future wind turbine projects in north Swedish coastal regions and Lapland inland, identification of especially sensitive areas and the effect of wind farm location for the white- tailed sea eagles (WSE) Haliaeetus albicilla at these sites were evaluated. Since the 1980s the WSE the population growth has been stable and intensified in the last two decades, the upgoing trend is evident especially at coastal areas of the Bothnian Sea and Lapland inland, these regions are also considered suitable for wind farm projects. The scope of this analysis consists of an investigation of the density-dependent effect and interference regarding WSE population for each concerned wind farm by using an option with 4 MW wind turbines and a 6 MW alternative. The purpose with this comparison was to identify where wind turbines impact is most critical for WSEs and to which extent wind farms affected land area usage as well as the carrying capacity levels.One of the key findings was in Norrbotten where the 6 MW wind turbines reduced land area usage by 37,59%. In Västerbotten the highest concentration of WSEs was found and where the interference was most severe, in one of the wind farms three WSEs were observed inside the WF area which was the highest number noticed for this category in the study.Based on the low occurrence of WSEs and the accessible land area in the north-east part of Sweden (Pajala), it was considered the least critical area in terms of risk mitigation for WSE interference. A similar scenario was noticed in the southern part of Gävleborg, however in this case it was mainly a slowdown of population growth related to issues with habitat preference that enabled further possibilities for wind power investments.

<p>    </p> <p>These short stories began as reimaginings – I wondered what would come if I took Islamic myths of churail, oracular trees, and jinn and considered them in the half-light of diaspora, where the monsters are familiar but newly cultured to a globalized world. The stories in <em>Distance, the Midnight</em>, both flash and long-form, are loosely linked by themes of alienation, physical displacement, and grief. They ask questions about questions, which in the world of the book are best left unanswered, and the possession of the spirit, which, normally feared as a loss of control of the body, is here depicted as a necessary escape to a different sort of embodiment. </p> <p><br></p> <p>In “Antipode,” Paro, a churail living in Houston, marks the ten year anniversary of her husband’s death and the loss of her connection to the divine with her first real exorcism in over a decade. In “No Blood in the Creek,” Mallika, who was once possessed looks for her jinn in a desperate attempt to be displaced from her body once more. In “Admiring Myself Sideways,” a woman grown accustomed to her split personality searches for a lost self in mirrors. In “Hard Work,” an unemployed person gives up on the job market and turns to a life of crime and communes. These stories and the rest point to a singular interrogative: what if giving up on the being we’re born into is a better alternative to accepting it. </p> <p><br></p> <p>I could not have written this manuscript without having read Leonora Carrington, Helen Oyeyemi, Sabrina Orah Mark, Clarice Lispector and Ludmilla Petrushevskaya alongside folktales from the global south. From these writers, I’ve learned that the surreal can lend a story more than diversion and quirk. It can be a vehicle for tenderness, can leave a reader raw, unsure at what point the text peeled away a scab. I hope this collection is a movement towards that tenderness. </p>

The scope of this research is to spark conversation among members of receiving communities concerning their attitudes toward displaced populations by using Euripides' Trojan Women as a facilitator. By many outside the Classics profession, the study of antiquity is often perceived as a discipline disconnected from current issues; however, remembering and examining the past can greatly shape the present. Ancient Greek theater is perhaps the genre that best lends itself to be scrutinized today for social purposes. In fact, it promoted introspection among the body of Athenian citizens by highlighting inequalities and imbalances in power structures between opposing parties. This study suggests that tragedies can still fulfill the same function. In particular, this essay focuses on Trojan Women, with the intent to unearth group dynamics between the Greek aggressors and the Trojan slaves, and to apply its lessons to recent humanitarian emergencies. Philological work shows that the Greeks in the play attempt to dehumanize their captives through practices of legal violence, objectification, and silencing. Nevertheless, the women find sanctuary from human annihilation through their ability to speak and to be heard. Dominant classes today employ similar techniques to disempower incoming societies and to deprive them of their political voice. Thanks to tragedy's ability to create a distancing effect through mythological narratives, public readings of Trojan Women might enable members of hosting countries to engage more readily in discussions concerning the theme of displacement that address their own biases. Therefore, this thesis argues that the analysis and reception of Trojan Women can elucidate the worldwide crisis in welcoming those seeking shelter and help groups asked to receive displaced populations make more compassionate and informed decisions.

Where people go between evacuation and recovery remains an understudied aspect of disaster research. Whether experiencing multiple displacements, permanent displacement, or undergoing recovery in a damaged dwelling, the spatial and temporal dimensions of disaster displacement can have direct impacts on the recovery experiences of survivors. Pulling from focus group data gathered in 2017 from Hurricane Sandy survivors in New Jersey, this qualitative research focuses on the experiences of those who recovered in-situ, or within their damaged dwelling following the storm, and the various ways this non-displacement impacted their recovery. A content analysis following a grounded theory approach produced the emergent themes of the in-situ experience, including: a lack of suitable shelter, an exposure to secondary hazards, and an inability to achieve satisfactory emotional recovery. This study contributes to the growing body of literature surrounding recovery experiences, and it introduces valuable insights into the challenges that survivors face while recovering in-situ.

Today’s world has undergone through a variety of changes shifting from metaphysical way of thinking into postmodernism which has left its footprint in the aspects of literature, art and theatre. But architecture doesn’t reflect those changes in the theatrical world because buildings are not adjusted to the postmodern performances. In this research I made a journey through postmodern philosophy, literature, art, architecture, and theatre and tried to analyze the main tools of postmodernism, such as deconstruction of narrative, displacement etc. Then I applied them into my project which makes an attempt to translate the postmodern mind into a physical space and create a theatrical area. It tries to answer the question whether architecture is able to accommodate postmodern conceptions and performances where the audiences are the creators and active participants of their own narratives. The case study of the performance Sleep No More has become the concept for my design proposal where I also used displacement to combine several objects in a new context. The analysis and the design method have shown that architecture can accommodate all the cultural developments and can transform from postmodern conceptions into a physical space with the help of the same tools that are used in postmodern literature, art and philosophy. A building can become the embodiment of a post modernistic idea.