It is widely recognized that landmines pose a significant threat to the development and recovery of post-conflict societies. What is less well understood is the impact that these weapons have on the everyday lives and wellbeing of affected people and the environments in which they live. This thesis therefore seeks to deepen this understanding by presenting the findings from community-level qualitative research undertaken in Cambodia, one of the most heavily mined countries in the world. I argue that it is essential to consider the effect that landmines have on people, the environments in which they live, and the relationships between people and environment. In order to explore this, I build on the notion of ‘wellbeing ecology’ introduced by White & Jha (2014). Wellbeing ecology is a place-sensitive approach that considers the inter-connected and dynamic social, economic, emotional, physical and spiritual relationships that people have with each other and their environments over time. By their very presence, landmines represent a threat to both social and natural systems. They also reconstitute people’s experience of place. I explore this in particular through the notion of contaminated landscapes, which draws on and takes forward work on therapeutic landscapes in health geography. My data reveals that local people and mine action actors understand the effects of landmines differently. While mine action actors focus predominantly on material impact, local people conceptualise landmine impact in a more holistic way, referring to its social, emotional, spiritual, psychological and physical meanings. Data from the village highlights the importance of place for wellbeing, revealing that living in a contaminated landscape negatively affects people’s quality of life materially, relationally and subjectively. This demonstrates how a wellbeing ecology approach can usefully add to the understanding of the experience of living with landmines and the effect this has on quality of life.

Wellbeing is increasingly emerging within discussions of teacher effectiveness. Teacher quality and health has an impact on pupil learning. In an increasingly varied secondary teaching landscape where academies and free schools outnumber ‘state’ schools and where market forces and policy reform have created a new and dynamic working experience; there are benefits and opportunities, but also occupational risks to wellbeing. This study fills a research gap by engaging in a focussed analysis of secondary school teachers’ wellbeing. It offers theoretical contributions and practical recommendations relating to wellbeing and its management in emerging secondary school settings. It informs leadership and management practice towards managing wellbeing proactively through environment, community and personal / transcendental experiences. The research suggests that wellbeing as a performance management criterion and a key measure for school self-improvement could support best practice in innovative and infinite ways. A 61 item Likert questionnaire and 6 semi-structured interviews were conducted to explore 66 secondary teachers’ perceptions of their wellbeing. The data delivered illuminating testimony on the secondary teachers’ work lives and wellbeing. The results uncovered that environmental conditions (such as working with young people, the ability to take lunch breaks and access to resources) and communal conditions (such as the ability to work as a team, to be consulted, to collaborate, be supported and feel trusted) at work impacted teachers’ overall personal wellbeing. Personal wellbeing (overall wellbeing) represented how far teachers were able to develop personally and professionally, how far they experienced agency, control, fulfilment commitment and motivation. What was revealing was the emergence of transcendental wellbeing which arose as a component of personal wellbeing. Transcendental wellbeing represented the unique, personal framework that individuals ascribe to what they do. It encompassed the purpose, meaning and drive that enabled secondary teachers to work through daily events and challenges with resilience.