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  • About
  • The Global ETD Search service is a free service for researchers to find electronic theses and dissertations. This service is provided by the Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations.
    Our metadata is collected from universities around the world. If you manage a university/consortium/country archive and want to be added, details can be found on the NDLTD website.
1

Source apportionment of airborne particulate matter in a Chinese megacity : modelling comparison

Tian, Zhe January 2018 (has links)
Jinan is one of the most polluted mega-cities in China, which is primarily due to the high levels of PM2.s. A quantitative understanding on the sources of PM2.s is a prerequisite to control the severe pollution. In this project, 103 PM2.s samples were collected and their chemical composition, including water-soluble ions, trace metals, organice carbon, elemental carbon and organice molecular markers, were measured. Mass closure anlysis reveals that OM (29%), sulphate (18%), nitrate (10%), ammonium (9%) and geological material (9%) are the major chemical components in PM2.s in Jinan. The data were fed to both PMF and CMB models for source apportionment and uncertainty analysis. PMF and CMB have identified secondary inorganic aerosol (41%; 31%), coal burning (10%; 16%), biomass burning (20%; 17%), vehicle emission (16%; 14%) and mineral dust (10%; 6%) as the major PM2.s sources in Jinan, respectively. CMB also identified the metallurgic plant (11 %) production as a potentially important source of Jinan's PM2.s. Furtherwork needs to be done including using other source identifications such as back trajectory, chemical transport model and remote sensing. Longer sampling periods is also recommended and establishing the local source profile is vital for the source apportionment in Jinan in the near future.
2

Human behaviour outdoors and the environmental factors

Waldron, Julie A. January 2018 (has links)
The study of human behaviour outdoors has been an area of interest examined from different perspectives. Even so, the study of human behaviour in outdoor public spaces still requires further input from the perspective of human factors. This thesis presents a literature review of behaviour in public spaces where the author evaluated the attendance to public squares, the activities performed by users, the time of permanence, the sitting preferences of users and people’s characteristics among other behaviours. Previous studies have reported a relationship between thermal comfort and human behaviour; however, there is a lack of studies approaching the study of human behaviour using observational methods which allows assessing human behaviours such as number of people, number of groups, time of permanence among others, taking into account environmental factors such as: air temperature, globe temperature, mean radiant temperature, relative humidity, wind speed, sun and shadow presence and illuminance. As part of this research, three studies were conducted in the city centre of Nottingham during summer and autumn of 2015 and winter of 2016 in order to collect data of human behaviour and find its relationship with the air and globe temperature, calculated mean radiant temperature, wind speed, relative humidity and illuminance. These studies were conducted using observational methods by creating a coding scheme after conducting video analysis of social and individual behaviours. A methodology was created to incorporate processes that allow gathering data for observational analysis, which was subsequently processed using multiple regression models and survival analyses. The overall analysis led to the identification of the main environmental factors influencing human behaviour across different environmental conditions. The studies and analyses conducted showed that various environmental factors work together to influence the decisions of the users of a public space. Accordingly, the models used to predict human behaviour should include the environmental variables that explain better its variability, based on the environmental data of the place. Moreover, this study showed that individual analysis should be performed on a seasonal basis using the environmental and human behaviour data of each season in addition to the analysis performed to the whole data set. The reason for this is that the seasonal data is better at explaining some human behaviours than the model built with the whole data set collected in various seasons. For instance, the relationship between wind speed and number of people is positive during summer and negative during autumn and winter; however, when the three seasons are analysed together, the relationship is negative, which does not explain accurately the phenomena in summer. Conversely, illuminance was found to be an important factor influencing behaviour across the seasons and also contributed to the prediction of behaviour in the all season’s analysis. Finally, this thesis presents an application of the results by presenting general recommendations of urban design based on the findings of analysing human behaviour in accordance with the thermal environment. The studies conducted during the three seasons presented a cross-internal validation of the multiple regression models. In addition, a final study which consisted of a mock scenario was conducted to perform an external validation of the previous results. A number of conclusions were drawn about the conditions required to perform further external validations, following the parameters identified that may affect the results of the validation.
3

Combining forensic anthropological and geological approaches to investigate the preservation of human remains in British archaeological populations and their effects on palaeodemography

Davenport, C. A. L. January 2018 (has links)
Palaeodemographic studies enable the lifespan and health of a population to be studied and subsequent influences deduced from the analysis of biological profiling data. The aim of this research was to produce the demographic profiles for the medieval sites of Poulton Chapel and St Owens, Gloucester. Comparisons with previously published sites would allow a comparison between the demographic profiles from rural and urban populations. Taphonomic and cultural factors have been listed amongst the causes for the lack of material available for osteological analysis, and the subsequent under-representation of certain age within a population. Although commented on in published literature, there has been no research into the degradation of the human skeleton, with many projects focussing only on the soft tissue decomposition rates and factors. Using a combination of techniques from forensic anthropology and geology, the collections were analysed using traditional palaeodemographic life tables and the sites subjected to geoarchaeological investigation. This enabled not only the preservation of the skeletal remains to be observed under differing burial conditions, but incorporated the use of archaeothanatology to understand the cultural practices undergone during the time of burial. This PhD thesis found that soil pH was not the biggest influencer on the potential preservation of a skeleton, but the cultural practices behind the burial itself. By combining techniques from forensic anthropology, geoarchaeology and geochemistry, greater insights into the effects of taphonomic and cultural influences on the preservation of human skeletal remains are found. This has enabled the questions into what influences the ability to produce a demographic profile to be answered, which will encourage the use of multidisciplinary studies when investigating cemetery samples.
4

The Regional Organization of the Eastern Roman Empire in the Early Byzantine Period (4th-6th Century A.D.)

Drakoulis, Dimitris P. 05 1900 (has links)
The purpose of this doctoral dissertation is to contribute to the investigation of the regional organization of the system of settlements in the regions of the ‘Eastern Ro-man Empire’ (ERE) during the Early Byzantine period (EBP). By ‘EBP’ we mean the historical period comprising from the 4th to the end of the 6th century AD. By ‘regional organization’ we mean the administrative system of rule of the ERE with its five hierarchical levels of organization: a) the Empire; b) its division into admin-istrative regions (dioceses); c) the division of these into smaller regional unities (provinces); d) cities (polis), and e) market towns – villages (komes – choria) within each province. This system includes 3,048 units of analysis, settlements belonging to all hierarchical levels, and it yields their distinguishing features, through geographic - spatial and historical -cultural criteria. The dissertation’s object of study is the regional organization of settlements of the EBP, with emphasis on the 6th century. Its goal was the cartographic representation of the regions of the ERE and creation of maps that are defined by the data of politi-cal geography and described by the data of physical and cultural geography. Through the creation of historical sections in the 4th, 5th, and 6th centuries, diachronic regional transformations in the EBP were examined. A further goal was to create a database of cultural and geographic information concerning the entirety of settle-ments, in which are recorded the period of founding, the diachronic presence of each, with historical alterations of its name, including also its modern name and the state to which it belongs today. The dissertation conveys the totality of regional sites in the ERE, contributes to making the regional organization of settlements in the EBP better known, and enriches the diachronic study of both the settlements and culture of the Eastern Mediterranean. The dissertation is composed of three parts: Part I. Introduction; Part II: The regional structure of the Empire; Part III: Conclusions. Part I: Chapter 1 offers a scholarly overview and defines the goals, objects of study, and purpose (A.1), contents (A.2), primary sources (A.3) and methodology (Α.4), with a description of the techniques of cartography, map-making (atlas-making) and table-making. Part I also includes the historical framework of the EBP (Chapter 2), with its main socio-economic and political parameters. Chapter 3 concerns the geo-morphology and organization of the Empire (administrative boundaries, production activities and spatial administrative hierarchy, both political and ecclesiastical). Part II: Chapter 4 deals with the regional structure of the Empire and is allocated to a study of the organization of the 64 provinces in each of the six dioceses. The level of internal description of each diocese and province refers to variables that concern administrative division, geomorphology, and settlements (three levels: capitals, cit-ies, and market towns – villages). Two categories of variables were created: histori-cal-cultural data, and geographic-spatial data. The total of 3,048 settlements and the recording of variables along diachronic and synchronic axes, aided by the computer software SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences), allowed observations of a statistical nature as well as structural correlations between and among variables used for analysis. The data are complemented cartographically by 90 maps, done on the basis of the road network (3 variables: inter-regional, main, secondary) and their individual geomorphology. Part III: Chapter 5 describes the results of the analysis of the regional organization of the six dioceses, while Chapter 6 presents the results for the overall picture of the Empire (6.1), followed by the results for the articulation of the road network (6.2). These sub-sections are followed by the network of settlements (6.3), with conclud-ing observations of a statistical nature concerning the regional organization of set-tlements and the static/dynamic nature of the settlement system. The structure of the network of settlements is expressed through an attempt at modeling. In addition, basic statistical correlations and cross-tabulations concerning the hierarchy of set-tlements and their various parameters (period of founding, morphology of terrain, road network, transportation / communication features) are listed. The conclusions of this doctoral dissertation can be summarised as follows: During the Early Byzantine Period the Eastern Roman Empire, with its six large administra-tive dioceses and 64 provinces, occupied the regions around the Eastern Mediterra-nean, joining districts from three continents. The geomorphology and the landscapes of the region are varied and complex. Much of the land is mountainous though there are a few very important plains. There are eight types of vegetation varying from desert to beech forest. Olive cultivation accounted for an important percentage of the cultivatable land at that time.The primary sector was developed and there was self-sufficiency, which depended on cooperation between individual farmers as to what was grown. The secondary sector was also developed: there were government owned factories in many provin-cial capitals, as well as private artisan. There was also government owned mines and quarries for the excavation and the supply of raw materials.The network of settlements: their historical and cultural characteristics: 12,5% of the 3,048 settlements were founded in the Archaic period, 7.3% in the Classical, 17,8% in the Hellenistic, 42% in the Roman and 20,4% in the Early Byzantine pe-riod. Cross correlation between the number of settlements and their dates of founda-tion demonstrates that a much larger number of settlements arose after the Hellenis-tic period than were constructed before this period. It also shows that the Early Byz-antine provincial capitals were largely founded during the Hellenistic period. In ad-dition it shows that more than the 50% of the cities were founded in the Hellenistic and Roman period, while only about 12% were founded during the EBP. With re-gard to smaller settlements, we can observe that roughly 50% were founded in the Roman period, while only 25% were set up during the EBP. The fact that more than 80% of the total settlements in the Roman and EBP were minor settlements suggests a tendency towards agrarization of the society.The geographical - spatial characteristics and the morphology of the land: We ob-serve that 41% of the settlements were located between 0 – 300m, 12,5% were lo-cated between 300 – 600m and 43% were found higher in the mountains. From the cross-correlation of the timescale of the settlement with the geomorphology we see that 56% of the capitals and 50% of the cities are located in flat regions, while 47% of minor settlements are located in mountainous regions. 72% of settlements are close to water. 34% of the settlements are located on transregional road axes, 9% of these on main and the 14% on secondary roads, while 43% are not connected in this way. 14% of the settlements represent nodal points on the road system, 11% are ports, while nodes and ports constitute the 2%. The structure of the network of set-tlements ,using the capital city Constantinople as a point of reference, corresponds on the first level to a radial spatial model, the diffusion of which, extends as a spatial web into the three continents. On the second level there are individual linear spatial models that follow the seashores of the Mediterranean and the Euxeinos Pontos and follow passages to the hinterland, frequently through river valleys. The network of settlements and the road network are of course, closely linked.A substantial density of settlements, founded in the EBP, is found in Pontike Dioe-ceses, in the regions near Constantinople, as well as in the Anatolike Dioeceses, in the regions, that are related with the new religion, as the Palestine. There is a me-dium sized concentration of settlements in the Thrakike, Asiane and Aigyptiake Dioeceses, while there is a small concentration in the Dioeceses of Illyrikon. In gen-eral there is a large concentration of settlements in Greece; in the plateau of Asia Minor; in the southern parts of Syria and Palestine, (mainly in the coastal plateaus between Tyre and Gaza and following the banks of the Nile).In the Eastern Mediterranean the foundation of settlements began in the Archaic period and continued in the Classical period with the city – state as its main model. Slowly, during Hellenistic period minor size settlements began to dominate. In the Roman and Early Byzantine period, 80% of the new foundations were minor size settlements. Of the five historical periods, the foundation of settlements was at its most intense during the Roman period. The EBP continued this trend, though the development of new settlements was only half that which had been carried out under the Roman rule. The amount of flat land was very limited, yet the spread of settle-ments in flat and mountainous lands was almost the same. In the Roman and EBP, the higher percentage of settlements was founded in mountainous regions and these settlements were, in the beginning, small.The administrative structure had a pyramid-like form with the emperor at the top and a tree-like structure down the whole length of the hierarchy. The administrative power predominated over the military and there was a strengthened bureaucracy and a state centralism. The network was able to function because it was supported by two connected infrastructures: The first was concerned with the organized use of human resources: the bureaucracy: the administrators of the regional political power, whose main job was the collection of taxes and resources, and the control and the management of the means of production. The second was the physical infrastructure which enabled the trade, manufacture and transport generated by the administrators to be carried out, as well as facilitating the exchange of ideas, to and from the capital city. The network of roads ensured good communications and thus enabled this effi-cient system of central control to be implemented throughout the empire. The hier-archical structure at all organizational levels constitutes one from the distinctive features of the early Byzantine mode of production. This structure runs through the spatial dimension of the regional organization, that was cartographically surveyed on three levels: 1. On the land-planning level, which deals with the whole Eastern Roman Empire. 2. On the regional level, which was concerned with the Dioeceses. 3. On the provincial level, which deals with the Prov-inces. 3,048 settlements were recorded, located, categorized and organised in a data-base, a number that represents the total number of settlements known from archaeo-logical studies to have been active during the period being studied.From the above statements it can be seen that in the Early Byzantine period the Eastern Roman Empire was wealthy in the sense that it was productive, that there was a growing network of roads and dense pattern of settlements. The fact that many small settlements were founded at this time shows that not only was there a trend towards agrarization, but also suggests that the role of the cities was changing in those places where the number of small settlements increased within the same re-gion. The investigation of the regional organisation in the EBP shows that both the settle-ments at all levels, and the infrastructures of the Eastern Roman Empire were in good shape. It presents a picture of an empire, where the number the of rural and urban settlements is increasing while being organized in a hierarchical structure throughout the region. The thesis has made an effort to create a holistic picture of the geographical and administrative form of the Eastern Roman Empire, which can easily be analyzed in smaller spatial parts and recomposed in bigger, showing on each level the cultural characteristics of the settlements network, through the loca-tion, mapping and categorisation of the network. The present research was designed to contribute to the overall study of the regional landscapes of the Eastern Roman Empire and it contributes by analyzing regional organization of settlements in the Early Byzantine period. In this way it enriches the diachronic study of settlements of the Eastern Mediterranean and her culture with quantitative and qualitative elements.
5

Desenvolvimento e validação de método para determinação de cádmio e chumbo em carnes de caprinos, ovinos e avestruz / Development and validation of a method for cadmium and lead determination in caprine, ovine and ostrich meat sample

Aranha, Taise Suéllen de Castro Porto, 1987- 02 May 2015 (has links)
Orientador: Solange Cadore / Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Química / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-26T20:30:04Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Aranha_TaiseSuellendeCastroPorto_M.pdf: 1506809 bytes, checksum: 8eb73b125b97bd8ac0468a36f62aad43 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015 / Resumo: O objetivo principal deste projeto de pesquisa consistiu em desenvolver e validar um método para a determinação de cádmio e chumbo, pela técnica de Espectrometria de Absorção Atômica com Forno de Grafite (GF AAS), nas matrizes rim e fígado de caprinos, ovinos e avestruz. Este trabalho justifica-se pela importância do monitoramento do teor de contaminantes inorgânicos em produtos alimentícios, uma vez que a exposição a estes pode afetar os seres humanos e os animais, devido ao seu potencial tóxico e seus efeitos cumulativos. Além disso, o controle de resíduos em alimentos também é relevante devido às exigências do mercado, como o atendimento às legislações vigentes para a comercialização interna e exportação de produtos. Para o preparo de amostra adotou-se a amostragem em suspensão, um método particularmente atrativo, uma vez que não requer um pré-tratamento químico agressivo, é menos susceptível a contaminação e perda do analito, além de que padrões aquosos podem ser usados para a calibração, facilitando as análises de rotina. Os fatores envolvidos nesta etapa, bem como os parâmetros instrumentais foram otimizados através de planejamentos experimentais. Desta forma, o preparo das amostras de carne foi conduzido à temperatura ambiente, a partir da hidratação de 500 mg da amostra (in natura ou liofilizada), seguida de solubilização com 500 ?L de TMAH 25% (m/v), e avolumando-se para 10,0 mL com água desionizada. As análises foram realizadas por Espectrometria de Absorção Atômica com Forno de Grafite, adotando-se temperaturas de pirólise e de atomização iguais a 500 e 1500 ºC, associadas ao uso de uma combinação de 5 ?g Pg(NO3)2 e 3 ?g de Mg(NO3)2 como modificador químico, para a determinação de Cd. Por sua vez, para a quantificação de Pb, empregaram-se temperaturas de pirólise e de atomização de 1000 e 2000 ºC, com 10 ?g Pg(NO3)2 + 6 ?g de Mg(NO3)2 como modificador químico combinado. Visando atender às legislações nacionais e internacionais, a validação do método foi conduzida em níveis de concentrações específicos, relacionados ao teor máximo de contaminantes (TMC), e os critérios de aceitabilidade das figuras de mérito seguiram as recomendações da comunidade européia (CE/657, CE/333) e do Mercosul (Mercosul/GMC/RES n. 57/94) / Abstract: The main objective of this project was to develop and validate a method for the determination of cadmium and lead, by Graphite Furnace Atomic Absorption Spectrometry (GF AAS), in caprines, ovines and ostrich kidney and liver. This work is justified by the importance of monitoring the content of inorganic contaminants in food products, since exposure to them can affect humans and animals due to their toxic potential and their cumulative effects. In addition, the residue control in food is also relevant for commercial reasons, such as attending the existing laws for internal commerce and for exportation. For sample preparation was adopted slurry sampling, a particularly attractive method because it does not require an aggressive chemical pretreatment, is less susceptible to contamination and loss of analyte, and aqueous standards can be used to calibration, facilitating the routine analysis. The factors involved in this treatment, as well as the instrumental parameters, were optimized using experimental designs. In the proposed method, 500 mg meat sample (fresh or lyophilized) was previously hydrated and treated using 500 ?L of tetramethylammonium hydroxide solution (TMAH) which provided stable and homogeneous slurry at room temperature in less than 10 min. The volume was brought up to 10 mL with deionized water. Analyses were performed by GF AAS, adopting pyrolysis and atomization temperatures equal to 500 and 1500 ° C, respectively, associated with the use of 5 ?g Pg(NO3)2 and 3 ?g de Mg(NO3)2 as a chemical modifier for the determination of cadmium. In turn, for the lead quantification, pyrolysis and atomization temperatures equal to 1000 and 2000 °C were employed, respectively, and as chemical modifier 10 ?g Pg(NO3)2 and 6 ?g de Mg(NO3)2, containing triton X-100, was used. In order to comply with national and international legislation, the method validation was conducted on specific concentrations levels, related to the maximum contaminants levels (ML), and the criteria of acceptability of figures of merits followed the European Community and MERCOSUL recommendations / Mestrado / Quimica Analitica / Mestra em Química
6

Forest conservation for communities and carbon : the economics of community forest management in the Bale Mountains Eco-Region, Ethiopia

Watson, Charlene January 2013 (has links)
Forest conservation based on payments anchored to opportunity costs (OCs) is receiving increasing attention, including for international financial transfers for reduced emissions from deforestation and degradation (REDD+). REDD+ emerged as a payment for environmental service (PES) approach in which conditional payments are made for demonstrable greenhouse gas emission reductions against a business-as-usual baseline. Quantitative assessments of the OCs incurred by forest users of these reductions are lacking. Existing studies are coarse, obscure the heterogeneity of OCs and do not consider how OCs may change over time. An integrated assessment of OCs and carbon benefits under a proposed community forest management (CFM) intervention linked to REDD+ is undertaken in Ethiopia. The OCs of land for the intervention are estimated through household survey and market valuation. Scenarios explore how OCs are likely to change over the intervention given qualitative conservation goals and available land-use change information. The feasibility of OCs payment as a tool for REDD+ is assessed by combining cost with emission reductions estimates generated from direct tree measurements. Households’ environmental attitudes, perceptions and intention to cooperate with the intervention, estimated by a voluntary contribution to improve forest management, are then investigated. Mean OCs of forest conservation are US$334/ha, but highly heterogeneous. Plausible futures of agricultural improvement, forest product commercialisation, and degradation of land uses suggest total OCs could approach US$441 million over a 20-year project. Applying carbon stock estimates of 231tC/ha±52 in moist and 132tC/ha±73 in dry forest, REDD+ revenues may not meet annual cumulative OCs, although more nuanced conservation planning could reduce OCs. Despite OCs all households intend to cooperate in the intervention, with mean contribution of US$11±4/year/household. The expected incomes of households under the Bale REDD+ Project intervention however, were high and expectation management is necessary. Recommendations are made for REDD+ intervention design in Ethiopia.
7

Segregation in search of ideology? : hegemony and contestation in the spatial and racial configuration of Los Angeles

Gibbons, Andrea January 2014 (has links)
Segregation is a constant in all US cities yet is peripheral to key work on spatial political economy, such as David Harvey (2007) and Neil Smith (1982, 1996). This thesis builds on their theorisations of the circuits of capital in relation to rent and uneven development by drawing on theorisations of white privilege (primarily Pulido, 2000) and the critical race theory of Stuart Hall (1980). Hall’s work on hegemony and articulation enables a better understanding of how the dialectics of land’s use value and rent connect to ideologies of race and neoliberalism, to city politics, and to the shifting geography of Los Angeles. The ongoing and primarily African-American struggle to occupy residential space reveals the ways in which racism and contestation have been central to the formation of Los Angeles, to the increasing privatisation of space, and to the changing flows of capital through its built environment. These issues are explored through the principal three chapters, each dedicated to an historical moment when a civil rights victory succeeded in achieving concrete shifts in the politics of race and space: the long term campaign that overturned racially restrictive covenants in 1948; the mass civil rights struggle to integrate the city’s suburbs in 1963-64; and the preservation of thousands of private residential hotel units in a gentrifying downtown in 2006. Despite their success in forcing new articulations of rationalising ideologies, politics, and capitalism’s search for a ‘spatial fix’, these struggles demonstrate that the unchanging elements in the emerging hegemony have been the prominence of force over the manufacture of consent, and the maintenance of a privileged white spatiality. I argue that a large part of neoliberalism’s power ultimately lies in its ability to rationalise and legitimate this spatiality with a colourblind discourse, masking racial inequalities and the continuing racism at the heart of US society.
8

The 'Casas GEO' movement : an ethnography of a new housing experience in Cuernavaca, Mexico

Inclán Valadez, María Cristina January 2013 (has links)
Through an ethnographic approach, this thesis looks at a new housing form and what is claimed to be a new urban way of life in Mexico’s neoliberal era. The study looks in detail at residents of a single housing project in Cuernavaca, Mexico, and explores how this group has struggled to construct itself as a new cultural category or what I call the Casas GEO movement. The research is guided by a series of questions: why and how did the Casas GEO movement emerge; how do residents experience a new housing project in everyday life; and, what meanings do they communicate through these everyday practices? Specifically, the research engages with recent literatures on new middle classes and approaches that consider ‘class’ as a process that grows out of cultural and “classificatory practices” (Bourdieu, 1984). The research builds on these literatures in a number of ways. First, it conceptualises the housing project as a mutable place, produced through daily interaction and a varied coexistence. Second, it understands the residential space as the arena for the emergence of a new cultural category created in everyday life through specific claims, values and symbols expressed in the urban landscape. The thesis shows how the developer, the GEO company, attempted to construct a set of individual values and codes of behaviour for residents, as an imperative to make the site liveable. But, it considers also how residents use their houses differently from the developers’ intentions through strategies of re-appropriation and personalisation in order to communicate ideas of distinction and ‘good’ taste. Importantly, residents had to deal with a range of inconsistencies, flaws and drawbacks in the project’s realisation that challenged representations of the ‘good’ city, social progress and modernity. The research shows how these failings influence people’s lives, especially their aspirations and sense of identity. My claim is that in the making of the Casas GEO movement people negotiate a cultural formation and produce a new space that allows ways of imagining, aspiring to, and modes for taking part in a modern ‘urban’ life. Yet, the making of the movement also exposes the fragility of a housing project that claims to be the formula for upward mobility of lower-income groups in Mexico.
9

Seeding alternatives : back-to-the-land migration and alternative agro-food networks in Northern Italy

Wilbur, Andrew Mahaffey January 2012 (has links)
This thesis explores ‘back-to-the-land’ migration in Northern Italy with reference to the social, political and economic networks that sustain it. ‘Back-to-the-land’ generally refers to the adoption of agriculture as a full-time vocation by people who have come from non-agricultural lifestyles. For categorical clarity in this project, research participants were limited to those from predominantly urban backgrounds, most of whom worked in service sector jobs before moving to the countryside. Many geographical studies have examined urban to rural migration but these have focused almost primarily on migrants who are not engaged in agriculture. This research traces theorisations of urban to rural migration within the discipline, situating back-to-the-land as part of broader counterculture practices originating in the 1960s. Many current expressions of back-to-the-land, however, reveal an attempt to address contemporary social, environmental and economic concerns, representing both a trajectory and an evolution from 1960s origins. Empirical research was conducted in four northern regions of Italy, looking specifically at urban to rural migrants engaged in organic or other ‘alternative’ forms of agriculture. Three simple questions informed the methodology and theoretical perspectives employed: 1) Why do people go back-to-the-land?; 2) How do they obtain the requisite skills to become competent farmers?; 3) How do they make this lifestyle economically sustainable? Answering these questions demands attention to how new farmers are inspired, supported and sustained by alternative agro-food networks (AAFNs). The research therefore explores the reciprocal relationships between back-to-the-landers and AAFNs, examining how new farmers can stimulate and influence AAFNs in addition to receiving their support. These issues are explored through interviews with back-to-the- landers and institutional representatives of AAFNs, as well participant observation in alternative agriculture projects. Particular attention is given to the organisations Slow Food, Worldwide Opportunities on Organic Farms (WWOOF) and Associazione per Esperienze (APE), primarily with regard to their respective roles in enabling back-to-the-land migration.
10

Mystical geographies of Cornwall

Phillips, Carl January 2006 (has links)
This thesis seeks to contribute to a cultural and historical geography of the mystical through a detailed case study of Cornwall since the mid-nineteenth century. In doing so, it also aims to contribute to a contemporary Cornish Studies literature that has begun to reclaim alternative and forgotten cultural and historical narratives of Cornwall. After a short introduction, chapter two positions this thesis in relation to debates around the region as a unit of geographical inquiry and the mystical as a cultural and historical category. It also positions this thesis in relation to the contemporary Cornish Studies literature; while chapter three engages with debates around the use of archives, interviews and oral histories as research methodologies. Chapter four argues that the late nineteenth and early twentieth century Celtic-Cornish Revival was connected to a new and somewhat exploratory version of the mystical that drew upon Anglo-Catholic history and theology in the new Diocese of Truro and in the Cornish landscape, but that was also characterised by a certain degree of slippage beyond the discursive boundaries of Celtic Christianity. The mid-twentieth century, chapter five argues, was characterised by a series of strategies to normalise this earlier version of the mystical by engaging with, and actively incorporating, other and potentially contradictory versions of the mystical, and by grounding this more inclusive version of the mystical in a new, decentralised and more populist institutional context. In turn, chapter six argues that the later twentieth century was characterised by the emergence of another new and more exploratory cultural formation of the mystical through a particular culture of landscape that was underpinned by the supposed rediscovery of the principles of megalithic science and an associated revival of Paganism among other new social and religious movements. Chapter seven, in conclusion, reflects upon the often understated connections between the mystical and a sense of socio-spatial order, the problematic nature of knowledge, and the consequences of bringing together the mystical, the geographical and the Cornish in the context of this thesis and of existing and future work on the geographies of religion and spirituality.

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