<p>The aim of this research is to find out more about traditional music in Gambian society, to get a wider view of the tradition and what is happening to traditional music in a modern society. Furthermore, I want to find out if the informers consider that the traditional music is fading away from the society and if, in that case, any actions are being taken to preserve the tradition. The research question is: How do the traditional masters in the Gambia consider the role of traditional musicians in a modern society?</p><p> </p><p>The research method consists of making observations at Maali’s Music School and in the E.C.C.O cultural camps in Njawara and Berefet, and interviews with traditional masters of different tribes. <strong></strong></p><p><strong> </strong></p><p>The results of the interviews show that the informers consider that the traditional music is ‘fading away’ from the society, that the role of traditional music in the society is changing and that there is no great support or protection for traditional music in the Gambia. Documentation of the music and interviews made by researchers from abroad often ends up in Europe and is seldom returned back to the informers. With regard to things that could be done to keep traditional music alive, the informers give the examples of building schools for teaching the tradition, teaching traditional songs in the ordinary schools and finding places for traditional masters to gather, where they can discuss, teach and play together.</p>

The aim of this research is to find out more about traditional music in Gambian society, to get a wider view of the tradition and what is happening to traditional music in a modern society. Furthermore, I want to find out if the informers consider that the traditional music is fading away from the society and if, in that case, any actions are being taken to preserve the tradition. The research question is: How do the traditional masters in the Gambia consider the role of traditional musicians in a modern society?   The research method consists of making observations at Maali’s Music School and in the E.C.C.O cultural camps in Njawara and Berefet, and interviews with traditional masters of different tribes.   The results of the interviews show that the informers consider that the traditional music is ‘fading away’ from the society, that the role of traditional music in the society is changing and that there is no great support or protection for traditional music in the Gambia. Documentation of the music and interviews made by researchers from abroad often ends up in Europe and is seldom returned back to the informers. With regard to things that could be done to keep traditional music alive, the informers give the examples of building schools for teaching the tradition, teaching traditional songs in the ordinary schools and finding places for traditional masters to gather, where they can discuss, teach and play together.

This report describes a comparative study about reading- and writing development in “A-towns school” in The Gambia and in “Villaskolan” in Sweden. The purpose of this study is to compare two teachers in Sweden with two teachers and two volunteers from the school in Gambia, with focus on their thoughts and methods on teaching reading and writing at each school and in their social context. The aim is also to observe and describe how classroom environment at both schools can encourage students to read and write. The theoretical base of this study is rooted in a sociocultural perspective but I have also chosen to illuminate behaviorism and cognitivism. The study is qualitative and the main research methods are interviews and observations of the classrooms. My conclusions are, even though considerable differences in approach and conditions, teachers in both schools work hard and show dedication towards their students. Another finding is that teachers use different techniques and working methods to achieve the same goal -to teach their students to read and write based on what is required of them in their cultural and social context. The different ways of teaching have been caused by the existence of different perceived needs based on culture and tradition. One conclusion is also that read and write requirements for students in the Gambia and Sweden are different from each other. In Sweden there is clearly a higher demand for more advanced reading - and writing skills while one person in the Gambia is perceived to be able to read and write if he/she can handle basic administrative tasks.

Crossing the Sahara to reach Libya for the purpose of onward migration across the Mediterranean to Italy is what in Gambia is called “The Back Way”. The aim of this study is to examine the ambitions and reasons behind a migratory project from The Gambia to Europe. By identifying the key constituents of a migration culture, I can get a broader insight into why the celebration of migration is evident, and how the ‘story of Europe’ is shaped. I have interviewed Gambians who are geographically in different places and who all find themselves in different life trajectories, most of them connected to migration. My conversations about migration, “The Back Way” and Europe stretches from interviews with repatriates, aspiring migrants and non-migrants. I have also interviewed Gambians in the Diaspora. In this study, I found a strong societal expectation and hope towards both migration and the diaspora which in return caused certain diasporic behavior that painted a misleading picture of Europe. I also found a strong hope and resilient aspirations in terms of social status and recognition believed to be attained easier as a migrant coming back from Europe.

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Social Work / Gerad D. Middendorf / Food insecurity poses an enormous challenge and is a matter of extreme urgency for The Gambia, where more than half of the population lives below the poverty line. Although extensive research confirms the problems of food insecurity in Africa, no research has concurrently advanced a bottom-up and top-down neo-endogenous theoretical framework to explore 1) the dynamics of food insecurity in The Gambia and 2) the extent to which measures used to combat it have had a positive impact. The current research aims to fill this gap by employing concurrent triangulation (mixed) methods that incorporate primary and secondary data sources. As envisaged by the neo-endogenous approach, structured interviews with participants in the weekly rural markets/ Lumo(s), underscore the crucial role this indigenous marketing system plays. This marketing system embeds socioeconomic activities in rural territories through the utilization of social and cultural capital that reduce transaction costs involved in direct marketing. Consequently this initiative increases Wassu community’s access to food and stabilizes the food supply. The results also reveal moderate effects of various interventions, particularly in the Western and North Bank divisions, where agricultural production of various crops and livestock has improved the livelihood of those rural communities. At the local level, the allocation of a greater proportion of arable land to coarse grain production along with the decline in peanut production hold great promise for reducing the problem of food insecurity. Although food insecurity still prevails in much of rural Gambia as indicated by the scale of stunting among children under age five, measures are being taken to address the problem. Combined with intervention projects and other developmental effects, the potential for the Lumo(s) to reverse food insecurity in the country is great, contingent upon the central government and international lending agencies’ devolution of significant powers and transfer of funds directly to rural territories.

The purpose of this research is to carry out an empirical investigation of bank corporate governance regulation in The Gambia. The aim is to determine what contributions, if any, effective governance systems can make to the management of the needs of different stakeholder groups within the financial sector. Through the application of grounded theory methodology this research aims to build a substantive theory of corporate governance regulation within The Gambian banking sector. The substantive theory identified the main phenomena and as such outlined the model of corporate governance currently prevailing in The Gambian banking sector. The grounded theory methodology adopted for this research includes a three stage process of analysing data namely open coding, axial coding and selective coding. Firstly, through the application of comparative method in open coding semi structured interviews and focus groups discussions were conducted with senior bank executives, employees and customers, as well as regulators across The Gambian banking sector. Open coding process enables the development and identification of properties and dimensions. The interviews were informed by survey questionnaires designed to sensitise and gain access to the identified participants and subsequently guided the semi structured interview questionnaires and focus groups that followed. Secondly, through axial coding, the open categories were incorporated into wider categories. The use of the paradigm model establishes the relationship among these categories. This led to the development of the human factor model of bank corporate governance regulation in The Gambian banking system. Finally, selective coding identified the core category through the verification of the second set of semi structured interviews and established its’ relationship with other sub categories. The substantive theory was further explored Categorical Imperative theoretical framework leading to a more formal substantive theory that considers corporate governance issues of financial sector stakeholders. It concluded that there is no consistency between banks when it comes to corporate governance mechanisms and codes partly due to obstacles such as environment, culture and policies. Thus, regulatory compliance and ethics are therefore necessary to serve as a moral compass in the absence of a mandatory regulatory framework. Finally, this thesis also explored the phenomenon of corporate governance, grounded theory and Categorical Imperative in an unexplored context. Thus, providing a new approach to corporate governance understanding to inform and to improve corporate governance practice. The identification of the substantive theory will also help key stakeholders to address the challenges, thus, minimising the risk of bank failures and improve the corporate governance regulation framework in The Gambia. Finally, this research also proposed an ethical code of conduct for The Gambia. The proposed code of conduct will influence future behaviour and subsequently improve the robustness of the banking system.

A methodology is presented for forecasting the probabilistic response of salinity movement in an estuary to seasonal rainfall and freshwater inflows. The Gambia River basin in West Africa is used as a case study in the research. The rainy season is from approximately July to October. Highest flows occur in late September and early October. Agriculturalists are interested in a forecast of the minimum distance that occurs each year at the conclusion of the wet season between the mouth of the river and the 1 part per thousand (ppt) salinity level. They are also interested in the approximate date that the minimum distance will occur. The forecasting procedure uses two approaches. The first uses a multisite stochastic process to generate long-term synthetic records (100 to 200 years) of 10-day rainfall for two stations in the upper basin. A long-term record of 10-day average flow is then computed from multiple regression models that use the generated rainfall records and real-time initial flow data occurring on the forecast date as inputs. The flow series is then entered into a one-dimensional finite element salt intrusion model to compute the movement of the 1 ppt salinity level for each season. The minimum distances between the mouth of the river and the 1 ppt salinity front that occurred for each season in the long-term record are represented in a cumulative probability distribution curve. The curve is then used to assign probability values of the occurrence of the 1 ppt salinity level to various points along the river. In the second approach, instead of generating a rainfall series and computing flow from regression models, a long-term flow record was generated using a stochastic first-order Markov process. Probability curves were made for three forecast dates: mid- July, mid-August, and mid-September using both approaches. With the first approach, the initial conditions at the time of the forecast had a greater influence on the flow series than the second approach.

The problem of HIV internationally has many wide ranging impacts on people, communities and countries' development. In the last decade antiretroviral (ARV) treatment has emerged as the major scientific-technical solution, albeit a costly one. Access to ARV treatment is of vital importance across Africa and around the world. Resources for HIV treatment, care and support are transferred globally on a massive scale. However, how such programmes operate ‘on the ground' in different contexts is still unclear. This research contributes to understanding the experience of the people who access such treatment programmes in different contexts. This research focuses on this gap, exploring how treatment programmes are experienced, how the availability of treatment impacts both on people's experience of being HIV+ and how the availability of treatment may also change perceptions of what it means to be HIV+, both individually and at a societal level. This research focuses on the lives and experiences, particularly the treatment experiences, of people living with HIV in peri-urban Gambia. Low prevalence countries such as The Gambia can provide a compelling example of the ways in which meanings and understandings of HIV are created. Here, entering a field of health pluralism and fluid knowledge creation around HIV-infection, came large scale actors providing a high-profile ARV treatment programme through clinic-based medicine, and an effective de-pluralisation of the medical field in relation to HIV, inviting scrutiny of how such knowledge relations and differences are experienced. Although not anticipated at the outset of the research, in parallel the Gambia has become the locus of a major, politically-backed, ‘alternative' AIDS treatment programme. This has thrown the personal and societal meanings of HIV into a new and sensitive context, compelling research attention into how knowledge, status and meanings around HIV are negotiated, and how people make choices amongst different treatment options.

The Gambia is the smallest country in mainland Africa. Along with the rapid urbanization rate, motorization has increased rapidly as well, contributing to an increased number of road traffic crashes. Road traffic crashes are the 4th leading cause of in-patient deaths in adults in the Gambia and currently are a significant public health problem. This study utilized the Gambia Traffic Force’s data registry to become the first epidemiological study on road traffic injuries in the Gambia as well as the first to analyze the Gambia’s traffic data registry on a national level. Reported crashes from October 1st, 2014 to June 30, 2015 were converted from the paper-based data registry into an electronic database and analyzed statistically, and the location data were geocoded and plotted on the Gambian map. The results of this study showed that crashes involving pedestrian victims and crashes that occurred on unpaved roads were more likely to be associated with outcomes that were fatal or serious. When multiple vehicles were involved in a crash, the involvement of motorcycles and bicycles were more likely to lead to a fatal or serious injury. The mapped data showed that towards the center of each district, the number of crashes increased as pedestrian and vehicle density increased, but that injury severity outcomes were generally minor or none. In contrast, as pedestrian and vehicle density decreased, crash frequency decreased as well, but injury outcomes were more likely to be severe or fatal. The findings of the study also helped in identifying areas in policy and education that need improvement.

<p>Studien syftar till att undersöka attityderna kring polygyni bland unga ogifta män i Gambia. Kvalitativa enskilda intervjuer har utförts på män i landets stadsområden, och svaren har sedan analyserats utifrån ett socialkonstruktivistiskt perspektiv. Resultatet påvisar att polygyni har många negativa aspekter och inte alltid är frivilligt, ens för männen. Det indikerar även att traditionen håller på att avta i landets urbana delar. Attityderna förändras och polygyni anses, av många, vara ett problem mer än ett privilegium. Studien är relevant för socialarbetare och andra yrkesgrupper som arbetar med människor, speciellt de som arbetar internationellt i länder där liknande familjestrukturer är vanliga.</p>