My dissertation contemplates the role that New Deal era photographs played in developing a sense of place particular to New York City’s environs. I argue that photographers used the camera as a tool to cultivate the relationship between people and the urban landscape by focusing their lens on liminal and collective spaces within the metropolitan environment. My first chapter examines Helen Levitt’s survey of African-American, Latinx, and Italian children in East Harlem, sponsored by the Federal Art Project. My second chapter reviews a series produced under the same Project—Arnold Eagle and David Robbins’s study of the Jewish and Italian sections of the Lower East Side. My third chapter turns to Sid Grossman and Sol Libsohn’s chronicling of Irish and Italian second-generation immigrants in Chelsea, supported by the Photo League. In each chapter, I contend that the prominence of communal spaces within these images results in documents that can be read as an effort by photographer and subject alike to define their place within the contested sites of the urban street. Through this focus on vernacular spaces, these surveys disrupt ideals of belonging and work to document processes of place-making distinct to each occupier. Employing analytical lenses of cultural geography and phenomenology, I theorize the role of collective spaces within each series. These vernacular sites, propelled by their indistinct physical and social dimensions, hold slippery identities, shifting boundaries, and a collection of potential “owners.” Due to this ambiguity, these spaces hold an opportunity for collective emergent action. Throughout these series the photographers show neighborhood dwellers engaging collective spaces of the city to satisfy their quotidian needs. My dissertation examines how inhabitants, through acts of play, ritual, and embodied remembrance, transform these interstitial spaces into place. I consider the photographer’s role as folklorist, sociologist, and archeologist—as they survey how their subjects engage, occupy, and transform the local and ordinary spaces of their metropolitan landscape into places created and claimed by city-dwellers. In attending to the spatial dimension, I consider how photographs register and explore the lives of marginalized communities within the contested landscapes of New York City’s streets.

The Sub-Saharan countries have for a long time struggled with poverty and conflicts which might have proven hostile for investors. The analysis aims to see if there is a significant correlation between foreign direct investments (FDI) and economic growth and which cultural and institutional factors seem to be significant in this correlation. Considered are also other variables and their influence that might explain what motivates and gives incentives for foreign direct investments (FDI) and are used in the construction of a regression analysis. This to see whether there is an effect on the economic growth in relations to FDI. The results show that FDI is of significance to the economic growth in the region and the study shows that corruption seems to be the most significant institutional factor in the correlation with effect on economic growth and the ability to attract FDI.

Moteur de développement scientifique, le concept de vieillissement réussi a su mobiliser les chercheurs dans la construction d'un savoir cumulatif et riche en diversité méthodologique. Cinq décennies de recherche multidisciplinaire ont porté la réflexion gérontologique au-delà de la simple notion de survie, où l'approche quantitative longitudinale, la modélisation par équations structurelles (SEM) et l'argumentation mathématique assument un rôle contemporain grandissant. Traditionnellement absent de la littérature gérontologique, la construction d'un lien analytique formel entre le processus de théorisation et l'analyse quantitative motive le but de cette étude doctorale: Formuler et valider un modèle dynamique de demande de santé physique chez les aînés, dans l'optique plus large de l'élaboration d'un système multidimensionnel d'équations structurelles définissant le vieillissement réussi. Trois objectifs complémentaires sont poursuivis à cette fin: 1) l'élaboration d'un cadre théorique décisionnel, intégrant les principales théories du vieillissement réussi et l'approche microéconomique néo-classique; 2) la dérivation formelle de la demande dynamique de santé physique chez les aînés, fondée sur l'extension mathématique du modèle de Grossman; et 3) l'estimation convergente et non-biaisée des déterminants contemporains de la performance physique des aînés. Ce dernier objectif aborde formellement les phénomènes d'attrition sélective, d'endogénéité statistique et d'hétérogénéité interindividuelle qui accompagnent la recherche quantitative longitudinale sur le vieillissement, où un modèle autorégressif multivarié à erreurs composées est appliqué aux données de l’Étude longitudinale québécoise sur la nutrition comme déterminant d'un vieillissement réussi (NuAge). L'étude secondaire NuAge propose le suivi pluriméthodologique (sociologique, nutritionnel, médical, fonctionnel, anthropométrique) et longitudinal (quatre vagues annuelles successives d'entretiens en face-à-face) de 1793 participants (853 hommes, 940 femmes), âgés entre 67 et 84 ans au moment du recrutement, en bonne santé générale et vivant à domicile dans les régions de Montréal, Laval et de l'Estrie, dans la province de Québec au Canada. Les résultats empiriques les plus saillants exposent la nature dynamique, multidimensionnelle et hautement hétérogène de la composante physiologique du vieillissement réussi. Un haut degré de résilience physique est observé pour l'ensemble des variables dépendantes de force (préhension, biceps, quadriceps) et de mobilité (levers de chaise, vitesse de marche, Timed Up & Go [TUG]) étudiées, où le contrôle de l'hétérogénéité inobservée fixe (hérédité, personnalité, aptitudes...) réduit significativement l'amplitude de réserve physiologique. Le contrôle des effets fixes tend également à amplifier l'impact négatif de l'âge sur la performance physique des aînés, suggérant à son tour une hétérogénéité interindividuelle favorable au vieillissement réussi. Globalement, les modèles à erreurs composées exposent l'effet positif et contemporain d'une bonne santé mentale sur la performance physique des individus âgés. Les capacités cognitives affectent également la santé physique des aînés, où chaque point additionnel au score 3MS neutralise près de 0,90 année d'effet d'âge sur la force de préhension et sur le temps d'exécution du test TUG. L'analyse empirique permet de plus de dégager certains résultats au niveau des habitudes de vie et de l'autonomie fonctionnelle, exposant l'impact négatif du risque nutritionnel sur la force de préhension, l'impact positif et immédiat de la marche extérieure sur la performance au test TUG, l'impact positif des tâches domestiques lourdes sur la force quadriceps et la performance au test TUG, de même que la causalité positive entre la dépendance fonctionnelle (AVQ) et le temps d'exécution du test TUG.

While some theorists have hinted at various social functions served by the gothic genre—such as providing an outlet for grief, anxiety, and violence in their various forms—recent research within the last few decades into sociology, military science, and trauma studies supplies compelling new ways of rereading the horror genre. In addition to providing an outlet for grief, anxiety, and violence in their various forms, horror media can now be read as a preemptive measure in an effort to mediate the immediate and long-term effects of the trauma and horror faced by humanity. I argue that in much the same way an author may write a self-help tract such as The Gift of Fear to try and inform women how to repel a sexual predator by graphically relating harrowing tales of sexual predation, so do some horror texts and film claim to preemptively mediate different types of trauma before, during, and after it occurs. This is done in each case not by merely scaring readers, but by inoculating them against them against future debilitating trauma before, during, and after it may occur. The relatively recent (or at least recently popularized) genre of self-help books that overtly seeks to prepare its audience for future trauma by exposing them to it in a controlled environment draws upon the canon of gothic literature for its inspiration as well as for its rhetorical strategies and literary devices. Without discounting the aesthetics and the utility of horror as a psychological outlet, I will show that gothic media can be reread and reconfigured within this new framework. By realigning horror studies within the framework of trauma studies and the possibility for inoculation against future trauma, this study will provide new insight into one how popular culture often portrays trauma through text, and I will seek to establish a new category affiliated with both trauma theory and horror, the study and representation of pre-memory. This thesis will also present as a case study the rhetorical self-inoculation of American horror author H.P. Lovecraft.

Essay 1: Individuals with higher socioeconomic status (SES) also tend to enjoy better health. Evidence from the economics literature suggests that a potential mechanism behind this “social health gradient” is that human capabilities, that form SES, also facilitate health-promoting behaviors. This essay empirically investigates the significance of socioeconomic differences in health behaviors, using dental care consumption as an operationalization of health investments. I focus on adults at an age where lifetime trajectories for SES can be taken as given and use lifetime income to capture SES. I estimate the impact of lifetime income on dental care consumption and find robust evidence that the social gradient in dental care consumption steepens dramatically over the life-cycle. Considering that dental care consumption only reflects a small part of individuals' health investments the results suggest that lifetime effects of SES on health behaviors could be substantial in other dimensions. Essay 2: This essay studies the effect of competition on prices on a health care market where prices are market determined, namely the Swedish market for dental care. The empirical strategy exploits that the effect of competition differs across services, depending on the characteristics of the service. Price competition is theoretically more intense for services such as examinations and diagnostics (first-stage services), compared to more complicated and unusual treatments (follow-on services). By exploiting this difference, I identify a relative effect of competition on prices. The results suggest small but statistically significant negative short-term effects on prices for first-stage services relative to follow-on services. The results provide evidence that price-setting among dental care clinics responds to changes in the market environment and substantial effects of competition on prices over time cannot be ruled out. Essay 3: The Swedish dental care insurance subsidizes dental care costs above a threshold and becomes more generous as dental care consumption increases. On average, higher-income individuals consume more dental care and have better oral health than low-income individuals. Therefore, the redistributional effects of the Swedish dental care insurance are ambiguous a priori. I find that the dental care insurance adds to the progressive redistribution taking place through other parts of the Swedish social insurance (SI) for individuals aged 35-59 years whereas it reduces the progressivity in the SI for those aged 60-89 years. While the result for the oldest individuals is problematic from an equity point of view, the insurance seems to strengthen the progressitivy of the Swedish social insurance for the vast majority of patients.

The 1950s and 1960s in Czechoslovakia witnessed a fundamental shift in the dramatic and theatrical realms. Following the Communist takeover of 1948, Soviet-inspired Socialist Realism became the official aesthetic of the Czech lands, displacing the avant-garde trends that had dominated the pre-war era. This normative aesthetic program demanded a party-minded ideological perspective (partiinost) and a certain level of accessibility to the masses (narodnost). After the death of Stalin, as the political situation began to thaw, various theatre practitioners began to undermine these Socialist Realist demands, widening the literary horizons by experimenting with a variety of trends, and ultimately sowing the seeds that would lead to the flowering of the Czech theatre of the 1960s. This thesis investigates the ways in which the Socialist Realist model for dramatic and theatrical expression was subverted on the experimental stages of Prague in the late 1950s and 1960s. Specifically, it analyzes the changing role of ideology, dramatic and theatrical space, and objects during this period. By the 1960s, the earnest, socialist ideology that pervaded Socialist Realism in its purported message to the audience had become a stale aesthetic model. In 1963, Václav Havel’s Zahradní slavnost couches this ideology in an absurd dramatic world, subverting and satirizing the didactic nature of Socialist Realism while simultaneously drawing from the Czech avant-garde and foreign trends like the so-called Theatre of the Absurd. Prague’s experimental theatre movement in the 1950s and 1960s, though certainly present on large stages like the National Theatre, primarily sprang from the city’s small stages. Both Jiří Suchý and Jiří Šlitr’s Semafor Theatre and Otomar Krejča’s Theatre Beyond the Gate managed highly innovative productions despite limited stage space. This was made possible, in part, due to their remarkable use of the off-stage and imaginary action spaces. In his article “Man and Object in the Theatre,” Jiří Veltruský notes that human actors on stage operate between two poles: highly spontaneous and highly determined actions. Socialist Realism, which offered its audience models of behaviour for their lives outside the theatre, reduced characters to types, limiting their perceived spontaneity, as they exist primarily to fulfill necessary narrative functions (i.e., the positive hero). In a sense, human beings are objectified. In his adaptation of Alfred Jarry’s Ubu roi, director Jan Grossman takes this to the extreme. By presenting the actions of his actors as highly determined, he reduces the human figure to a manipulated object. When Ubu oversees the annihilation of these beings, Grossman both parodies the Socialist Realist approach to characterization and offers a stunningly subversive rebuke of the Czech political culture. In this work I show how the innovative spirit of Czech theatre and drama of the 1960s represented an era of shifting aesthetic norms, which reacted to the strict, normative Socialist Realist trend of the 1950s, borrowed from numerous foreign and domestic trends both past and present, and developed unique techniques of their own in order to create impactful works on the stage and on the page.

The 1950s and 1960s in Czechoslovakia witnessed a fundamental shift in the dramatic and theatrical realms. Following the Communist takeover of 1948, Soviet-inspired Socialist Realism became the official aesthetic of the Czech lands, displacing the avant-garde trends that had dominated the pre-war era. This normative aesthetic program demanded a party-minded ideological perspective (partiinost) and a certain level of accessibility to the masses (narodnost). After the death of Stalin, as the political situation began to thaw, various theatre practitioners began to undermine these Socialist Realist demands, widening the literary horizons by experimenting with a variety of trends, and ultimately sowing the seeds that would lead to the flowering of the Czech theatre of the 1960s. This thesis investigates the ways in which the Socialist Realist model for dramatic and theatrical expression was subverted on the experimental stages of Prague in the late 1950s and 1960s. Specifically, it analyzes the changing role of ideology, dramatic and theatrical space, and objects during this period. By the 1960s, the earnest, socialist ideology that pervaded Socialist Realism in its purported message to the audience had become a stale aesthetic model. In 1963, Václav Havel’s Zahradní slavnost couches this ideology in an absurd dramatic world, subverting and satirizing the didactic nature of Socialist Realism while simultaneously drawing from the Czech avant-garde and foreign trends like the so-called Theatre of the Absurd. Prague’s experimental theatre movement in the 1950s and 1960s, though certainly present on large stages like the National Theatre, primarily sprang from the city’s small stages. Both Jiří Suchý and Jiří Šlitr’s Semafor Theatre and Otomar Krejča’s Theatre Beyond the Gate managed highly innovative productions despite limited stage space. This was made possible, in part, due to their remarkable use of the off-stage and imaginary action spaces. In his article “Man and Object in the Theatre,” Jiří Veltruský notes that human actors on stage operate between two poles: highly spontaneous and highly determined actions. Socialist Realism, which offered its audience models of behaviour for their lives outside the theatre, reduced characters to types, limiting their perceived spontaneity, as they exist primarily to fulfill necessary narrative functions (i.e., the positive hero). In a sense, human beings are objectified. In his adaptation of Alfred Jarry’s Ubu roi, director Jan Grossman takes this to the extreme. By presenting the actions of his actors as highly determined, he reduces the human figure to a manipulated object. When Ubu oversees the annihilation of these beings, Grossman both parodies the Socialist Realist approach to characterization and offers a stunningly subversive rebuke of the Czech political culture. In this work I show how the innovative spirit of Czech theatre and drama of the 1960s represented an era of shifting aesthetic norms, which reacted to the strict, normative Socialist Realist trend of the 1950s, borrowed from numerous foreign and domestic trends both past and present, and developed unique techniques of their own in order to create impactful works on the stage and on the page.

On December 26th, 2004, 280,000 people lost their lives. A massive earthquake struck Indonesia, triggering a tsunami that affected several countries, including Thailand. The disaster had important implications for health status of Thai citizens, as well as health system planning, and thus underscores the need to study its long-term effect. This dissertation examined the patterns, determinants, and spatial analysis of health service utilization following the tsunami in Thailand. The primary aim was to determine whether tsunami-affected status (personal injury or property loss) and distance to a health facility (public health center or hospital) influenced health service utilization. The study population included Thai citizens (aged 14+), living in the tsunami-affected Thai provinces: Phuket, Phang Nga, Krabi, and Ranong. Study participants were randomly selected from the ‘affected’ and ‘unaffected’ populations. One and two years after the tsunami, participants were interviewed in-person on demographic and socio-economic factors, disaster impact, health status, and health service utilization. Five types of health services were examined: outpatient services, inpatient services, home visits, medications, and informal (unpaid) care. Distance to a health facility was calculated using Geographic Information System’s Network Analyst. The Grossman model of the demand for health care and a distance decay concept provided the foundation for this study. A propensity score method and a two-part model were used to examine the study objectives. There were 1,889 participants. One year after the tsunami, individuals affected by property loss were more likely to use medications than unaffected participants. Two years after the tsunami, individuals with personal injury were more likely to use outpatient services, medications, and informal care than unaffected participants. Distance to a health facility was associated with the use of medications and informal care. The results confirmed the long-term effect of a tsunami. This dissertation may assist the decision- and policy-makers in the identification of those most likely to use health services and in the request of health resources to the affected areas. The patterns, determinants, and spatial analysis of health service utilization found in this study may not be specific to a tsunami and may provide insights on post-disaster contexts of other natural disasters.

On December 26th, 2004, 280,000 people lost their lives. A massive earthquake struck Indonesia, triggering a tsunami that affected several countries, including Thailand. The disaster had important implications for health status of Thai citizens, as well as health system planning, and thus underscores the need to study its long-term effect. This dissertation examined the patterns, determinants, and spatial analysis of health service utilization following the tsunami in Thailand. The primary aim was to determine whether tsunami-affected status (personal injury or property loss) and distance to a health facility (public health center or hospital) influenced health service utilization. The study population included Thai citizens (aged 14+), living in the tsunami-affected Thai provinces: Phuket, Phang Nga, Krabi, and Ranong. Study participants were randomly selected from the ‘affected’ and ‘unaffected’ populations. One and two years after the tsunami, participants were interviewed in-person on demographic and socio-economic factors, disaster impact, health status, and health service utilization. Five types of health services were examined: outpatient services, inpatient services, home visits, medications, and informal (unpaid) care. Distance to a health facility was calculated using Geographic Information System’s Network Analyst. The Grossman model of the demand for health care and a distance decay concept provided the foundation for this study. A propensity score method and a two-part model were used to examine the study objectives. There were 1,889 participants. One year after the tsunami, individuals affected by property loss were more likely to use medications than unaffected participants. Two years after the tsunami, individuals with personal injury were more likely to use outpatient services, medications, and informal care than unaffected participants. Distance to a health facility was associated with the use of medications and informal care. The results confirmed the long-term effect of a tsunami. This dissertation may assist the decision- and policy-makers in the identification of those most likely to use health services and in the request of health resources to the affected areas. The patterns, determinants, and spatial analysis of health service utilization found in this study may not be specific to a tsunami and may provide insights on post-disaster contexts of other natural disasters.

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