The history of mankind has been plagued by an almost continuous chain of various armed conflicts - local, regional, national and global - that have caused horrendous damage to the social and physical fabric of cities. The tragedy of millions deprived by war still continues. This study sets out to understand the nature of reconstruction after war in the light of recent armed conflicts. It attempts to catalogue and discuss the tasks involved in the process of reconstruction planning by establishing a conceptual framework of the main issues in the reconstruction process. The case of Bosnia and Herzegovina is examined in detail and on the whole acts as the leit-motif of the whole dissertation and positions reconstruction in the broader context of sustainable development. The study is organized into two parts that constitute the doctoral aggregate dissertation – a combining of papers with an introductory monograph. In this case the introductory monograph is an extended one and there are six papers that follow. Both sections can be read on their own merits but also constitute one entity. The rebuilding of war-devastated countries and communities can be seen as a series of nonintegrated activities carried out (and often imposed) by international agencies and governments, serving political and other agendas. The result is that calamities of war are often accompanied by the calamities of reconstruction without any regard to sustainable development. The body of knowledge related to post-conflict reconstruction lacks a strong and cohesive theory. In order to better understand the process of reconstruction we present a qualitative inquiry based on the Grounded Theory Method developed originally by Barney Glaser and Anselm Strauss (1967). This approach utilizes a complex conceptualization with empirical evidence to produce theoretical structure. The results of process have evolved into the development of a conceptual model, called SCOPE (Sustainable Communities in Post-conflict Environments). This study proposes both a structure within which to examine post-conflict reconstruction and provides an implementation method. We propose to use the SCOPE model as a set of strategy, policy and program recommendations to assist the international community and all relevant decision-makers to ensure that the destruction and carnage of war does not have to be followed by a disaster of post-conflict reconstruction. We also offer to provide a new foundation and paradigm on post-conflict reconstruction, which incorporates and integrates a number of approaches into a multidisciplinary and systems thinking manner in order to better understand the complexity and dependencies of issues at hand. We believe that such a systems approach could better be able to incorporate the complexities involved and would offer much better results than the approaches currently in use. The final section of this study returns to the fact that although it is probably impossible to produce universal answers, we desperately need to find commonalities amongst different postconflict reconstruction settings in order to better deal with the reconstruction planning in a more dynamic, proactive, and sustainable manner. / <p>QC 20111014</p>

This thesis presents a comparative study of the aesthetics of three theatre initiatives from development settings: theatre company Nós do Morro in Brazil, multi-disciplinary arts centre Phare Ponleu Selpak in Cambodia, and non-profit organisation Movimiento Teatro Popular Sin Fronteras in Nicaragua. By focussing on how different judgements within the landscape of aesthetic and social worth meet, conflict or interact within the programmes, processes and outcomes of the three theatre organisations, this research articulates the different kinds of ‘values’ attached to the (at times) competing aesthetic criteria for practitioners, government bodies and national and international non-governmental organisations that have stakes in this work. The majority of the data in this research is qualitative, generated by interviews, stories about theatre practitioners’ experiences and my own observations of performances, workshops and rehearsals. After exploring the landscape of aesthetic and social worth across the three case studies, this research points out the many ways in which international economics and global governance – manifest in tax-reduced sponsorships by global corporations, funding decisions of international interveners and cultural policies of national governments – participate and intrude into both the aesthetic and social constructions of applied theatre’s artistic value, therefore framing its aesthetic sphere. The global pressure coming from the United Nations and the international humanitarian community seeking to shape applied theatre companies and make them respond to certain dynamics serves neither art nor community. This also makes it very difficult to locate an aesthetic of applied theatre in a way that is ‘traditional’ in discussions of aesthetics (through definition of the art ‘product’ alone, via reference to ideas of beauty, affect and the senses). This study therefore found a way of understanding the impact of economic and international actors on applied theatre using Appadurai’s concept of the ethnoscape (1991), which offers a theoretical and analytical framework for investigating the determining factors of the aesthetics of applied theatre, and the aesthetic discourses surrounding applied theatre in development settings. I argue that applied theatre practices globally are becoming too uniform: global forms taken by transnational institutions are starting to evolve in new directions. We need to attentively investigate what the level of resistance of applied theatre companies can be. Although each art organisation is trying to find a place for applied theatre in the ‘new’ world, the theatre companies can hopefully resist the pressure to become the same kind of company, living in a state partially organised according to international agendas. As a result, this research proposes a more politicised, historicised kind of practice, teaching and mentoring around these questions. This will support applied theatre practitioners in finding their way in the new global world.