Thesis (M.A.)--University of Kentucky, 2003. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains ix, 179 p. : ill. Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 170-178).

Thesis (Ph. D.(Agricultural Economics))--University of Pretoria, 2003. / Includes summary. Includes bibliographical references. Adobe Acrobat Redear needed to open files.

Thesis (M. Inst. Agrar.(Agricultural Economics))--University of Pretoria, 2004. / Includes summary. Includes bibliographical references.

Marginalized rural populations are the main actors in a growing multi-disciplinary effort to conserve some of the most biodiverse and culturally rich regions of the world. Within a context of greater political tensions and environmental worries on a global scale, alternative modes of development are drawing greater attention. Sustainable development, women in development and indigenous land use are all important issues in the rural landscape. This thesis examines these issues in the Felipe Carrillo Puerto (FCP) ejido (communal land-holding) community in Chemax, Yucatan, Mexico, which has been working in collaboration with a national non-governmental organization (NGO), Bioasesores, A.C. Focus is placed on the ‘Women’s Home Gardens Project.’ This new take on an old tradition aims to reduce economic pressures, improve access to nutritious foods, and empower the female group through participatory strategies. The NGO-community relationship, of which there is a growing multitude in Latin America, becomes critical in this endeavor. Through ethnographic data based on interviews with the women and participant observation, it is clear that decisions made by this Yucatec Maya community function within their political environment, economic pressures, and societal norms. The environmental consultants working within the community exercise well-intentioned, participant-based methods that improve upon government actions of the past; however there are several challenges that are not fully addressed. There is a clear potential for these efforts, though there are also problems that call into question the project’s sustainability. In a region that continues to struggle due to external economic pressures, there is a need to ensure that current development efforts in the ejido take both the needs of the people and environmental conservation into account. The rural landscape continues to develop in Mexico, and both NGOs and local communities are actively involved. This research offers a glimpse into the dynamics of one relationship between an NGO and an ejido, and provides suggestions for improvement. / text

This dissertation analyzes the causes of rural development in East Asia, as well as the relative success or failure of rural development policies among East Asian countries, providing detailed case studies of China, Taiwan, and South Korea. These countries exhibit a range of variation on the dependent variable, rural development, which is defined as improvements in rural living standards, agricultural production and the village environment. Taiwan in the 1950s-1970s is the most successful case; South Korea in the 1950s-1970s is a less successful case; and China evolves from a failed case during the Maoist period (1949-1976) to a more successful case during the reform period (post-1978), but still one that is less successful than either Taiwan or South Korea. This study expands and challenges the developmental state literature, which, despite its contribution to explaining industrialization in East Asia, generally ignores the role of the state in rural development, fails to account for variation among East Asian countries, and excludes China from the comparative analysis. Based on two years of fieldwork and data culled from interviews, archives, and libraries, this dissertation advances a theory that specifies the varying contributions of land reform, farmers’ organizations, and modernization campaigns in rural development. This study shows that the reversal of urban-biased policies is possible in authoritarian states but does not account for variation in rural development outcomes; that variables such as decentralization and democratic checks on authority are not necessary conditions for rural development; that land reform is less important than previous studies have assumed; and that farmers’ organizations are critical to successful rural development. This study also shows that rural modernization campaigns, defined as policies that demand high levels of bureaucratic and popular mobilization to transform “traditional” ways of life in the countryside, have played a central role in East Asian rural development. This finding contradicts the developmental state model’s assumption of technical-rational policymaking, and runs counter to studies that portray state intervention in rural society as predatory or even pathologically destructive. Finally, this dissertation reveals a dynamic process of regional policy learning and modeling that has largely gone undocumented. / Government

published_or_final_version / Sociology / Master / Master of Philosophy

Exploring planning methodology for BC's resource-based communities, this paper investigates rural community transition and proposes a planning framework based on enhancing the survival capacity of communities facing the pressures and challenges of economic and social change. Utilizing both primary and secondary research methods (including a review of relevant literature, government publications, and a pilot of the proposed method in Zeballos, British Columbia), this analysis is intended to contribute to the practicing planner's tools for working with rural communities in economic and social transition. The study first examines the context of British Columbia's forestry-dependent communities. It explores the literature around successful community development efforts and also around stable and resilient communities and identifies Fourteen Characteristics of Surviving Rural Communities. It then proposes a planning method that is responsive to these characteristics, with a goal to both build awareness of the community's inherent survival capacity and to foster it through a 'learning-by-doing' process. It also examines the role of the planner in working with these communities. Working with the community of Zeballos, the pilot process revealed several insights about planning with transitioning communities. These communities are not alike, they are shaped by a range of factors and face diverse influences. Yet all require a willingness to accept and embrace change and they require support in managing change. Best efforts to plan for an achievable transition strategy requires considerable forethought in preparing a planning methodology that serves the community's needs and enables the community to shape goals toward achievable outcomes. For communities in transition, enhancing local capacity to survive and manage change may be as important as selecting any specific transition outcome, for it has been shown that it is in the way that communities determine and implement their transition strategy that determines success in the effort.

'Globalization' has become a powerful icon in academic, policy and business circles. This thesis seeks to trace some of the consequences of both the process and the idea of globalization in the Philippines. The thesis starts by arguing that theories of globalization - economic, technological, political and cultural - have invested in the process an aura of inevitability and necessity. These 'logics' of globalization, widely promulgated by both the political left and right, imply a particular construction of scale that privileges the global above all other levels of analysis. This construction has been used as a discursive legitimation of neoliberal policy prescriptions for development. In seeking to destabilize this construction of the global scale, the rest of the thesis demonstrates the ways in which global flows (particularly of capital and cultural meanings) are in fact embedded, mediated and activated in local social relations in the Philippines. This empirically-based argument starts with a brief historical account of Philippine relations with 'global space' from pre-colonial times to the present, demonstrating that the relationship has been contingent and politically contested over time and has owed as much to national level power relations as to global forces. In the last few decades, in particular, 'globalization' has been both a key material process in the Philippine economy, and an important part of the Ramos administration's legitimation of its development strategies. These have included deregulation, decentralization, trade liberalization, and encouraging foreign direct investment in export manufacturing. This investment has exhibited a spatial concentration in the core region around Manila, and particularly in the province of Cavite. Through multiple scales of analysis - provincial, municipal, village, household and individual -I explore the ways in which experiences of 'globalized' development in Cavite and two of its villages are embedded in 'local' social, economic, environmental, political and cultural processes. These experiences come principally in the form of: changing local labour markets, land conversion from agricultural to urban-industrial uses, and the reworking of cultural identities. One central argument is proposed throughout: that viewing globalization as an inevitable and unavoidable context for development is inappropriate; instead, the processes of globalization must be seen as embedded in social processes and power relations operating in particular places. This argument embodies two further points. First, that the 'places' in which globalization is embedded are at multiple scales which must be seen as interlinked and overlapping rather than distinct and hierarchical. Secondly, while globalization, and its embeddedness in places, operates as a material process, it is also a social construction and political discourse which, by locating the 'driving force' of social change at the global scale, serves to legitimize certain practices and construct a particular relationship between the 'local' and the 'global'.

Data used in this study showed that many rural development projects in Kenya are not successfully implemented. This failure among rural projects has a negative impact on rural development in Kenya. Therefore, the purpose of this research effort was to show whether a centralized planning approach or a decentralized planning approach would be most successful in implementing rural projects in Kenya.Three rural projects were examined to show which be used in developing rural Kenya. Based on the definitions stated in chapter one, one project was thought to be nationally planned and two projects were thought to be locally planned. However, research revealed that all the three projects were centrally planned. Research also showed that the area covered by the project and availability of the project's research component play an important part in the success of a rural development project.Recommendations were made for further research on rural development which would lead to better solutions in developing countries of Africa. / Department of Urban Planning

This thesis examines the Ujamaa movement program since the Arusha Declaration. The discussion focuses on the development of villages as means of achieving popular participation in a socialist society.It analyzes the historical antecedents of physical village form in Tanzania, from traditional settlement to present Ujamaa villages. The study discusses the principle models that have been used for Ujamaa villages as well as their origins. The study explores Michaela Von Freyhold case studies in the early years of the program. Comparison is made between Freyhold's critique and the author's experience in two Ujamaa villages.Conclusion is then drawn from these two experiences by evaluating the failures and successes of the whole operation, whether the achievements are really caused by socialism or whether they happened despite national policies. / Department of Urban Planning