Thesis (M.A. (Anthropology))--Rhodes University, 2005.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin, 1967. / Extension Repository Collection. Typescript (carbon copy). Includes autobiography. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 142-146).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1972. / Typescript. Vita. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 159-163).

McGee in his recent writings on Asian urbanization highlights extended metropolitan regions and proximate non-urban settlement systems with an intense mixture of agricultural and non-agricultural activities. The latter McGee terms as desakota, a neologism coined in Bahasa Indonesian, to signify the fusion of desa (rural) and kota (urban). Some of the ecological preconditions for desakota are high rural population densities; labour intensive rice cultivation with agricultural labourers in need of non-farm work in the off seasons and/or labour shedding by green revolution effects. McGee however recognizes that desakota can also occur in other ecologically dense habitat of non-rice crops with high population densities. Kerala State in India is one such region with a mix of rice and non-rice crops. This study examines the urban-rural fusion that is observed in Kerala and provides an empirically informed assessment of the McGee desakota hypothesis. While basically affirming the desakota hypothesis, the study at the same time raises some caveats. First, desakota in Kerala is not dependent on any central urban system and intra-desakota dynamics are significant. While M c G e e has recognized that such desakota do occur, his writings tend to neglect this type of desakota. Second, McGee's writings on extended metropolitan regions and desakota are increasingly associated with the recent rapid e c o n o m i c growth occurring in some of the Asian countries. Desakota in Kerala blurs this characteristic as it appears to have occurred beginning in the late colonial p e r i o d of the British Raj. Third, a unique mix of factors in Kerala make the political economy central to making desakota in Kerala intelligible. Undoubtedly in the specificity of the Kerala context the political economy is important. Nonetheless this study raises a critique of the underemphasis of the political economy in McGee's work on extended metropolitan regions and desakota. The research on desakota in Kerala involved the examination of the regional geography of Kerala. Kerala with its radical politics and remarkable social development in a context of low economic growth, attracted the attention of social scientists. But in these studies the spatial dimensions were largely ignored. This study emphasizes that geography matters in understanding Kerala, and that there is an important nexus between the space and political economy of Kerala. / Arts, Faculty of / Geography, Department of / Graduate

This thesis treats a wide variety of sociological issues within the context of urban Latin America. The selected and utilized urbanization-migration materials converge around a common denominator, popularly known as poverty. The chapters are designed to provide renewed examinations and interpretations of discussions relating to poor urbanites. Opening passages reveal several widely shared empirical generalizations about urbanization. Throughout the thesis, it is essential to keep in mind that urban populations in Latin America are increasing rapidly, that the poor component to urban populations is extremely large and continues to expand, and that the tenement slums, shack slums and progressive squatter settlements are swelling. Because it contributes heavily to the growth of urban populations in general and urban poverty segments in particular, the process of internal migration holds an important position for topical analyses in this study. Crucial points to grasp are the not-so-rural origins of migrants, the typical step-wise pattern of city-ward movement, the reliance on a mixture of former and newly acquired experiences and interactions for suitable urban existence, the variable motives for migration, and the heterogeneous residence patterns of recent and established migrants. Theoretical and conceptual examinations portray and contrast two sides of a debate over poverty perspectives. A look at the "psycho-cultural" perspective, as clearly applied in Oscar Lewis' "culture of poverty" model, reveals the need to critically question value-laden claims such as poverty-culture inferiority and distinctiveness, psychosocial breakdown, personal unworthiness and resistance to change which are supposedly preventing the elimination of poverty. The "situational-structural" perspective represents an attempt to understand many poor urbanites' attitudes, actions and reactions in terms of adaptive responses to constraining situations imposed on them by total social and economic structures. The effective elimination of poverty relies on an extensive modification of structural flaws and an immediate introduction of socio-economic improvements to the deserving poor. Empirical re-analyses of posited "culture of poverty" traits and of recent and established migrant political destabi1ization cast serious doubts on the validity, exclusiveness and explanatory potential of such notorious poverty images. "Situational-structural" considerations of existing data furnish more realistic explanations of specific urban poverty conditions, as well as social, economic and political attitudes and behaviours displayed by poor urbanites. Lastly, a careful investigation of various kinds of public housing schemes which intend to cater to lower-income families discloses an elaborate assortment of unnecessary problems being levied on both poor urbanites and urban society as a whole. When considered objectively, there are remarkably valuable lessons to be learned from the practical and sensible housing approaches being favoured and employed by so many Latin American urban squatters. / Arts, Faculty of / Sociology, Department of / Graduate

The movement of workers from the rural to the urban sector has been and continues to be an integral part of economic development. The phenomenon is neither avoidable nor completely preventable. Attempts to explain it have thus been concerned largely with the rate of movement of rural workers to the urban sector and the resultant urban unemployment. The major cause of rural to urban migration is economic. Essentially, this includes calculations about actual or expected incomes and the existence of differences in employment opportunities between the rural and the urban sectors. Workers will normally migrate to a sector if that sector offers more job opportunities and higher average wages. However, some workers may be attracted to the urban sector by better welfare and social facilities but these alone can not account for a significant volume of rural to urban migration. In South Africa, Black workers, as elsewhere, respond to differences in employment opportunities and average wages between sectors by moving to the sector which offers more. However, the homeland policy controls and regulates the movement, settlement and employment of African labor particularly in the White controlled economy (urban sector). The policy seeks to ultimately reduce the African population in the White controlled economy and at the same time to develop the homelands so that a larger number of Black workers would be employed in the homelands or in border areas. Because of the controls in the urban sector, the urban Black labor force has remained largely unstabilized and resulted in a migrant labor system. Attempts to develop the homelands have not made much headway. Since the 1930's their capacity to support their populations has been deteriorating. Often maize and sorghum (staple foods) have to be imported to supplement the little that is produced locally. Rapid population growth and widespread removal of Black workers from the White controlled economy to the homelands in the 1960's created a serious problem of overcrowdedness in the homelands. Population density in these areas is among the highest in Africa. The homeland modern sector is still in its infancy and can only create a small number of jobs in a year. The majority of the economically active African workers continue to seek employment in the White controlled economy. The homeland policy has thus not succeeded yet in its objective. What it has succeeded in doing instead is to concentrate the dependents of urban Black workers in the homelands thereby shifting responsibility to them for providing the workers and their dependents with social services. The homelands remain poor, underdeveloped and cheap reserves of African labor for the White controlled economy.

Many researchers have studied the interaction between choice overload and purchase intention resulting in mixed and sometimes contradictory results. This study extended the current knowledge and examined how rurality (rural vs. urban/suburban) among millennial consumers influences choice overload and purchase intention when presented with extensive or limited options. Using both quantitative survey data and qualitative interviews, the author studied consumer experiences to understand choice overload and purchase intention better. Overall, some of the results suggest a statistical difference between rural and urban/suburban participants in their feelings of choice overload. However, many of the results were small and unlikely to be of practical significance. Additionally, the interviews were analyzed and multiple themes emerged, including possible factors that may support prior meta-analytic conclusions about the nuance of choice overload.

The purpose of this study was to examine the degree to which relatedness support affects motivational profiles in rural vs. urban physical education (PE) students. Participants included rural (n=177) and urban (n=431) junior high/high school students (grades 5-12) from Alberta, a western province in Canada (n=508), and Utah, a state in the intermountain west of the USA (n=100). This cross-sectional study measured and assessed students’ basic psychological needs of student-to-student relatedness, student-to-teacher relatedness, competence, and autonomy using a revised version of the Basic Psychological Needs Scale (BPNS-R). Situational motivation was measured and assessed using the Situational Intrinsic Motivation Scale – Physical Education (SIMS-PE). For data analysis, MANOVA was used to examine significant differences among group variables (urban and rural, gender, and state) for selected variables (basic psychological needs indices and motivational indices). Significant rural vs. urban effects were noted for basic psychological needs and reveal urban students as having significantly more student-to-teacher relatedness (p = .032), competence (p = .001), and autonomy (p = .002) than rural students. Significant rural vs. urban effects were also noted for motivational indices and reveal urban students as having significantly more intrinsic motivation (p < .001), identified regulation (p = .001), and higher Self-Determination Index (SDI) scores (p < .001) than rural students. Significant state effects reveal Alberta students are significantly more intrinsically motivated (p < .001) than Utah students. Due to sheer population size of metropolitan areas, urban students inherently have more PE options and more funding, which possibly allows them to experience greater autonomy and competence. Limited choices in rural schools could be a contributing factor for lower autonomy and competence measures. Rural PE teachers oftentimes teach other core subjects, which possibly makes PE classes less engaging and rigid, thereby causing lower relatedness between teacher and student. The Covid-19 pandemic has predominately paused extracurricular physical activities in urban settings, potentially catalyzing greater meaning and importance in urban PE; possibly initiating greater self-determined motivation for urban students. Rural PE teachers are recommended to be intentional with their relatedness support. PE teachers should adopt a holistic approach to satisfying the basic psychological needs of relatedness, competence, and autonomy instead of focusing on one need at the expense of others.

Among the major interests of students of urbanism and urbanization in the United States have been the understanding and explication of differences between urban and rural segments of American society. Coupled with this has been an attempt to theoretically delineate the effects of these differences on the social psychological adjustment of urban and rural inhabitants. The culmination of this work in sociology is to be found in Wirth's (1938) essay "Urbanism as a Way of Life." Wirth identified three major differences between urban and rural lifestyles which have been the impetus for considerable research and controversy. The three major differences identified by Wirth are: 1. the weakening of primary relationships, 2. the development of a distinctly urban personality characterized by rationality, utility and adaptability, and 3. the development of a community based on interest rather than locality. Research has, to date, been equivocal in its support or rejection of these differences. This dissertation represents another attempt to test what might be called the "Wirthian hypotheses II but with a major departure from other attempts. Rather than using current urban or rural residence as the major independent variables, urban or rural residences at age 16 are used. The research was conducted using data from two sample surveys, one a national sample (the "General Social Survey" conducted by NORC in the Spring of 1975), and one a sample of Portland, Oregon's 65 and over population (the "Supplementary Security Income Survey" conducted by the Institute on Aging in 1975). The research was limited to older persons 60 years of age and over. This dissertation, then, is an attempt to gauge the effects of residential history on the three central hypotheses derived from the earlier formulations of Louis Wirth. The three research hypotheses are: 1. Lifelong urban residents are likely to exhibit less intense primary group/ties than are lifelong rural residents or urban migrants. 2. Lifelong urban residents are more likely to develop adaptable and individualistic personality structures than are lifelong rural residents or urban migrants. 3. Lifelong urban residents are less likely to maintain a community based upon proximity than are lifelong rural residents or urban migrants.

<p> This thesis explored the feasibility of using a decision-making approach to explain changing agricultural land-use patterns in the rural-urban fringe. The change in farm ownership to a non-farmer user was assumed to reflect a change in land use. A basic objective was to identify and describe the types of elements which composed the farmers mode of perception of the decision-making context. Variations in the modes of perception were then related to an array of socio-economic characteristics of the landowner. </p> <p> The investigation confirmed the utility of the decision-making approach and confirmed the importance of the land appreciation component to the decision context. The selling price which the farmer appraised his property at was critical in determining whether the property was sold. Empirical analysis suggested a significant relationship between the selling price and the economic viability of the farm operation.</p> / Thesis / Master of Arts (MA)