Participatory action research (PAR) oriented by an eco-system health framework is one approach to involving marginalised peoples in their own problem solving. A PAR project during 2005-06 that engaged peri-urban farmers in Senegal using popular education documented change on environment and health perceptions and behaviour. Health as a theme took on greater importance, as farmers related good health to their ability to work and their overall productivity. Farmers came to better recognize the symptoms of pesticide poisoning and to establish more clearly the link between pesticide-related work practices and health effects. Less clear remained their recognition of symptoms and links with wastewater use practices, though malaria and parasitic infection were linked to urban agriculture. African worldviews, including notions of locus of power, were important determinants of perceived vulnerability to risks. Farmers cited fatigue as an important clue to the work-health interface and indicator of overall wellbeing. Farmers’ understanding evolved to become more dynamic, describing the complex web of environmentally-related health risk. By 2006, farmers experimented more with less toxic pest control methods, adjusted their clothing to protect their skin and mouth, and reduced some exposure pathways through improved hygiene behaviour. However, toxic pesticides continued to be used and exposure to wastewater with limited protection remained widespread. Change was dependent upon: the researcher’s deep understanding of how farmers learned; farmers’ trust in the purveyors of new information; and the clarity, consistency and relevance of messages devised. Change varied with farmers’ literacy; the language used; and the way in which tools and media were interpreted culturally and technically. The health belief model provided a partial explanation for changes in perceptions and behaviour. Social, political and economic barriers preventing change included: leaving the onus for change on farmers, diminishing the responsibility of pesticide manufacturers and governments; land tenure arrangements which reduced investment in health and environment protection; urban poverty and illiteracy; and eco-system constraints. Examination of the PAR process, its leadership, owners, tools and ideas developed, and knowledge created provided useful insight into issues of power and control.

The Casamance conflict for decades has been unable to produce a sustained peace settlement. This project utilised among others, the relative deprivation and basic human needs satisfaction theories respectively and concludes that the conflict is underpinned by relative deprivation, strongly felt and driven by the elite group. Both the current phase as well as in the past, the conflict has been driven and to an extent manipulated by these elite, motivated by self-empowerment. Masked under the struggle of a relatively deprived masses into collective violence, seeded in a classic social conflict of a type rooted in stereotyping, marginalisation and underdevelopment, primarily driven by basic human needs dissatisfaction expressed in terms of the levels of poverty.   These stemmed in part from the colonial pass which set into motion the continuous suppression and segregation of the Casamance region. In particular, of the Diola ethnic identity thus, the conflict’s ethno nationalists dimension. This research presents a deprivation approach strategy to peace making, which among other factors includes addressing the socioeconomic and political causes of the conflict and also one that underscores the relevance of a credible third party involvement to resolving the dispute between a fractured MFDC and a reluctant Government of Senegal.

The last two centuries have been distinguished by technological innovation, liberalization and globalization of the world economy. Out of this environment the multinational enterprises (MNEs) have arisen -seeking the best profit opportunities around the world without consideration to poverty and equality in the host countries. This has raised the interest of the present study where the objective is to assess the impact MNEs have on the host country in terms of transferring know-how. By testing two hypotheses, the study attempts to analyze whether MNEs entail a transfer of skills and also identifies the extent to which MNEs are a potential source of skill-upgrading. The research is realized by a qualitative minor field study in Dakar where 24 semi-structured interviews are carried out at three MNEs and three Senegalese enterprises. The interviews are jointly analyzed with a theoretical framework in order to determinate if there are significant differences between the two types of enterprises concerning the wage-setting, working conditions as well as transfer of know-how. The result shows that MNEs have more training opportunities then local enterprises, the working conditions do not differ significantly. Further there is no evidence found for MNEs paying higher wages then local enterprises judged by the general attitude of the interviewees. It is therefore assumed to be some labor mobility, implying that the training contributed by MNEs might work a source of skill-upgrade for the workforce in Dakar.

<p>Can cross-border interaction: interpersonal, economic, and otherwise, help ease relations between neighbouring political entities facing conflicts of interest and other differences?</p><p>1. How and why are border crossing communication routes created and maintained?</p><p>2. Under what circumstances are they used and how?</p><p>3. In what ways do they alter the conditions of a conflict between the parties that they link?</p><p>4. How do governments relate to the communication route and in what ways do they fit it into their policies?</p><p>Seeking to reconcile the theories of the international system advanced by Hedley Bull and John W. Burton, we conduct a comparative case study, based on contemporary media and scholarship, of the situations regarding Senegal and the Gambia, as well as the two de facto (if not de jure) republics of Cyprus to answer these questions. Having sought to estimate the causes and effects of border crossing, we find that host factors, in particular divergent economies and the utilization of international partners, may in fact come to stem from the issues of border-crossing activity and contribute to complicating existing conflicts rather than resolve them.</p>

<p>The last two centuries have been distinguished by technological innovation, liberalization and globalization of the world economy. Out of this environment the multinational enterprises (MNEs) have arisen -seeking the best profit opportunities around the world without consideration to poverty and equality in the host countries. This has raised the interest of the present study where the objective is to assess the impact MNEs have on the host country in terms of transferring know-how. By testing two hypotheses, the study attempts to analyze whether MNEs entail a transfer of skills and also identifies the extent to which MNEs are a potential source of skill-upgrading. The research is realized by a qualitative minor field study in Dakar where 24 semi-structured interviews are carried out at three MNEs and three Senegalese enterprises. The interviews are jointly analyzed with a theoretical framework in order to determinate if there are significant differences between the two types of enterprises concerning the wage-setting, working conditions as well as transfer of know-how. The result shows that MNEs have more training opportunities then local enterprises, the working conditions do not differ significantly. Further there is no evidence found for MNEs paying higher wages then local enterprises judged by the general attitude of the interviewees. It is therefore assumed to be some labor mobility, implying that the training contributed by MNEs might work a source of skill-upgrade for the workforce in Dakar.</p>

Thesis (M.A.)--Miami University, Dept. of History, 2003. / Title from first page of PDF document. Document formatted into pages; contains ii, 77 p. Includes bibliographical references (p. 72-77).

This study is concerned with the artistic rewriting, in French and by writers and filmmakers of West African origins, of the massacre of Thiaroye (Senegal), the 1944 mutiny of African soldiers severely repressed by the French army. The corpus is formed by the following works: a poem, “Tyaroye” (1944), by Senegalese poet and president Léopold Sédar Senghor, another poem by Guinean artist Fodeba Keita, “Aube africaine” (1949), a play, Thiaroye terre rouge (1981), by Senegalese writer and journalist Boubacar Boris Diop, a novel, Morts pour la France (1983), by Malian author Doumbi-Fakoly, a movie, Camp de Thiaroye (1987), by Senegalese director Sembene Ousmane, a short animated movie, L’Ami y’a bon (2004) by French filmmaker of Algerian origins Rachid Bouchareb, and a play by professor and writer Cheikh Faty Faye, Aube de sang (2005). The main purpose of this study is to constitute and characterize a history of these artistic representations. I argue that these works, produced either before the accession of African countries to independence in the 1940s, or twenty to twenty-five years afterwards in the 1980s, or quite recently, in the so-called era of “globalization," belong to three main trends or stages, according to the socio-political role they assume: insertion of Thiaroye in the collective memories of France and West Africa, for Senghor and Keita, use of the events to criticize and resist (neo-)colonialism, for Diop, Doumbi-Fakoly and Sembene Ousmane, and rereading of the past in the hope of building a society based on forgiveness and better understanding among peoples, for Bouchareb and Faye. The socio-political function endorsed by each work is put forward thanks to the close examination of its artistic techniques and the reconstitution of its specific context of production. / text

Political parties proliferated in Senegal and other competitive authoritarian regimes in post-Cold War Africa. This dissertation examines the causes and consequences of that proliferation. Why do so many politicians create their own parties in this context and what are the consequences of party proliferation for opposition party behavior and presidential turnover? The dissertation addresses these questions with original data collected over sixteen months of fieldwork in Senegal, including over one hundred interviews, material from party archives, local press clippings, political biographies, and data on elections and party behavior. Party formation, strategy, and competition are shaped by the "uneven playing field," a hallmark of competitive authoritarian regimes that entails systematic, deep advantages for the ruling party in terms of access to political finance, media, and the state. Focused on Senegal, a critical case of party proliferation, the dissertation traces how the uneven playing field not only empowers the president to create incentives for proliferation; it also renders life in the opposition so difficult that many politicians form parties to negotiate their way into the state. A significant subset of Senegalese party leaders is primarily concerned not with competing in elections; they focus instead on patronage negotiation, which does not necessarily entail vote-seeking. Moreover, because most party leaders minimize their involvement in elections that are difficult to win, they rarely function as the consistent opposition parties that bolster liberal democracy. Party leaders rarely possess the endowments that foster such behavior- namely, prior experience as high-level state administrators and access to international private financing. Finally, in the absence of consistent opposition parties, ex-regime insiders often constitute the president's most serious electoral challengers. Insider opposition candidates' previous access to the state provides opportunities for political advancement that outsiders lack. / Government

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Despite Senegal’s ratifications of the UN Conventions CRC and the CEDAW, a noticeable discrepancy regarding secondary school attendance due to the pupil’s sex has been recognized in enrolment and fulfilment ratios. (www.unicef.org, 2011a) The main issue to be examined in this thesis was the teacher-students’ knowledge of girls’ right to education and their attitudes concerning the difference in pupils participating in secondary schools based on the pupil’s sex and how the matter is being addressed amongst teachers. Qualitative interviews were carried out amongst teacher-students at University of Cheikh Anta Diop, Dakar. We reflected upon the collected material mainly through theories of feminism and social constructivism, and moreover briefly through post-colonialism and structural functionalism, as well as in relation to previous research. We found that the respondents lacked deeper juridical knowledge concerning right to education. Overall the respondents expressed an ambiguity in their gender awareness, and their perception of girls’ education in relation to cultural traditions. The main obstacles for girls schooling were gender cultural traditions and socio-economic factors.