This Master’s Report explores how the social geography of Buenos Aires transformed between 1887 and 1910 and how these changes affected the city’s development. It argues that despite the state’s purported willingness to provide security and sanitation services to its citizenry, changing settlement patterns and expanding democratic participation led to the unequal distribution of public resources and the decay of neighborhoods in the south and west of the city. It argues that as public works removed inexpensive housing in the city’s downtown and transportation networks linked the city’s peripheries closer to the nucleus, members of the middle class and elites increasingly congregated in center and north of the city. Buenos Aires’ neighborhoods became segregated increasingly along class lines and patronage networks broke down. Members of the working class, now concentrated in their own neighborhoods, were unable gain the same resources. Inequality in the allocation of government benefits created clear physical and cultural barriers between rich and poor segments of the city. Unequal access to security forces played an especially important role in stigmatizing poor regions. While the police department vigilantly protected safety, private property and order in some parts of the city, they did not provide enough officers to complete the same tasks in others. Crime went unchecked in poorer regions. The municipal government published statistics and commentary on crime in the southern and western districts of the capital. This imagery cast the area’s residents as threats to public safety and sanitation that the state should control and maintain segregated rather than aid. By casting them as a threatening “other,” city officials denied inhabitants of poor neighborhoods’ future claims to public resources. / text

In this research, I provide a foundation for theorizing and understanding institutionalized antiracism initiatives; under-examined sites of geographical research. Through an examination of three different research sites (Queen’s University, the Canadian Race Relations Foundation, and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization), I seek to understand how organizations working in different contexts negotiate a range of variables so as to achieve the most effective outcomes possible. With a focus on site-specific context and its role in antiracist initiatives, this research combines a range of qualitative methods including interviews and researcher observations to assess the factors that influence the strategic directions and decisions of organizations. This thesis contributes to the exploration of social change and human rights strategies by positioning institutionalized antiracism initiatives as the focus of study; highlighting the importance of geopolitical context and other institutional factors in this work; identifying key challenges and opportunities; presenting findings on effective human rights strategies; and filling a gap in this area of geographic study. More specifically, this research demonstrates that institutionalized antiracism initiatives experience specific advantages and challenges as a result of factors internal and external to the organization. It also provides insight into the climate of social change in Canada and reveals some important findings with regard to antiracism strategies that can be used by organizations to improve the effectiveness of their initiatives and programs. / Thesis (Ph.D, Geography) -- Queen's University, 2014-01-31 08:45:08.578

The thesis discusses the mediating role of socioeconomic factors in risk debates through an examination of the decontamination and demolition of Fulham Power Station in 1983-1984. The power station was built between the wars by and for the people of Fulham. Located on the Thames in the neighbourhood of Sands End, it generated electricity and provided employment until 1978, when it was sold to a property development company. During the decontamination, a quantity of asbestos was released into the environment. A protest group was formed to secure better standards of work at the site. The group never had more than a dozen active members. All the members were middle-class. At the time of the decontamination and demolition, Sands End was a poor neighbourhood. A majority of the local population faced many 'social' as well as environmental hazards. Amongst these were sub-standard housing, unemployment, under-employment, low wages, inadequate work and educational skills and crime. The thesis discusses whether the neighbourhood's socioeconomic problems had any bearing on the character and dynamics of the power station debate. It suggests that the social geography and economic status of Sands End had two major effects on the debate. Firstly, gentrification provided the neighbourhood with a (small) middle-class constituency receptive to issues of environmental risk, such as the long-term health implications of airborne asbestos dust. Secondly, the neighbourhood's pressing social and economic problems mitigated against a wider involvement in the campaign. Most residents were too preoccupied with meeting their social and economic needs to become actively involved. The thesis also suggests that the population's experience of Fulham Power Station as a source of 'convenient' electrical power, employment and civic pride may have made it difficult for those native to Sands End to accept the activists' construction of the power station as a source of danger.

This thesis constitutes five sets of photographic work of self-portraits in diptych form within an installation, with two Artists’ Books and a written component. It explores and visualises my autobiographical condition as an exiled artist from Taiwan, seeking for an imagined return.

Seaside resorts’ fortunes have changed over the past half a century, and as a consequence many of the towns’ physical environments and inhabitants have altered. Many grew in population size through in-migration, particularly as a result of retirement, which took over from the holiday industry as a process that changed the socio-economic and cultural structures of these places. Bexhill-on-Sea, East Sussex is among those seaside towns that have undergone such changes, fuelled by exogenous forces but also influenced by key agencies actions that have been a catalyst for altering the physical environment which encouraged the in-migration of middle-life people and the retired. This thesis analyses the effect of these changes and the role key agencies have had. In particular, it argues the changing nature of retirement in-migration of ‘middle-lifers’ (aged 50-70), those approaching or entering retirement, has had a profound effect on the town. This thesis disputes conventional retirement migration theories identifying a new form of ‘lifestyle-affirming’ migration.

Urban sprawl has one definitive characteristic - low intensity/inefficient use of land (Ewing et al., 2008) (Downs, 2000) (Peiser, 2001). Residential densification is the increase in the density of residential land use to combat the negative effects of sprawl. There has been very little academic research on either urban sprawl or residential densification in the specific context of developing countries. This research seeks to address this by looking at the issues in four Nicaraguan secondary cities using a mixed methods approach. This work develops, for the first time in Nicaragua, a housing typology for secondary cities and a consultation of urban planning professionals on sprawl, density and residential densification. Eight housing types have been identified, six of which have average densities that are low or medium (but very close to the boundary with low). The other types are outliers with higher densities – one slightly higher, the other much higher. The consultation has 17 participants and uses a 2-stage Delphi technique. There was consensus that damaging urban sprawl was occurring in each of the cities and that more compact development through residential densification would be beneficial. Participants identified appropriate methods of residential densification for the case study cities, each of which upon analysis, fits into one of the categories established by the City of Capetown Spatial Planning and Urban Design Department (2009, p. 6): either higher density development ‘on greenfield sites ... within [a] ... city’s planned growth direction;’ or higher density development on ‘vacant infill sites’ within existing urban areas; or densification lot by lot within existing urban areas, on lots which are already developed. The consultation revealed current barriers to residential densification, ranging from the enduring “culture of low housing density” in Nicaragua to poor financing options for families to include earthquake resistant foundations in their self-build properties, which would permit safe building on more than a single storey.

Limited research has been done on adult immigrants with disabilities in Canada. Adopting a mixed-methodology, the thesis explores the intersection of immigrant status and disability from both a quantitative and qualitative perspective. Previous research on immigrants with disabilities has primarily focused on parents with disabled children. Little is therefore known about the lived experiences of adult immigrant with disabilities and how these experiences are negotiated and can change across time and place. The quantitative section of the thesis utilized the Participation and Activity Limitation Survey (PALS) from 2006 to examine the receipt of and need for services based on gender, immigrant status, income, education, and age. Quantitative results identified that immigrant women as receiving the least amount of services compared to any group, potentially resulting in them being more vulnerable compared to any other group. The qualitative part of the research consisted of two studies. First, community leaders and disability activists from Middle Eastern and South Asian communities were interviewed to examine the understandings of disability within their communities. Building on key informant findings, the second part explored the lived experiences of physically disabled adult immigrants from the Middle East and South Asia through in-depth interviews. Drawing on both quantitative and qualitative results it was identified that place, gender, culture, and policy significantly influence the lived experiences of immigrants with disabilities. Overall, the research highlighted the need for further research on larger service organizations and their provision of services to immigrants. The findings also identified the need for a greater understanding and provision of culturally appropriate services. / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / Limited research has been done on adult immigrants with disabilities in Canada. Adopting a mixed-methodology, the thesis explores the intersection of immigrant status and disability from both a quantitative and qualitative perspective. Quantitative methods examine and compare the receipt and need of support services between immigrants and the Canadian born population with disabilities. Building on the quantitative findings, the qualitative research adopts a feminist disability theory and an intersectional framework to explore the lived experience of immigrants with physical disabilities from the Middle East and South Asia, living in Canada. The qualitative chapter examines how different categories, for example disability, gender culture, religion, and immigrant status can intersect to create unique lived experiences that changes over time and place. The quantitative and qualitative findings were evaluated to further the knowledge of immigrants with disabilities and future research directions are suggested.

For more than two decades there has been a growing niche for ethically sourced coffees, at the same time as a revitalisation and development of sourcing models focused on indicators of coffee quality and measures of taste. Small independent and multinational buyers and roasters have become progressively interested in sourcing coffee in a way that privileges sustainable and/or high quality indicators, and are increasingly engaged in debates about solidarity versus mainstreaming, quantity versus quality, and provider of caffeine versus taste. Research on one coffee producing country, Guatemala, suggests how these debates have affected the historical evolution of the coffee market. This ethnographic study traces the qualifications of Guatemalan coffee and argues that responses to both the enactment of the technologies, as well as the perceived limitations of sourcing models have produced new articulations of ethics and taste. Producers and small entrepreneurs located in Guatemala reconfigure the practices of cultivation, processing, and selling/buying in relation to circulating market indicators. They create locally situated attachments to the coffee through skill transfer and knowledge exchange and in this way they imitate and also transform international valuations of taste, ethics and quality. This thesis works to make visible the range and diversity of processes and agencies involved in the production of markets for ethical coffee and considers coffee as vital and mobile; an active producer of public effects rather than a passive object moved through a commodity network. This view enables a more open, relational and mobile account of both coffee and of ethics, one which is capable of making clear the important and emerging role of taste. This thesis extends the qualifications of coffee to the daily enactments of cultivation and the skills and techniques that work to reveal taste. On this view, taste mediates the agency of the materials in both high quality and sustainable coffees and this expands and extends ethics to interpersonal, material and bodily relations that link producers and consumers in multiple ways.

Technologies such as geographical information systems (GIS) have emerged during the past two decades as part of the Information Revolution and include functions such as data storage, management, integration, analysis and presentation. GIS have wide and diverse applications in disciplines such as engineering, business/marketing, urban planning and environmental management but remain underused in public health. The thesis reports the findings of a mixed methods study examining the views and perceptions of public health practitioners on the value of GIS mapping in decision-making. A case study design was chosen; the case issue (childhood lead [Pb] exposure) represents an example of the "case" which is defined as 'decision- making in public health'. The exploratory phase of the study combined heterogeneous data to produce a visualisation of lead contamination in Newcastle. The value of GIS in public health was explored in an interview phase. Twenty-two semi-structured interviews were conducted with decision-makers involved either directly or indirectly in public health practice. Interview recordings were transcribed and coded thematically for analysis. Decision-makers tended to be positive about the use of GIS in public health and many volunteered potential opportunities to apply GIS mapping techniques further. Four discourses were highlighted through analyses, namely: data origins (Ontological Discourse), status (Power Discourse), application (Functionality Discourse) and reciprocity (Collaboration Discourse). The power of maps to integrate multiple, disparate datasets was found to be important and respondents felt, overall, that GIS mapping was a democratic means of communication. Complexity frameworks are drawn upon to make sense of the research findings and to illuminate the need for non-reductionist models of decision-making in the public health context. The lessons learnt through this study can be translated to other fields, thereby sharing skills, knowledge and experience to promote collaboration and integrated thinking across the public health landscape.

This thesis deals with the comparison of methodological approaches of Czech urban sociology and social geography. The aim of the thesis is to ascertain whether sociologists have maintained their specific view on urban issues different from that of other disciplines. Currently, it is rather difficult to distinguish between purely sociological and socio- geographic research activities. Therefore, the research part of this thesis is focused on the analysis of diploma and dissertation theses. In the case of students, it is clear which discipline their theses represent. The comparison of theses is based on observation of their topics, theoretical assumptions, methods, techniques and the nature of conclusions. The concluding part of the thesis summarizes the results of the research, supplementing them with the comment on the current state of urban sociology in the Czech Republic. Key words: urban sociology, social geography, city, methodology