An abbreviated version of the author's thesis, Paris IV, 1972. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 87-88).

Climate change poses serious challenges to households in informal settlements located in marginal areas such as flood plains that are sensitive to extreme weather events. This thesis explores the complex interrelationship between climate variability and informal settlements using two city-level case studies in Johannesburg, viz., Msawawa and Freedom Charter Square. The main objective of this study was to establish the nature of household adaptive capacity in informal settlements in relation to climate change. This entailed assessing household vulnerability to the increased frequency and severity of extreme weather events such as strong winds, extreme cold, extreme heat, floods, drought and fire, as a basis from which to understand household adaptive capacity. Methodologically, the thesis applied a mixed method approach combining quantitative and qualitative instruments to explore household adaptive capacity in relation to climate change. This methodology was used to understand how households have coped and adapted to extreme weather events in the past. Secondary research involved analysing a range of published and unpublished documents, while the primary research component consisted of a survey of two hundred households across the two settlements as well as key-informant interviews with local leaders in the two informal settlements and relevant officials from the City of Johannesburg. The results of this study show that in Msawawa and Freedom Charter Square, households’ social and economic conditions such as those relating to employment, income, assets and health play a role in their vulnerability to climate change. The ability of households to improve their adaptive capacity is influenced by a range of factors that include access to physical capital, social capital, financial resources and governance. The research found that households in the two informal settlements rely mainly on coping mechanisms such as repairing their shacks after disasters related to extreme weather. They have very limited ability to address underlying causes of vulnerability such as weak dwellings. Social capital is one of the drivers, although not very significant, for coping and critical to efforts for improving household adaptive capacity. The study also found that governance is a contested terrain in which it is difficult to recognise a positive impact on household adaptation to climate change. The study highlights the importance for policy-makers to recognise the need to improve household socio-economic conditions as well as building relationships of trust as drivers that could help in improving adaptive capacity and addressing household vulnerability to climate change.

This study investigates the role of space and place in urban informal settlement upgrading. The key aim is a better understanding of the character and functionality of informal communities through their social processes. There is a large body of literature on the social, economic and spatial consequences of informal settlement’s ongoing role of housing the urban poor. This study uses an ethnographic approach to investigate the spaces and places which result from the need based social relations and political agency of the informal residents. This genre of need reflects Lefebvre’s description of the tangible and intangible necessities that contribute to individuals’ livelihood and well-being. The study explores the philosophical thinking around spatial production and the meaning of place. It builds on the works of Heidegger, Lefebvre, and Deleuze and Guattari who attribute value to everyday social process and its role in producing space. Deleuze and Guattariʼs relational language is used to articulate the fluidity with which informality engages formality through the rhythm, refrain, milieu and territorialisation of daily use, leading to a rethinking of boundary and edge. Critically, the study also draws on the historic and present elements of time as it relates to space for this group of thinkers. The time/space dynamics of hope lost through waiting for upgrading and hope gained through impatience, political agency and action, add layers of complexity to these spaces. Implied in the first dynamic is an acceptance of the status quo, passive inclusion into South Africaʼs democratic society through the eventual provision of housing. The second is an insurgent demand for socio-economic rights and societal transformation as guaranteed by the Constitution (Holston, 1998). The resultant qualitative data from two informal settlements in greater Johannesburg unravels the logic behind informal spatial production via relational connections which articulate space as a product of informal residents’ social actions. This spatial understanding suggests a shift away from current spatial models employed by the State in its formal provision of subsidised housing. At the same time, it strengthens informal communities’ role in the upgrading process by giving value to the social qualities of place in existing living environments.

Thesis (MTech (Environmental Health))--Cape Peninsula University of Technology, 2007 / Good sanitation includes appropriate health and hygiene promotion. This implies that proper health and hygiene promotion would have the desired effect as part of sanitation service delivery. However, lessons learnt worldwide show that in the promotion of health and hygiene, it is not enough simply to provide facilities, because if people do not use the available facilities properly, conditions do not improve or the system breaks down. The 1986 Ottawa Charter of the World Health Organisation suggests that effective health and hygiene promotion requires the following key elements: • the empowerment of local communities to take responsibility for promoting sanitation and environmental health • collaborative partnerships of role-players across departments • supportive policy environments. Against this background. the focus of this study is the extent to which health and hygiene promotion forms part of sanitation delivery programmes to informal settlements in the City of Cape Town. The investigation was confined to a comparative review of approaches to health and hygiene promotion in four case study sites (Khayelitsha, Joe Slovo, Kayamandi and Imizamu Yetho) in the context of the following criteria: • Community and household capacity to take responsibility for community-based health and hygiene promotion • Role-players and collaborative partnerships across departments • Implementation of health and hygiene promotion and alignment with national policy. Analysis of the case studies highlights the ineffectiveness of once-off awareness campaigns and the need for a more comprehensive approach to health and hygiene promotion in line with the Ottawa Charter. The push towards universal coverage of basic sanitation services will not bring the intended health benefits of delivery if, for instance, the provision of toilets is not complemented by appropriate health and hygiene promotion programmes.

Thesis (M.A.)--Ohio University, June, 2005. / Title from PDF t.p. Includes bibliographical references (p. 132-144)

published_or_final_version / Housing Management / Master / Master of Housing Management

This statement forms the basic premise for the proposed research study. An attempt has been made to search for the inherent order in the seemingly "unplanned" squatter settlements. / Spatial order, an expression of the socio-cultural milieu of the residents, needs multi-disciplinary analysis. The research methodology selected encompasses the principles of spatial (morphological) analysis and the field work techniques of ethnography. Data has been collected empirically from the field. Since the proposed research uses a case-study research design, analysis and interpretation is qualitative rather than quantitative. / The study has been conducted in a trial and error, sequential process. Various models and methods have been used in this search for spatial order. The process tested the hypothesis at different levels---geometric, functional and social, and finally documented the residents' viewpoints. This was deemed essential as the residents are the actual generators of this built environment. The first two levels could not verify the hypothesis on their own accord but when overlaid by the third component, all three added-up to indicate the existence of order in squatter settlements.

Thesis (Master)--İzmir Institute of Technology, İzmir, 2005 / Keywords:Uneven development, urban decline, urban deprivation, residential areas. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 98-101).

Thesis--University of British Columbia, 2000. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 108-113).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 2001. / eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (p. 300-323).