The purpose of this study is to investigate the use of sustainability storytelling in ecotourism organizations in Cambodia and Trinidad and Tobago. These two countries were specifically selected for a cross-case analysis due to their shared characteristics as developing economies. Ecotourism becomes a significant natural resource in driving the economic growth for both countries. A total of ten ecotourism organizations were chosen to participate in this study. The research analyzes three emerging themes. These themes include storytelling for sustainability, contextual factors in sustainability storytelling (media and setting), and perceived impact of sustainability storytelling in each representing country. Furthermore, the research conducts a comparative analysis of these three emerging themes in these both countries. The findings show that ecotourism leaders in both Cambodia and Trinidad and Tobago employ storytelling techniques as a tool to communicate their sustainability narratives, organizations’ missions, and ecotourism initiatives. Stories developed by these leaders are deeply rooted in personal experiences as founders and co-founders of the participating ecotourism organizations. However, a notable difference is the integration of aspirational elements in the storytelling approach. In Trinidad and Tobago, ecotourism leaders utilize various aspirational elements in the stories such as superhero characters, live-action drama, mascot characters, slogans and taglines, comic books, and graphic novels. On the other hand, Cambodian ecotourism leaders have not incorporated such elements due to challenges such as a lack of understanding in storytelling among internal employees, limited human and financial resources, and a lower level of awareness among community-based ecotourism members. In addition, the findings illustrate that storytelling has raised awareness, empowered the communities, and advocated for sustainable responsible tourism. Although positive impact resulting from storytelling is observed, these ecotourism organizations currently do not have appropriate measurement systems to assess actual impact and changes.

Climate change and introduced species are among the top five threats to freshwater systems face. Tropical regions are considered to be especially sensitive to the effects of climate change, while island systems are more susceptible to species introductions. Climate-driven changes in rainfall are predicted to decrease streamflow and increase flash flooding in many tropical streams. In addition, guppies (Poecilia reticulata), an invasive fish, have been introduced to many tropical freshwater ecosystems, either intentionally for mosquito population control, or accidentally because of the aquarium trade. This dissertation examines the effects of climate-driven change in rainfall and introduced guppies on stream structure (resource and invertebrate biomass and composition) and function (nutrient recycling) in Trinidad and Hawaii. In the first data chapter we used a time series to examine how nutrient recycling of guppies changes in the first 6 years after introduction to a new habitat and to examine drivers of these changes. We found that when guppy populations establish in a new environment, they show considerable variation in nutrient recycling through time. This resulted from changes in guppy density in the first two years of introductions, and changes in individual excretion in subsequent stages. In the following chapter we utilized a rainfall gradient that mimics forecasted, climate-driven changes in precipitation and resulting changes in streamflow to examine the effects of climate change on stream food resources and macroinvertebrates. We found that the drying of streams across the gradient was associated with a decrease in resource quality and a 35-fold decline in macroinvertebrate biomass. Invertebrate composition also switched to taxa with faster turnover rates. In the third data chapter we used this same space-for-time substitution approach to determine if climate-driven changes in stream structure also affected stream function. We showed that population nutrient recycling rates declined at the drier end of our rainfall gradient as a result of drops in population densities. We also found that under the current climate scenario, community excretion supplied up to 70% of the nutrient demand, which was ten-fold lower with projected climate changes in streamflow. Lastly, since freshwater ecosystems often face multiple human impacts, including climate change and invasive species, we wanted to understand how climate-driven changes in flow might alter the impact of introduced guppies on stream ecosystems. We selected several streams with guppies and several without guppies along the Hawaii rainfall gradient to examine if the effect of guppies changed with differences in streamflow. We found that the two stressors had synergistic effects on macroinvertebrate biomass and nutrient recycling rates. We concluded that climate change appeared to enhance effects of guppies, through direct and indirect effects. Overall, this dissertation shows that both climate change and species invasion can affect stream ecosystems at multiple levels of organization. This dissertation demonstrates that the effects of anthropogenic stressors are not static through time, and emphasizes the need and utility of using several methodological approaches when measuring the temporal effects of stressors. We also underline the significance of assessing multiple stressor interactions, as more than one stressor often impacts ecosystems. / Graduate / 2019-09-01

The productivity of Trinidad and Tobago's public sector workplaces is related to their absorptive capacity for technological adoption. Guided by the technology acceptance model, which suggests that individuals' and institutions' use of technology increases in relation to perceived ease of use and apparent value, this case study explored how Trinidad and Tobago used information and communications technology from 2001 - 2010 to improve public sector workplace productivity. Study data were collected from 22 individual interviews with senior executives from the government of Trinidad and Tobago, members of the e-business roundtable, and local industry experts, and from reviewing the archives of the Ministry of Public Administration and Information. The data were analyzed using keyword frequency comparison, coding techniques, and cluster analysis. The resulting themes include e-legislation, e-infrastructure, e-readiness, government e-services, and e-business. The study findings showed that Trinidad and Tobago's technology agenda centered primarily on connecting government ministries and agencies. It also ushered in a period of telecommunication liberalization, which provided sustainable and cost effective options for government, citizens, and businesses to access broadband technology services. The results of the study showed that this access to low-costs broadband technology provides a platform for digital inclusion by improving workplace productivity, providing access to additional opportunities for education via an online platform, and increasing employment opportunities.

L'espace est hétérogène. Il est donc discontinu. Île et frontière sont des discontinuités fortes, traversées par des systèmes. Ce sont aussi des objets géographiques ambivalents, ouverts et fermés. La frontière implique le frottement plus ou moins rugueux de deux entités politiques. L'ambivalence frontalière est alimentée par des altérités qui se combinent, s'affrontent, s'attirent ou se repoussent selon des intensités différentes et à différents niveaux des échelles spatiale et sociale. Ces altérités sont diverses. Fondamentalement politiques et juridiques, elles sont également culturelles, économiques, fiscales. Deux questions sont posées à propos des trois termes de la comparaison : comment cette combinaison de discontinuités agit-elle sur les relations entre deux espaces terrestres proches, l'insulaire et le continental ? Inversement, comment les systèmes spatiaux mis en œuvre dans l'exercice de la relation agissent-ils sur ces discontinuités ? Par ailleurs, la mer est sous-jacente à la combinaison île-frontière. Son partage entre États est un phénomène géopolitique dynamique et récent. La question de cette appropriation confrontée aux pratiques socio-économiques – la pêche dans les trois cas étudiés, et l'extraction des hydrocarbures, dans deux sur trois – prend ici une dimension particulière. Cette thèse comprend donc une étude des processus d'appropriation de l'espace marin, qui vont des modalités de délimitation d'un espace par essence complexe en raison de sa structure à la fois horizontale et verticale, à son administration et aux mécanismes de transgression négociée, destinés à adapter sa spécificité aux rigidités des constructions territoriales.

This essay argues that social entrepreneurship is the most efficient means to generate lasting social change and permanently reduce poverty. Using the support of scholarly research, interviews with experts in the field, and my own qualitative observations, I conclude that traditional aid models that are economically dependent on outside funding, as well as those that simply provide monetary and product contributions in order to sustain the poor or marginalized communities they serve are inherently structured in a way that prevents them from resolving social ills. Despite the influx of aid organizations over past decades, chronic poverty and other serious social problems persist, and have not been significantly impacted on a global scale. Traditional aid models merely treat the fundamental issues that perpetuate global poverty. Ironically, these methods of aid actually sustain the inherent problems. Social entrepreneurship is one of the only models that has successfully initiated wide scale social development through promoting the economic independence and self-sustainability of the communities influenced by their initiatives. It has proven to incorporate the necessary tactics that, if implemented internationally and on a wide scale, has the potential to permanently and significantly impact global poverty.

This paper investigates the relationship between ethnic conflict, electoral systems, and power sharing in ethnically divided societies. The cases of Guyana, Fiji, Sri Lanka, Lebanon, Mauritius, and Trinidad and Tobago are considered. Electoral systems are denoted based on presidential versus parliamentary system, and on proportional representation versus majoritarian/plurality. The paper concludes that, while electoral systems are important, other factors like the power distribution between ethnic groups, and ensuring a non-zero-sum game may be as important.

xi, 180 p. A print copy of this thesis is available through the UO Libraries. Search the library catalog for the location and call number. / This dissertation examines the relationship between British and American conceptualizations of the Anglophone Caribbean and the way that Anglophone Caribbean fiction writers and filmmakers tend to represent the region. Central to my project is the process of reexportation, whereby Caribbean artists attain success at home by first achieving renown abroad. I argue that the primary implication of reexportation is that British and American conceptualizations of the Anglophone Caribbean have had a determining effect upon attempts by Anglophone Caribbean fiction writers and filmmakers to represent the region. Chapter I introduces the dissertation. Chapter II, "The 'Double Audience' of Samuel Selvon and The Lonely Londoners ," concerns Trinidadian author Samuel Selvon, who--along with George Lamming, Derek Walcott, and V. S. Naipaul--is cited as being among the most important and influential of the West Indian authors who began publishing in the 1950s. Although I consider all of Selvon's ten novels in that chapter, my main concern is The Lonely Londoners (1956), Selvon's best known and perhaps most pivotal and misread novel. Chapter III, "Contrapuntally Re-reading Perry Henzell's The Harder They Come, " features a reevaluation of the Jamaican filmmaker's 1972 motion picture, which in many complex ways remains the Caribbean film. Chapter IV, " Pressure and the Caribbean," focuses on Trinidadian filmmaker Horace Ove's Pressure (1975), which I deliberately treat as a Caribbean film although it is still best known as Britain's first feature-length dramatic movie with a "black" director. Vital secondary texts include selected works by Edward Said, Mikhail Bahktin, and Richard Dyer, as well as Kenneth Ramchand, Keith Warner, and D. Elliott Parris. The three existing book-length analyses of Selvon's fiction are the main voices with which the Selvon chapter is in discourse. David Bordwell's work in cinematic narrative theory and Marcia Landy's contribution to the study of British genres are essential to the frameworks through which I read the cinematic primary texts. / Adviser: Gordon Sayre

Notes on the productivity of nostalgia is a treatise on otherness and memory, framed as entries into the notebook of a no-longer-young man who decides to visit places that have a nostalgic connection to him - places where he grew up, and places where he fell in love -and who is trying to overhaul the notion that you can't look back and move forward at the same time. / [I examensarbetet ingår utställningen "Little father, glorious stump":] The exam work consisted of a three-room installation of sculptural objects, activated by a live sound performance, as well as a 3D animation projected unto one wall of the gallery. / <p>Examensarbetet består av en skriftlig del och en gestaltande del. Alternativ titel anger namnet förden gestaltande delen. </p><p>The master work includes a written essay and a forming part. The alternative title is the name of the forming part.</p>

This study examined the impact of migration and the resulting intercultural interactions on the cultural identities of first-generation immigrant Trinidadians living in the Philadelphia area of the United States. It focused on four identities: race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and nationality. The goal of the study was to determine how Trinidadian immigrants define and reconceptualize these four dimensions of their identities as they make new lives in American society. Another goal was to determine whether identities shift and, if so, how, for Trinidadian immigrants when they move across cultures to a society where they are no longer in the racial, ethnic, or cultural majority. Using a mixed-methods approach, the research included an initial online survey followed by qualitative interviews with a few selected participants. Survey results showed that for three of the identities (ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and nationality), more than half of respondents indicated no change in saliency. Survey respondents rated their shift in racial identity as almost equal between more salient and no change in saliency upon moving to the United States. However, qualitative findings showed that, of the four identities, race became most salient in the United States, even for those who showed no shift in this identity after resettling here. The racial identity of interviewees was influenced by three main factors: the racial identity they were ascribed in the United States, their experiences with racial discrimination, and being made to feel “othered” in a society that does not recognize their Trinidadian racial and ethnic categories. Findings also showed that immigrants in this study who are ascribed a Black identity in the United States acculturate to both African American and European American cultures in multicultural Philadelphia, while maintaining a strong connection to their Trinidadian national identity. This research has practical implications for intercultural researchers and trainers who work with Trinidadian or West Indian populations.

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