The susceptibility of individuals to illness and disease is greatly influenced by context specific social determinants of health (SDH), yet there is a dearth of literature pertaining to SDH among refugees, particularly those residing in urban areas. The purpose of this study was to identify and generate empirical evidence on SDH among female refugees in Malaysia. It focused specifically on Rohingya refugees, a stateless and persecuted Muslim minority from Myanmar. Intersectionality formed the theoretical foundation of the study, which utilized a qualitative research design and employed an exploratory, applied research approach. Document review provided background and contextual information for primary data, which were collected using semi-structured interviews and analysed using thematic analysis. The study was undertaken in affiliation with the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) and had two primary outputs: it provided UNHCR with information and recommendations to inform context-specific program and policy development, and it generated rich empirical findings that contribute to the nascent evidence base on SDH in the context of forced migration. Results indicate that key factors affecting the health and wellbeing of Rohingya women include: their journey from Myanmar to Malaysia, income, employment, food security, transportation, the physical environment, UNHCR, security issues, education, religion, healthcare, and social capital/the social safety net. These interacted, overlapped and compounded each other, forming a ‘web of interrelated factors’ that affected participants’ health. Findings provide insight into the instrumental role of the sociopolitical context in structuring the lives of urban refugee women, and emphasize the importance of extending current discourse beyond refugee women’s needs and vulnerabilities to consider their resilience and agency in situations of significant hardship. / Graduate / 2015-03-28 / 0573

Migration and mobility processes are thought to be important (yet complex) modulators of health related risk and vulnerability as experienced by people who use drugs. Few studies in Canada have examined this relationship, and there is no research available addressing this specific aspect of health and well-being in people who use drugs in Ottawa-Gatineau. While migration can be defined as a permanent (or near permanent) relocation process, mobility refers to a person's temporary or short-term movement between geographic locations (Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS, 2001). Understanding how the reasons for mobility and migration, typically described as “push and pull” factors, and the processes itself impact on the local community is invaluable for informing intervention in terms of type, location and timing and identifying solutions to reduce the inequalities resulting in and from the migration process. This cross-sectional study aimed to assess the prevalence and geography of mobility and migration among study participants, characterize the circumstances surrounding the mobility and migration process, and explore their impact on health related outcomes, among people who use drugs in Ottawa-Gatineau, Canada. Understanding the prevalence, patterns and characteristics of mobility and migration events may offer greater insight into the associated health risks, which in turn will assist in the development of targeted health and social services for this group. We hypothesized that the act of moving itself, as well as type of mobility and migration (i.e. specific push and pull factors), may be associated with health risk behaviours and health outcomes. People 18 years or older currently living in Ottawa-Gatineau, and who used illicit drugs in the past six months were recruited using respondent-driven sampling. Geography of lifetime migration was mapped, and health related outcomes and access to social support services were evaluated against lifetime and recent migration and travel. Quantitative analysis of health and social support related outcomes was carried out by comparison of means and proportions between groups, and complemented by qualitative exploration of push and pull factors and effects of the last mobility and migration events. Our study identified a heterogeneous inner-city population of people who use drugs where widespread homelessness, incarceration, low income and a high degree of mobility and migration placed individuals at varying levels of health-related vulnerability. Participants moved to Ottawa-Gatineau from all over Canada and other countries, but most arrived from within Ontario. Multiple factors were involved in the decision to migrate and in choosing Ottawa-Gatineau in particular. Escaping a negative environment and seeking out family connections were the most commonly cited “push and pull” factors, respectively. Maintaining family connections was also identified as a major reason for mobility or lack thereof among travelers and non-travelers alike. There was evidence to suggest that the mobility and migration processes affected health, drug use and access to resources among some of the participants and for a wide variety of reasons. Comparing the two groups using t-test for means and Chi-square (or Fisher’s exact) test for proportions, we found crack cocaine and injection drug users who migrated recently to be poorly connected to harm reduction services and thus at particularly high risk for blood-borne infections and other drug-related harms. Similarly, participants using crack cocaine or injection drugs and who traveled were significantly less likely to access social support services. In this study we have shown that within a broad cohort of people who use drugs in Ottawa-Gatineau, subjects are a highly mobile group, and face a considerable number of environmental challenges that predispose individuals to increasing risk behaviour even when using drugs only occasionally. This vulnerability is greatest in the period following migration. While push and pull factors may vary by place, a common theme identified in this study is the perceived and actual positive influence of family. Further research employing a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods using a socioecological, intersectionality and lifecourse approach (Egan, et al., 2011) may provide added insights into the role of family in modulating vulnerability through social connectedness and support among drug users as they navigate the mobility and migration process.

This thesis interrogates the social/political stakes in three nonfiction narratives of life and death: Jon Krakauer's Into the Wild, Peter Gzowski's The Sacrament and John and Jean Silverwood's Black Wave. An analysis of Nietzsche's concept of "freedom as responsibility," as developed by contemporary theorists of freedom and the body, especially Wendy Brown and Judith Butler, provides the ground for this theoretical examination. Additionally, Fred Alford's consideration of "freedom with" and Laurence Gonzales's interrogation of the conditions of survival help delimit this site of contest. Each of the texts is critiqued in terms of its engagement with freedom as a practice of responsibility grounded in recognition of mutual vulnerability and enacted through a contest for meaning. / Graduate

Change has become a ubiquitous force in a highly globalized and interconnected world. Coastal systems are being restructured by overfishing, globalization, climate change and other factors. Further, social and ecological changes in coastal systems interact across spatial and temporal scales creating challenges that are complex, nonlinear and often difficult to predict. These new challenges have the potential to push social-ecological systems past their experienced range of variability and thus have immense consequences for the both the health of marine ecosystems and the livelihoods of hundreds of millions of people who depend on marine resources for their survival. Addressing these challenges will require collaborative efforts informed by site-specific research on the dynamics of social-ecological systems. Ultimately, this dissertation aims to contribute to efforts towards social-ecological system sustainability. Specifically, the purpose of the research is to improve our understanding of how small-scale fishers in Mozambique have adapted over time to cope with a particular set of challenges and how likely fishers are to cope effectively with future changes in their complex social-ecological systems. The dissertation is organized around four research chapters, each of which addresses a specific research objective. Detailed knowledge of historical social-ecological conditions is a critical entry point for understanding small-scale fisheries systems. While fisheries landings data are often the primary source for historical reconstructions of fisheries, reliance on data of a single type and/or from a single-scale can lead to incomplete or misleading conclusions. Moreover, in the case of many small-scale fisheries landings statistics are often incomplete and/or inaccurate. Therefore, Chapter 2 combines data from multiple sources and scales to reconstruct historical social-ecological system dynamics along the Mozambican coast. At the national scale, my analysis points towards trends of fishing intensification and decline in targeted species, and highlights the significant impact of small-scale fisheries on marine stocks. At the local scale, fishers are experiencing changes in fish abundance and distribution, as well as in their physical, social and cultural environments and have responded by increasing their fishing effort. In the context of multiple drivers of change, it has become increasingly important to identify how communities are responding to livelihood stressors. In Chapter 3, I examine how fishers are adapting to social-ecological change, and identify factors that facilitate adaptation and factors that inhibit adaptation. Primarily, fishers are adapting through intensifying their fishing efforts or by diversifying their livelihoods. Adaptation is facilitated by fishers’ groups, occupational pride and family networks. It is inhibited by limited assets, adaptive actions with negative social and ecological impacts, competition over declining resources and pervasive poverty. My data suggest that it is not the poorest fishers who are least able to adapt to change, but fishers who are locked into a declining fishery. I argue that adaptations are spatially and social differentiated and place-specific. Therefore, future adaptation initiatives aimed at strengthening the capacity of threatened communities to respond to livelihood stressors need to explicitly consider this complexity. Millions of people around the world depend on shrimp aquaculture for their income and livelihood. Yet, the phenomenal growth of shrimp aquaculture during the last two decades has given rise to considerable environmental damage and social disruption at the local level. In Chapter 4, I analyze the impacts of employment at an export-oriented shrimp farm in central Mozambique on livelihood vulnerability of farm and non-farm employees. My data indicate that shrimp farm employees are less vulnerable to chronic stressors, such a pervasive poverty, than non-farm employees, but more vulnerable to acute shocks, such as the White Spot Syndrome Virus (WSSV), associated with shrimp production than non-farm employees. I argue that future vulnerability research will need to account for this duality as aquaculture development spreads along the Western Indian Ocean. In response to the speed and magnitude of contemporary change, understanding how much disturbance communities will absorb, where social thresholds lie and what coastal community systems might look like after a threshold is crossed are critical research questions. Chapter 5 evaluates the resilience of two fishing communities in central Mozambique and forecasts the outcome of moving past socially defined thresholds. My results indicate that coastal communities are continuously absorbing multiple sources of disturbance without shifting into different states. However, a 90% decline in catch rates would represent a threshold for both communities. At Zalala Beach, fishers would respond by permanently moving to another location whereas in Inhangome, fishers would respond by changing their professions. These results contribute to our understanding of social resilience. Deliberate progress towards the goal of long-term sustainability depends on understanding the dynamics of social-ecological systems. Therefore, this dissertation aims to contribute to a growing body of theory and empirical evidence on how fishers negotiate livelihoods under conditions of rapid change and increasing vulnerability. The dissertation concludes by summarizing seven key research findings and by discussion some of the theoretical, methodological and policy contributions of my research to the literature. / Graduate / 0366

Abbasi, S., M.Sc., University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, September 2013. Adaptation to Drought in Saskatchewan Rural Communities: A Case study of Kindersley and Maidstone, Saskatchewan. Joint Supervisors: S. Kulshreshtha and E. Wheaton The main aim of this thesis is to gain knowledge of the processes of adaptation that have enabled communities and agricultural producers to function in a relatively dry and drought prone region of Saskatchewan. This investigation was limited to two rural communities – Kindersley and Maidstone. Historically, vulnerability to natural hazards has been considered only a physical phenomenon. As a result, the social characteristic of a place\system, which contribute to vulnerability to natural hazards, are not well studied. This study used both secondary (quantitative in nature) and primary (qualitative in nature) methods to understand exposure, sensitivity and adaption to droughts in two study communities. Quantitative method included estimating drought condition from time series data for both communities. Intensity of the drought was based on Palmer Drought Severity index and Standard Precipitation Index. Given this background, qualitative techniques (semi-structured interviews and participation observations) were employed to explore the sensitivity and adaptation to droughts in the two communities. The results indicated that drought had caused significant economic hardships for farmers and ranchers during the 2001- 2003 period. Crop yield declined more than 50% of normal level for some crops during this period. Producers had undertaken some adaptive actions to counteract the adverse effect of the drought. These included changing their farming practices -- intensive tillage to minimum or zero tillage, diversification in terms of types of crops grown, off-farm employment, and participation in business risk management programs. Respondents reported that drought was not the sole cause of their vulnerability. Social factors such as changing government policies, reduced profit margins, insufficient business risk management programs, and international markets shaped their vulnerability to climate-related natural hazards. The study found a strong sense of alienation between respondents and federal government agencies. The combination of economic stress, inadequate government risk management programming translates into a very narrow window of sustainability for producers should they face a severe multi-year drought in the future.

The vulnerability and movement behaviour of slow moving slides are investigated. The study focuses on slides moving at rates ranging from a few millimetres a year like extremely slow slides, to 13 meters per month, the upper velocity range of slow slides. An extensive review of the effect of pore pressure changes on movement reactivation of shallow and moderately thick slides is presented. The time dependent behaviour of fine geotechnical materials is also reviewed. Although the literature has reported many cases where the accumulation of slow movements led to a complete collapse of buildings, failure of embankment slopes carrying highways or railways and serviceability problems for dams and bridges, little attention has been paid to the vulnerability to slow moving slides. Hence, this thesis aims to provide more insight into the actual damage to facilities founded on slow moving slides. More than fifty cases of extremely slow, very slow and slow slides adversely affecting urban communities, highways, railways, bridges, dams and linear infrastructure are reviewed. The survey enables the development of new damage-extent scales that use the slide velocity to help assess the degree of damage to a facility founded on a landslide-prone area. Vulnerability is an important component of the specific risk. The other component is the hazard or the probability of occurrence of a certain damaging phenomenon like landslides. Defining the causal factors of the landslide movements and their contributions to the total movement is an important step towards the evaluation of the hazard. Hence, the geomechanical behaviour of two typical deep-seated and moderately thick slides, the Little Chief Slide and the Little Smoky Slide, respectively, are investigated. The objective is to determine all the triggers and causal factors of movement and to quantify their contribution to the total movement. The study involves groundwater flow modeling of one of the two slides, an extensive field monitoring of pore pressures and displacements and an investigation of the creep behaviour both in the field and in the laboratory. The outcome of the study shows that the total movement of each of the two slides can be separated into creep and seasonal movements. The contribution of each component is quantitatively defined. The quantification of the different causal factors aids in choosing the proper mitigation option in addition to predicting the future movement rates after the chosen remedial measures have been installed. / Geotechnical Engineering

A integração dos países periféricos na globalização financeira foi acompanhada por diversas crises desde o início dos anos 1990. Essas crises contribuíram para o desenvolvimento de uma literatura sobre indicadores de vulnerabilidade externa que busca encontrar acúmulo de fragilidades nas economias emergentes, para proporcionar medidas capazes de contornar ou amenizar momentos de crise. A busca de sinais de vulnerabilidade se torna relevante frente ao cenário atual de uma potencial reversão de liquidez internacional, com a expectativa do mercado em relação à mudança da política monetária dos países centrais. O objetivo desta pesquisa é comparar, através de diversos indicadores, a posição de vulnerabilidade externa de Brasil, Índia, Indonésia, África do Sul e Turquia, os países emergentes sobre os quais o mercado possui as piores expectativas quanto à capacidade de resistência frente a um choque externo e que, por conta disso, foram apelidados de Fragile Five. / The integration of peripheral countries in financial globalization was accompanied by several crises since the early 1990. These crises contributed to the development of a branchof the international economy literature devoted to the study of external vulnerability indicators which seeks to find of weaknesses in the external structure of emerging economies so that the policy makers can take measures to circumvent or mitigate a crisis. The search for signs of vulnerability becomes significant in light of the current scenario, in which grows the possibility of a reversal in international liquidity, due to thechange of monetary policy in central countries. The objective of this research is to compare, through various external vulnerability indicators found along the literature, the external position of vulnerability of Brazil, India, Indonesia, South Africa and Turkey, because these are the emerging countries for which the market has the worst expectations of resilience against external shock and, therefore, were called the Fragile Five.

This study explores a model for the creative process to facilitate an honest, individualistic, empowering human experience for the dancers and choreographer in the Higher Ed dance studio. I investigated the role of choreographer as facilitator/collaborator and dancer as creator/co-owner to formulate a model aimed at developing connection. Over the course of eight weeks, I facilitated a creative process workshop. Eight undergraduate dance majors volunteered to be a part of the study. My evaluation was conducted through pre and post workshop interviews, self-journaling, group discussions, as well as video documentation. As a result, three themes and six sub-themes emerged from the data: Self-Realization with sub-themes of self-reflection, self-acceptance, and confidence; Safe Open Environment with sub-themes of group empathy and connection; and Using the Voice with a sub-theme of vulnerability. This model offers a safe environment geared toward using the voice, practicing vulnerability, and making individual artistic decisions.

The loss and dysfunction of selected populations of synapses is characteristic of mammalian brain ageing and alterations in these receptive compartments are considered to underpin age-related cognitive decline. Discrete neuro-anatomical regions of the cortical architecture harbour disparate populations of synapses that demonstrate significant heterogeneity with regards to advancing age. Of particular interest is the hippocampus, which is selectively vulnerable during ageing. The hippocampal synaptic architecture exhibits subtle structural and biophysical alterations, which are considered to promote the manifestation of cognitive symptoms in aged patients. This notion of “selective synaptic vulnerability” has been the focal point of a multitude of morphological studies investigating age-related cognitive decline, which have often provided tentative conclusions as to how this phenomenon may be regulated. The molecular correlates bolstering the reported age-dependent morphological and functional shift remain elusive and studies are only now beginning to unravel how discrete organelles, proteins and signalling cascades may hierarchically or synergistically attenuate synaptic function. Until there is considerable comprehension of how functional mediators drive the biochemical substrates regulating age-related cognitive decline, there are limited strategic avenues for the development of efficacious therapeutic interventions that promote successful ageing. To address the phenomenon of selective synaptic vulnerability, we have utilised an unbiased combinatorial approach, including quantitative proteomic analyses coupled with in vivo candidate assessments in lower order animals (Drosophila), to temporally profile regional synapse and synaptic mitochondrial biochemistry during normal healthy ageing. We begin by demonstrating that cortical mitochondria located at the synaptic terminal are morphologically distinct from non-synaptic mitochondria in adult rodents and human patients. Biochemical isolation and purification of discrete mitochondrial subpopulations from control adult rat fore-brain enabled generation of synaptic and non-synaptic mitochondrial molecular fingerprints using quantitative proteomics, which revealed that expression of the mitochondrial proteome is highly dependent on subcellular localisation. We subsequently demonstrate that the molecular differences observed between mitochondrial sub-populations are capable of selectively influencing synaptic morphology in-vivo. Next, we sought to examine how the synaptic mitochondrial proteome was dynamically and temporally regulated throughout ageing to determine whether protein expression changes within the mitochondrial milieu are actively regulating the age-dependent vulnerability of the synaptic compartment. Proteomic profiling of wild-type mouse cortical synaptic and non-synaptic mitochondria across the lifespan revealed significant age-dependent heterogeneity between mitochondrial subpopulations, with aged organelles exhibiting unique protein expression profiles. Recapitulation of aged synaptic mitochondrial protein expression at the Drosophila neuromuscular junction has the propensity to perturb the synaptic architecture, demonstrating that temporal regulation of the mitochondrial proteome may directly modulate the stability of the synapse in vivo. Although we had comprehensively characterised the temporal regulation of rodent cortical mitochondrial subpopulations, providing a number of novel candidates that may be mediating synaptic vulnerability during ageing, we sought to establish whether similar alterations were occurring in the primate brain. Using synaptic isolates from neuroanatomically distinct age-resistant (occipital cortex) and age-vulnerable (hippocampus) regions, we demonstrate that synaptic ageing is brainregion dependent and that discrete populations of synapses significantly differ at a biochemical level in the healthy human and non-human primate brain. Recapitulation of aged hippocampal protein expression with genetic manipulation in vivo revealed numerous novel candidates that have the propensity to significantly modulate multiple morphological parameters at the synapse. Furthermore, we demonstrate that several of these candidates sit downstream of TGFβ1 and activation of the TGFβ1 signalling cascade in hippocampal synaptic populations drives the aberrant expression of selected candidates during ageing. Finally, we show that selective pharmacological inhibition of this pathway rescues synaptic phenotypes in multiple candidate lines. The data affirmed that activation of the TGFβ1 transduction pathway modulates synaptic stability and thus may contribute to the selective vulnerability of hippocampal synapses during ageing.

abstract: The manner in which land and water are used and managed is a major influencing factor of global environmental change. Globally, modifications to the landscape have drastically transformed social and ecological communities. Land and water management practices also influences people's vulnerability to hazards. Other interrelated factors are compounding problems of environmental change as a result of land and water use changes. Such factors include climate change, sea level rise, the frequency and severity of hurricanes, and increased populations in coastal regions. The implication of global climate change for small islands and small island communities is especially troublesome. Socially, small islands have a limited resource base, deal with varying degrees of insularity, generally have little political power, and have limited economic opportunities. The physical attributes of small islands also increase their vulnerability to global climate change, including limited land area, limited fresh water supplies, and greater distances to resources. The focus of this research project is to document place-specific - and in this case island-specific - human-environmental interactions from a political ecology perspective as a means to address local concerns and possible consequences of global environmental change. The place in which these interactions are examined is the barrier island and village of Ocracoke, North Carolina. I focus on the specific historical-geography of land and water management on Ocracoke as a means to examine relationships between local human-environmental interactions and environmental change. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Geography 2014