<p> Human trafficking and prostitution for commercial sexual exploitation (CSE) happens every day, in every country. Women and female children are the predominate targets of this type of exploitation. This research looked at CSE women and how the Organization for Prostitution Survivors (OPS), a Seattle nonprofit, approaches their work with victims. The action research study question was: What creates successful collaboration and best practices sharing within a Seattle social services nonprofit organization serving the domestically prostituted and trafficked survivor community? Data were collected through an online research survey, consisting of 11 questions in total. Survey demographics included nine OPS board of directors and staff participants. The completed findings were shared with OPS in a feedback session during the spring of 2014, indicating a need for more robust organizational development practices and strategy beyond OPS's current framework, including standardization of communication and self-care practices, financial development, fundraising, and clearly defined roles.</p>

<p> To what extent is it possible for a social movement to transform a public education system in order to promote an alternative social vision? Under what conditions can this implementation occur within the bureaucratic state apparatus, at the regional and national level? How does state-society collaboration develop, in contexts where civil society groups and the state have opposing interests? This dissertation addresses these questions through an investigation of the educational initiatives of the Brazilian Landless Workers Movement (<i>Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra,</i> or MST), a national social movement of rural workers struggling for agrarian reform. MST activists have been able to implement educational proposals in rural public schools that encourage youth to stay in the countryside, foster a sense of belonging to the movement, promote collective forms of work, and practice participatory governance. </p><p> Part I provides an overview of the multi-level and multi-sited political ethnographic approach used to conduct this research. It then reviews the literature on social movements and state-society relations, and considers how a Gramscian framework can be used to analyze how social movements implement educational proposals in public schools that are opposed to the interests of the dominant class. Part II examines the history and national expansion of the MST's educational initiative: how activists first developed their educational proposals; why the movement went from promoting popular education to participating in the public educational sphere; and why and how the federal government appropriated these ideas as a new approach to rural schooling, known as <i>Educa&ccedil;&atilde;o do Campo</i> (Education of the Countryside). Part III explores the MST's attempt to transform public schools in three state educational systems and two municipalities, and why the MST's success differs drastically across the country depending on the state capacity, government orientation, and level of MST mobilization in each region. </p><p> Comparison of the outcomes in these subnational cases yield new and unexpected insights into the relationships and conditions that lead to or impede participatory governance: (1) low-capacity governments and weak institutions can offer unusual openings for social movements to implement participatory initiatives; (2) high-capacity state antagonism negates the positive effects of mobilization; (3) not-so-public forms of contention are an effective strategy that social movements can use to engage the state and participate in the provision of public goods; (4) technocracy is a significant barrier to participatory practices, even among supportive governments; and, (5) state-society collaboration is not possible if the leadership of a social movement does not have a strong connection to its base. </p><p> Significantly, this research shows that the implementation of a social movement's goals through the state apparatus does not always lead to movement cooptation or decline. Additionally, public schools, normally institutions reproducing state power, can be used by marginalized communities to support alternative social visions. However, the case of the MST also illustrates that this process is never straightforward, easy, or permanent, as it requires communities to first develop a common vision, and then work with, in, and through the ever-changing power structures to implement this vision.</p>

<p> Throughout the nation, grocery retailers are reentering underserved communities amidst growing public awareness of food deserts and the rise of federal, state, and local programs incentivizing urban grocery stores. And yet, even with expanding research on food deserts and their public health impacts, there is still a lack of consensus on whether grocery stores truly offer the best solution. Furthermore, scholars and policymakers alike have limited understandings of the broader neighborhood implications of grocery stores newly introduced into underserved urban communities.</p><p> This dissertation analyzes how local organizations and agencies pursue grocery development in order to understand the conditions for success implementation. To do this, I examine the historical drivers, planning processes, and outcomes of two extreme cases of urban grocery development: a Fresh and Easy Neighborhood Market (a chain value store) in San Francisco's Bayview Hunters Point and the Mandela Foods Cooperative (a worker-owned cooperative) in Oakland's West Oakland districts. </p><p> Through a comparative institutional analysis, I find that both Fresh and Easy and Mandela Foods reflect distinctive neighborhood revitalization legacies, critical moments of institutional capacity building, localized versions of national policy narratives, and the role of charismatic leaders in grocery store implementation. While national narratives shape the rhetoric of urban grocery development, ultimately local context dictates how food access issues are defined, who addresses them, and how. These findings suggest that federal grocery incentive programs should: 1) maintain a broad framework that enables local communities to define food access problems and their solutions on a case-by-case basis, 2) encourage diverse solutions not limited to grocery stores and supermarkets, and 3) emphasize community reinvestment goals.</p>

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Indiana University, Dept. of Sociology, 2007. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 68-09, Section: A, page: 4100. Adviser: Bernice A. Pescosolido. Title from dissertation home page (viewed May 8, 2008).

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Adelaide, Dept. of Geographical and Environmental Studies, 2001. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 288-332).

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of California, San Francisco, 2008. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 69-09, Section: A, page: 3767. Adviser: Carroll L. Estes.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2008. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 69-11, Section: A, page: 4529. Adviser: Paula Treichler. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 276-304) Available on microfilm from Pro Quest Information and Learning.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Indiana University, Dept. of Sociology, 2005. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 66-08, Section: A, page: 3111. Adviser: Arthur S. Alderson. Title from dissertation home page (viewed Oct. 5, 2006).