Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Host Organizations' Perspectives Of Partnered Global Study-Abroad Programs, Jessica C. Pop

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Background: The relationships between sending and host partners in nursing study-abroad programs are crucial to the success and sustainability of these programs. Yet, there has been a paucity of research focused on the global partnerships between sending and host organizations. Most research about study-abroad programs has primarily focused on Global North sending organizations’ perspectives on the educational, social, and career benefits to Global North students with few studies highlighting the perspectives of host organizations from the Global South.

Aim: To explore Global South host organizations’ perspectives about global partnered nursing study-abroad programs.

Research Design: This research study was guided by …

Improving Developing Countries’ Health Information Systems Capacity For Infectious Disease Pandemic Responses: A Case Study Of The Ebola Virus Disease And The Coronavirus Disease Pandemics, Uche Ikenyei

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There is increasing evidence to demonstrate that current information system theoretical models meant to assess the success of the health information systems (HIS) lack the applicable theoretical underpinning suitable for developing countries. This stems partly from a theory-evidence gap where theoretical models developed in the West are applied in developing country contexts but lack tailoring to localized, contextual realities. Therefore, this study addresses this gap by enhancing the DeLeon and McLean's information system success model with six contextual factors peculiar to the infectious disease HISs in a developing country context.

This study took place in two developing countries, Liberia and …

Endangered Species Of The Physical Cultural Landscape: Globalization, Nationalism, And Safeguarding Traditional Folk Games, Thomas Fabian

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Folk sports are the countertype of modern sports: invented traditions, bolstered by tangible ritual and intangible myth, played by the common folk in order to express a romantic ethnic identity. Like other cultural forms, traditional sports and games around the world are becoming marginalized in the face of modernization and globalization. In 2003, UNESCO ratified the Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in an attempt to counter such trends of cultural homogenization. As elements of intangible cultural heritage, folk sports now fall under the auspices of UNESCO safeguarding policies. As such, the objective of this …

Yoga As Embodied Peacebuilding: Moving Through Personal, Interpersonal And Collective Trauma(S) In Post-Conflict Colombia, Mayme Lefurgey

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In this dissertation, I examine creative methods of peacebuilding that are both community-driven and embodied in their approach. I evaluate how these methods can simultaneously challenge the confines of conventional peacebuilding mechanisms in transitional and post-conflict contexts, while also offering a unique complement to existing programs and structures. I look at the multifaceted socio-cultural expressions of yoga globally, inquiring as to how this mind-body practice can offer opportunities in peacebuilding on both individual and collective levels.

My project is rooted in the principles of community-engaged research and feminist research ethics. More specifically, this dissertation closely engages with the work of …

From Stateless People To Citizens: The Reformulation Of Territory And Identity In India-Bangladesh Border Enclaves, Md Rashedul Alam

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This dissertation analyzes nation-building in hitherto ungoverned territories of two Indian chhitmahals in Bangladesh and explores the transformation of their residents from stateless Indian nationals to citizens of Bangladesh. Chhitmahals comprised nearly two hundred enclaves located along the Bangladesh-India border that belonged to one country but were located inside another’s territory. Chhitmahals came into existence with the partition of India in 1947; their non-contiguous locations kept them without state administration and citizenship rights. People developed political councils and adopted illicit practices to survive in the absence of the state, but the impossibility of exercising sovereignty in chhitmahals led Bangladesh and …

The Differentiation Of Smallholder Farming And Household Food Responsibilities In Northern Ghana, Siera Vercillo

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One of the most urgent problems facing sub-Saharan Africa is that many people lack access to safe, nutritious, and culturally appropriate food, particularly in semi-arid regions such as northern Ghana. An important indication of this problem within Ghana is that stunting rates due to prolonged undernourishment are significantly higher in the northern regions than in other parts of the country, despite claims of an overall increase in the availability of food. Broadly, this dissertation employs qualitative case study research in the Northern Region (interviews N=109 and 12 focus groups) to describe the changes in access to resources, roles and …

The Politics Of Wounds, Jonathan Nash

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What configuration of strategies and discourses enable the white male and settler body politic to render itself as simultaneously wounded and invulnerable? I contextualize this question by reading the discursive continuities between Euro-America’s War on Terror post-9/11 and Algeria’s War for Independence. By interrogating political-philosophical responses to September 11, 2001 beside American rhetoric of a wounded nation, I argue that white nationalism, as a mode of settler colonialism, appropriates the discourses of political wounding to imagine and legitimize a narrative of white hurt and white victimhood; in effect, reproducing and hardening the borders of the nation-state. Additionally, by turning to …

How Do Educational Leaders In Small, Fragile, And Developing Countries Translate Their Understandings Of Student Learning And Achievement Into Leadership Practices? A Case-Study About Leadership In Haïtian Urban Schools, Carolyne Pierre Marie Verret

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Haïti is unique in many respects; full of contradictions and paradoxes. While beautiful in many regards, it is fraught with issues: political, economic, societal, environmental, cultural, health-related, and educational. The latter stands out, however, as education affects the quality of the country’s human capital, determining the quality of life of its citizens. Therefore, having competent people in leadership positions is critical especially within schools where they can impact students’ learning, development, and achievement (SL/A).

Aiming to describe the state of educational leadership in Haïtian schools to inform policy-makers of the lived-experiences of educational leaders (ELs), the objectives of this study …

Towards Evidence-Informed Agriculture Policy Making: Investigating The Knowledge Translation Practices Of Researchers In The National Agriculture Research Institutes In Nigeria, Isioma N. Elueze

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This study investigated the knowledge translation practices of researchers in the National Agriculture Research Institutes of Nigeria and the utilization of research knowledge by policy actors in the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development in Nigeria. Data for the study was obtained from agriculture researchers and the policy actors through questionnaires and interviews. In addition, bibliometric and content analysis were carried out on documents from the research institutes and the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development to gauge the transfer and use of knowledge by the researchers and policy actors respectively. Out of about six hundred questionnaires that …

"My Friends, They Are People To Rely On": The Social Foundation Of Business In Ghana, Patrick D. Shulist

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The management and entrepreneurship literatures increasingly engage in poverty alleviation research in the developing world. However, there is a marked tendency to overlook how the Western World, from where most theory comes, differs from the developing world. Such a fallacy has potential deleterious effects on the research itself, but more importantly on the practical applications of that research.

With this in mind, my dissertation uses an inductive qualitative methodology to explore the nature of self-employment in the developing world as it is; that is, not coloured by theoretical priors. In doing this, I lay the groundwork for understanding the …

A Systems Approach To Modelling The Effects Of Climate Change On Agroforestry: A Case Study In Western Tanzania, Elaine M. Samuel

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Climate change is anticipated to have significant effects on agricultural production in sub-Saharan Africa as the magnitude of weather events increase in severity. Smallholder farmers in western Tanzania are potentially vulnerable to climate change impact as crops rely on precipitation as the only source of water. It is prudent to evaluate different modes of agricultural adaptations, such as agroforestry, that these farmers can easily adopt to improve their resiliency to the effects of climate change. System dynamics modelling is a cost-effective tool to simulate the long-term behaviour of agroforestry systems under future climate conditions. Water, Nutrient, and Light Capture in …

Elusive Peace, Security, And Justice In Post-Conflict Guatemala: An Exploration Of Transitional Justice And The International Commission Against Impunity In Guatemala (Cicig), Daniel W. Schloss

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Guatemala has, until today, struggled to achieve security and justice following the end of nearly half a century of civil war in 1996. One specific institution, the International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG), has been implemented to rectify many of the Guatemalan state’s difficulties in establishing and maintaining the rule of law. In this thesis, I look to better explain CICIG’s role in Guatemala relative to security and justice in a post-conflict setting: I define CICIG as an institution potentially capable of building societal trust, and I explain how the inclusion of procedural justice within transitional justice can help …

Mining, Resistance And Livelihood In Rural Bangladesh, Md Rashedul Alam

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In 2006, over fifty thousand people in the Phulbari Sub-District of Bangladesh mobilized against an open-pit coal mining-project that posed serious environmental and social risks. The state authorities negotiated with the protesters intensively over four days to reach an agreement. However, the state failed to fulfill the agreement, and the protest movement continued. The agrarian communities successfully halted the mining project for the last nine years. My research aims to understand how the protesters resisted this project. My objectives have been to explore the practices of a grassroots movement, attendant transformations in the sociopolitical landscape and role of the state …

Agrarian Change And Peasant Prospects In Haiti, Marylynn Elizabeth Steckley

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Haiti is one of the poorest and most severely hunger-stricken countries in the world (GHI 2013). Its contradictions are jarring: although Haiti has the largest relative agrarian population in the Western Hemisphere and relatively less land inequality than the rest of the region (Smucker et al. 2000; Wiens and Sobrado 1998), it is extremely food insecure. Almost 90 percent of the rural population lives below the poverty line (FAO 2014; IFAD 2014), and Haiti relies on food imports for 60 percent of national consumption (OXFAM 2010). Some scholars argue that the spread of commodity relations, persistent rural class differentiation, and …

Enterprising Outsiders: Livelihood Strategies Of Cape Town’S Forced Migrants, Madeleine Ann Northcote

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Although refugees and registered asylum-seekers have a legal right to work in South Africa, research shows that prevailing anti-immigrant attitudes and South African employers’ suspicion of these migrants’ documents makes employment extraordinarily difficult to acquire. This thesis investigates how, in the face of such challenges, forced migrants in Cape Town secure their day-to-day livelihoods. The research is based on semi-structured, open-ended interviews with thirty-two refugees and other forced migrants who live and operate in the Cape Town area, as well as five key informant interviews with employees of refugee service organizations. It also draws from literature on both South Africa’s …

Contentious Information: Accounts Of Knowledge Production, Circulation And Consumption In Transitional Egypt, Ahmad Kamal

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While the 2011 Egyptian Uprising renewed attention to revolutionary news platforms such as Al-Jazeera and Facebook, citizens continued to be understudied as active consumers of information. Yet citizens’ perceptions of their informational milieu and how they responded in consuming, processing, and interpreting facts offer crucial insight into the turbulent transition that followed the initial uprising. This study analyzes Egyptian citizens’ accounts of their information environment and practices amid socio-political change. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 31 politically-engaged citizens from various political and professional backgrounds. Participants were asked to discuss the state of public discourse, the institutions responsible for the circulation …

Claims Of The City? Rights Of The Countryside? Politics Of Water Contestation In The Mumbai-Thane Region Of India, Bharat Khushal Punjabi

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This dissertation comprises three papers that focus on the interplay of formal and informal institutional processes in the sharing of water between the Mumbai Metropolitan region and an agricultural area to its north and east in Thane district. The first paper focuses on the interests and motivations that influence the everyday practices of the canal bureaucracy in the Surya project in Dahanu. This paper is largely a critique of the application of rational choice theory to analyzing bureaucratic corruption in a literature in development studies that was pioneered by Robert Wade. Using an ethnographic narrative style, the paper seeks to …

The Money Of Qaroon And The Patience Of Ayoub: Women And Land In Egypt's Mubarak Resettlement Scheme, Dina Najjar

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This dissertation addresses the challenge of achieving increased empowerment and equality for Egyptian women. The dissertation tests the assumption that land access (through both joint and full titles) increases empowerment and equality for women in two desert resettlements of Sa’yda and Intilaq, part of the massive Mubarak Resettlement Scheme (MRS). In particular, the dissertation identifies: 1) how land access could empower Egyptian women and 2) women’s experiences with land access in the MRS. Findings reveal that land access is indeed the most promising route for women’s advancement in life, but the desert land required patience and financial assets. Land access, …

Risk Factors For Diabetes Mellitus: A Comparative Analysis Of Subpopulation Differences In A Large Canadian Sample, Michael James Taylor

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Objectives: Certain Canadian subpopulations observe numerous modifiable and non-modifiable risk factors for diabetes. This study compares immigrants and Aboriginals (First Nations, Inuit, and Métis) with Canada-born individuals at higher risks for diabetes, and deciphers the determinant differences between them.

Methods: Pooled Canadian Community Health Survey data (2001-2010) were used. Time trends for diabetes within each subsample were calculated using individual survey year prevalence rates; diabetes diagnoses were self-reported (N=33,565). Various risk factors were also examined using logistic regression.

Results: Diabetes prevalence rates significantly increased from 2001 to 2010 for each subpopulation, as well as the total sample: Canada-Born individuals (3.9% …

Negotiating Elder Care In A Transnational Context: Taiwanese Families And Vietnamese Migrant Workers, Stephen Lin

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As one of the most rapidly aging nations in the world, Taiwan is experiencing a growing demand for elder care labour. Limited state-funded care services combine with an ever-increasing number of dependent elderly members, to create a crisis of care that continues to be managed primarily by families. Although this is a culture where sons bear the primary filial responsibility in a patrilineal structure of filial care, daughters-in-law are often expected to provide significant levels of care to their parents-in-law when they require assistance. Women’s increased participation in the workforce since the 1980s, however, poses an additional challenge to families …

Olympism, Ethics And The Rio 2016 Olympic Games Preparations: An Ethical Analysis, Dana Poeta

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Olympism is the underlying philosophy of the modern Olympic Games. It provides the ethical foundation of the Olympic Movement. This thesis defends the maintenance of human rights as essential for the achievement of Olympism. The problem investigated and evaluated in this thesis is the preparation for the Rio de Janeiro Olympic Games. A critical analysis and account of the ethical demeanor in regard to the actualization of Olympism is provided. By comparing relevant current issues with past Olympic Games, the recurring problems in achieving Olympism are identified. The conclusion emphasizing the International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) responsibility for ensuring that Olympism, …

Exploring The Experiences Of Black International Caribbean Students At A Canadian University, Francillia Paul

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Abstract

Drawing upon an anti-racist theoretical perspective based on the work of Dei (1995), this research examines the cross-cultural experiences of Black International students from the Caribbean studying in Canada. The focus is on foregrounding the experiences and voices of the participants. By adopting a case study methodology, I interviewed three female graduate students regarding their cross-cultural experiences at one particular university. This research found that all three of the students were concerned about the existence of racial discrimination in Canada including at the university and spoke of the invariable consciousness of their skin colour. The students’ narratives communicated that …

Rethinking Justice In Transitional Justice: An Examination Of The Mãori Conception And Customary Mechanism Of Justice, Stephanie Vieille

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As a relatively young field of academic inquiry, the transitional justice scholarship presents some important difficulties, not least of which is its lack of critical evaluation of the approaches to justice it adopts and promotes. This research argues that the framework used in the transitional justice scholarship is ill-suited to account for, and to think about, the philosophy of justice embodied in customary mechanisms of justice. It explains that the type of “justice” embodied in customary mechanisms of justice is difficult to appreciate by using the retributive, reparative, and the restorative approaches. These Western, individualistic and legally based approaches are …

Temporalidades Múltiples En La Encrucijada: Representaciones Artísticas De Lo Afro En Latinoamérica Y El Mundo Hispánico Durante La Actual Etapa De Globalización, Eduard Arriaga

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Nowadays talking about national, racial or gender identities and its representations is quite difficult due to current global-local dynamics of cultural formation. In that sense, approaching to these issues requires the use of comprehensive theories and complex tools in order to forge a better understanding. My dissertation explores the artistic representation of ‘afro’ in the Hispanic world (or the culture built upon the legacies of Africans and African-descendants in the New World and especially in the Caribbean) during the current stage of globalization. In my dissertation, I argue that afro-artistic contemporary representations are overcoming traditional ones -bound to race as …