Human Geography Commons^™

No. 01: The Urban Food System Of Nanjing, China, Zhenzhong Si, Jonathan Crush, Steffanie Scott, Taiyang Zhong

Hungry Cities Partnership

With a population of 8.2 million people, Nanjing is the 14th largest city in China. China became a predominantly urban nation in 2011, when its urban population surpassed its rural population for the first time. The declining farming population and area of farmland along with the increased food consumption of urban residents have had significant implications for China’s food security, including in cities such as Nanjing. As with many other Chinese cities, Nanjing’s informal economy has become an important source of income for the poor, including migrant workers. Since the beginning of economic reform in 1978, street vendors have become …

Food Remittances: Migration And Food Security In Africa, Jonathan Crush, Mary Caesar

Hungry Cities Partnership

By drawing attention to the importance of food remittances for urban and rural food security and identifying the current knowledge gaps, this report contributes to the study of the relationship between migration and food security and creates a platform for the design of a new research agenda. Across Africa, there is considerable evidence of a massive informal trade in food, including staples, fresh and processed products. While most cross-border trade in foodstuffs is a result of commercial transactions by small-scale traders who buy in one country and sell in another, an unknown proportion is actually food remittances on their way …

The Return Of Food: Poverty And Urban Food Security In Zimbabwe After The Crisis, Godfrey Tawodzera, Liam Riley, Jonathan Crush

Hungry Cities Partnership

The nadir of Zimbabwe’s political and economic crisis in 2008 coincided with the implementation of a baseline household food security survey in Harare by AFSUN. This survey found that households in lowincome urban areas in Zimbabwe’s capital were far worse off in terms of all the food insecurity and poverty indicators than households in the other 10 Southern African cities surveyed by AFSUN. The central question addressed in this report is whether food security in Zimbabwe’s urban centres has improved. AFSUN conducted a follow-up survey in 2012 that allows for direct longitudinal comparisons of continuity and change. The status of …

Analysis Of The Geosocial Landscape In The City Of Toronto, Courtney J. Jones

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Microblogging on geosocial platforms is a popular form of online communication where users post information about their daily lives and challenges. Since the launch of Twitter in 2006, information sharing through social media has become a largely unused data repository. Tweets often convey content about the users sentiment as it is happening. As such, Tweets can be viewed as a proxy of public mood. In this thesis, I performed a sentiment analysis of all public geo-located Tweets posted by a variety of Twitter users between September 2013 and October 2014. Each Tweet was processed through a custom algorithm to extract …

Understanding The Influencers Of Second-Hand Apparel Shopping Behavior, Robyn Hobbs

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Shopping for second-hand apparel is rapidly growing and has become a notable segment of the retail market. The purpose of this study is to determine what influences consumers when shopping second-hand for apparel products in-store and online. According to the existing literature, a number of key factors play significant roles for second-hand apparel shopping consumer decisions. They include: social, costs, trends and environmental influencers. Past research has not concentrated in-depth on the hedonistic and social influences of second-hand apparel shopping, financial factors, and time spent shopping for second-hand apparel. This study has observed the socio-demographic profile of second-hand shoppers, what …

Debt Financed Migration To Consumption Smoothing: Tracing The Link Between Migration And Food Security In Bangladesh, Mohammad Moniruzzaman

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This dissertation is primarily focused on migration and food security linkages, more specifically the impact of migrants’ remittances on household food security, and the role of debt in financing migration. Using a multi-methods approach the dissertation focuses on the household level, but also sheds light on the related policy landscape linked to these resource issues. The dissertation consists of seven chapters, with four research finding chapters that are each self-contained and interdisciplinary. Each of these four chapters adds conceptually and empirically to the existing literature on migration and development.

Chapters one and two provide the introduction and literature review. Chapter …

Acculturation And Post-Immigration Changes In Obesity, Physical Activity, And Nutrition: Comparing Hispanics And Asians In The Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada., Michele Vitale Mr., Sean Doherty

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

OBJECTIVES: The acculturation hypothesis speculates that as new immigrants get exposed to more obesogenic environments, they progressively acquire the unhealthy lifestyles of the host society, and their obesity risk gradually increases since time of arrival. However, the consistency of the presumed acculturation effect across immigrant groups and gender, and the reasons behind individual changes in lifestyle behaviors remain unclear. Thus, this study investigated the acculturation hypothesis in the Canadian context by comparing two foreign groups, Hispanics and East/Southeast Asians, which present contrasting post-settlement obesity patterns and behavioral trends.

Methods: A 41-item questionnaire (including open-ended questions) was administered with 100 first-generation …

Migration Governance And Migration Rights In The Southern African Development Community (Sadc): Attempts At Harmonization In A Disharmonious Region, Belinda Dodson, Jonathan Crush

Southern African Migration Programme

This paper examines prospects for enhanced regional migration governance and protection of migrants’ rights in the Southern African Development Community (SADC). Migration in this region is substantial in scale and diverse in nature, incorporating economic, political and mixed migration flows. In addition to movements between countries within the region, migrants also come from across the African continent and even further afield. At its foundation in 1992, SADC as an institution initially embraced a vision of intra-regional free movement, but this has not become a reality. If anything, there has been a hardening of anti-migrant attitudes, not least in the principal …

Understanding Fruit And Vegetable Consumption: A Qualitative Investigation In The Mitchells Plain Sub-District Of Cape Town, Catherine Pereira, Milla Mclachlan, Jane Battersby

Hungry Cities Partnership

Objectives: Many South Africans do not consume enough fruit and vegetables. However, people are generally aware of the benefits of adequate consumption. To understand this gap between knowledge and practice, this study investigated underlying factors influencing consumption through a qualitative, cross-sectional, descriptive case study conducted in Mitchell’s Plain, Cape Town.

Methods: Four focus groups to gain broad understanding and 15 interviews with strategically selected individuals influential in food preparation, distribution or consumption, to gain in-depth understanding of specific factors influencing fruit and vegetable consumption were conducted.

Results: The study identified a number of drivers of fruit and vegetable consumption patterns. …

The State Of Poverty And Food Insecurity In Maseru, Lesotho, Resetselemang Leduka, Jonathan Crush, Bruce Frayne, Cameron Mccordic, Thope Matobo, Ts’Episo Makoa, Matseliso Mphale, Mmantai Phaila, Moipone Letsie

Hungry Cities Partnership

This report on food insecurity in urban Lesotho is the latest in a series on Southern African cities issued by AFSUN. Like the previous reports, it focuses on one city (Maseru) and on poor neighbourhoods and households in that city. More than 60% of poor households surveyed in Maseru were severely food insecure. While food price increases worsen food insecurity for poor households, it is poverty that weakens the resilience of society to absorb these increases. This report argues that Maseru residents face specific and interrelated challenges with respect to food and nutrition insecurity. These are poverty; limited local livelihood …

The Transformation Of Trust In China’S Alternative Food Networks: Disruption, Reconstruction, And Development, Raymond Yu Wang, Zhenzhong Si, Cho Nam Ng, Steffanie Scott

Hungry Cities Partnership

Food safety issues in China have received much scholarly attention, yet few studies systematically examined this matter through the lens of trust. More importantly, little is known about the transformation of different types of trust in the dynamic process of food production, provision, and consumption. We consider trust as an evolving interdependent relationship between different actors. We used the Beijing County Fair, a prominent ecological farmers’ market in China, as an example to examine the transformation of trust in China’s alternative food networks. We argue that although there has been a disruption of institutional trust among the general public since …

The State Of Poverty And Food Insecurity In Maseru, Lesotho, Resetselemang Leduka, Jonathan Crush, Bruce Frayne, Cameron Mccordic, Thope Matobo, Ts’Episo Makoa, Matseliso Mphale, Mmantai Phaila, Moipone Letsie

Hungry Cities Partnership

This report on food insecurity in urban Lesotho is the latest in a series on Southern African cities issued by AFSUN. Like the previous reports, it focuses on one city (Maseru) and on poor neighbourhoods and households in that city. More than 60% of poor households surveyed in Maseru were severely food insecure. While food price increases worsen food insecurity for poor households, it is poverty that weakens the resilience of society to absorb these increases. This report argues that Maseru residents face specific and interrelated challenges with respect to food and nutrition insecurity. These are poverty; limited local livelihood …

Entrepreneurship And Inclusive Growth In South Africa, Zimbabwe And Mozambique, Jonathan Crush, Caroline Skinner, Abel Chikanda

Hungry Cities Partnership

While increasing attention is being paid to the drivers and forms of entrepreneurship in informal economies, much less of this policy and research focus is directed at understanding the links between mobility and informality. This report examines the current state of knowledge about this relationship with particular reference to three countries (Mozambique, South Africa and Zimbabwe) and four cities (Cape Town, Harare, Johannesburg and Maputo), identifying major themes, knowledge gaps, research questions and policy implications. In many African cities, informal enterprises are operated by internal and international migrants. The extent and nature of mobile entrepreneurship and the opportunities and challenges …

Affective Migration: The Role Of Food Preparation And Visceral Experience For Egyptian Migrant Women Settling In The Region Of Waterloo, Mary Neil

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This study examining Egyptian migrants settling in Canada is exploratory in nature and is intended to initiate a conversation about the personal experience of transnationalism and the value of the body as an instrument of research. A semi-structured interview approach was designed to prompt the evocation of deep personal thoughts, experiences, and sensations in response to questions surrounding migration to Canada through the shared performative act of cooking and the visceral experience of eating in the private space of the migrant kitchen. Using a grounded theory approach, several adaptive mechanisms were identified such as the creation of manageable daily routines, …

Exploring Daily Dietary Behaviour Through Examination Of The Food Choice Process, Ivy Dam

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

As obesity rates continue to rise, the negative health impacts associated with unhealthy food choice behaviour remain an issue of concern. Observing the connection between food consumption and weight gain alone is likely not sufficient to understanding people’s construction of food choices. More detailed examination of a novel concept, the overall food choice process (FCP), including food thoughts, plans, purchases, and preparation, leading up to food intake/consumption may contribute to an improved understanding of food choice behaviour.

This thesis explored the wider FCP that gives rise to observed food consumption by testing passive video recording technologies, …

Tentative Securities: 26/11, Israel And The Politics Of Mobility, Rhys A. Machold

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This dissertation examines the global mobility of security knowhow in relation to the management of terrorism in megacities. Specifically, it offers three insights. First, it shows how historical events are performed as sites in need of transnational policy intervention. Second, it enables an understanding of how and why the sourcing of policy ‘models’ actually takes place. Third, it sheds light on how mobile policy schemes travel geographically and are put to work in particular contexts. In doing so, it elaborates on the conditions under which policies move geographically but also addresses the kinds of constraints and contradictions they face.

The …

Exploring The Moments And Memory Of Tourist Experiences In Peru, Sarah Quinlan Cutler

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Tourist experiences offer anomalous and complex interactions between tourists and tourism places. The study of these experiences is the focus of this doctoral dissertation, which aims to explore subjective aspects of the tourist experience. This exploration involves the conceptualisation of tourist experiences and the development of a multi-phased research design that captures the perceptions of momentary in situ experiences and examines how these perceptions change over time.

The dissertation addresses under studied areas in tourism and answers calls for research into immediate conscious experiences and tourist centred methodology. This investigation into tourist experiences involves 21 participants who took an educational …

Between North And South: The Eu-Acp Migration Relationship, Jonathan Crush

Southern African Migration Programme

Before the turn of the century, international migration had an extremely low profile on the global development agenda. The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), for example, make no mention at all of international migration. Although a number of studies have attempted to “mainstream” migration into the MDGs after the fact, it is still largely ignored in official assessments of progress made towards them (Usher, 2005; Crush and Frayne 2007; Skeldon, 2008). According to the United Nations (UN), the silence surrounding migration in the MDGs was because it was too divisive and sensitive an issue between developed and developing countries (United Nations …

The State Of Food Insecurity In Maputo, Mozambique, Inês Raimundo, Jonathan Crush, Wade Pendleton

Hungry Cities Partnership

Food insecurity is a fact of life for the vast majority of households across Maputo’s poverty belt. The Maputo urban food security survey done by AFSUN as part of its baseline survey of 11 Southern African cities found that households exist in a constant state of food insecurity manifested in a lack of access to sufficient affordable food, poor dietary quality and undernutrition. Income is meagre and only those households with access to wage income have any chance of holding food insecurity at bay. With a vibrant informal food economy, Maputo’s poor are surrounded by fresh and processed food. Food …

Divided Diasporas: Southern Africans In Canada, Jonathan Crush, Abel Chikanda, Wade Pendleton, Mary Caesar, Sujata Ramachandran, Cassandra Eberhardt, Ashley Hill

Southern African Migration Programme

The protracted economic and political crisis in Zimbabwe led directly to a major increase in mixed migration flows to South Africa. Migrants were drawn from every sector of society, all education and skill levels, equal numbers of both sexes, and all ages (including unaccompanied child migration). Many migrants claimed asylum in South Africa which gave them the right to work while they waited for a refugee hearing. Many others were arrested and deported back to Zimbabwe. Migrants who were unable to find employment in the formal economy turned to employment and self-employment in the informal economy. These migrant entrepreneurs used …

The Remittances Framework In Lesotho: Assessment Of Policies And Programmes Promoting The Multiplier Effect, Lafeela Joseph Nalane, Abel Chikanda, Jonathan Crush

Southern African Migration Programme

This study explored policies and programmes aimed at facilitating remittances inflows through formal channels and leveraging remittances for development in Lesotho. The study also looked into regulations and laws on remittances. In order to answer key questions of this study, semi‐structured questionnaires were administered to 29 institutions, including commercial banks, an asset manager, insurance companies, telecommunication companies, government ministries, parastatals, a research institution, a retailer, a savings and credit cooperative and non-governmental organizations. The gaps revealed by this study can be summarised as: the Deferred Pay Act is the only policy driving officially recorded remittance inflows to Lesotho and which …

Capacity Building Workshop: Data Collection – Migration And Development, Jonathan Crush, Belinda Dodson, John Gay, Clement Leduka

Southern African Migration Programme

No abstract provided.

Migration, Remittances And Gender-Responsive Local Development: Executive Summaries. Case Studies: Albania, The Dominican Republic, Lesotho, Morocco, The Philippines And Senegal, Alison J. Petrozziello, Elisabeth Robert

Southern African Migration Programme

The complex links between globalization and development have made contemporary migration a key area of investigation. It is estimated that over 200 million women and men have left their countries of origin to live and work abroad. Occurring simultaneously are equally intensive internal movements, primarily from rural to urban areas. Demographically, many country-specific flows have changed, both in terms of numbers and composition by sex. Studies on the feminization of migration2 have revealed women’s significant role and impact as actors in the migration process. Despite the rapid increase in the volume and diversity of knowledge on the migration-development nexus, research …

Grounding Diaspora In Experience: Niagara Mennonite Identity, Cynthia Anne Jones

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This qualitative case study grounds theoretical notions of diaspora in personal accounts of Russian Mennonites living on the Niagara peninsula of Canada. The focus is on successive, complex interrelationships with ‘place’ (in a fixed sense, and a globally connected sense), with attention to gender, generation, and life-stage. How have these individuals experienced diaspora, and how has this influenced their culture and identity? Interrelationships with place are examined within an analytical framework composed of three key elements as identified in diaspora literature: cultural hybridity, social heterogeneity (internal divisions), and responsibility flows. The results are both descriptive and theoretical, featuring first person …

Bringing Medicine To The Hamlet: Exploring The Experiences Of Older Women In Rural Bangladesh Who Seek Health Care, Md. Abul Hossen

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

The purpose of this study was to explore the experiences of older women in rural Bangladesh who seek health care. Qualitative methods were used to collect data from 17 older women in Bibirchar Union, Sherpur District, Bangladesh in June 2006. The study is intended to generate findings to help policy makers plan appropriate strategies to improve the health of this highly vulnerable population group.

The findings reveal that women’s culturally and socially determined roles greatly impair their health and play an important role in health-seeking behaviour through a complex web of social, economic, religious/cultural and behavioural interrelationships and synergies that …

Forestry-Based Livelihoods In Central Vietnam: An Examination Of The Acacia Commodity Chain: A Case From Thua Thien Hue Province, Vietnam, Robert Pietrzak

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Forestry-based livelihoods in remote Vietnamese communities have been influenced in recent years by forest land allocation schemes, changes to property rights, and forest management devolution initiatives. Examples include the Five Million Hectare Reforestation Program, Project 327, and official “Red Books” that grant long-term land use rights and access rights to villagers. Major challenges to forestry-based livelihoods include disputes over land tenure, conflict between different levels of government, illegal logging practices and harvesting of NTFPs and competition over land for natural versus plantation forests. As a result, forest degradation and rural poverty continue to be debilitating obstacles to development in Central …

A Time Series Analysis: Exploring The Link Between Human Activity And Blood Glucose Fluctuation, Eric A. Sadowski

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

In this thesis, time series models are developed to explore the correlates of blood glucose (BG) fluctuation of diabetic patients. In particular, it is investigated whether certain human activities and lifestyle events (e.g. food and medication consumption, physical activity, travel and social interaction) influence BG, and if so, how. A unique dataset is utilized consisting of 40 diabetic patients who participated in a 3-day study involving continuous monitoring of blood glucose (BG) at five minute intervals, combined with measures for sugar; carbohydrate; calorie and insulin intake; physical activity; distance from home; time spent traveling via public transit and private automobile; …

Place And Food: A Relational Analysis Of Personal Food Environments, Meanings Of Place And Diet Quality, Ellen Desjardins

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This study investigates the relational layers of meanings that people experience at places in their food environment, and how individuals express a sense of place through their collective interactions with, and understandings of, food places. It also explores the patterns of difference among these meanings of place and sense of place in terms of their potential association with dietary quality. The context of this inquiry was two-fold: first, the need identified by several population health researchers and to re-imagine place as relational and include it in the study of behavioural responses to the changing food environment; and secondly, my interest …

Responding To Change In A Northern Aboriginal Community (Fort Resolution, Nwt, Canada): Linking Social And Ecological Perspectives, Sonia Darienne Wesche

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Human and environmental systems in the circumpolar north are particularly affected by the Earth’s changing climate, thus acting as a bellwether for other parts of the globe. Rural indigenous communities are most visibly impacted due to their close relationship with the land. These challenges are compounded by socio-economic transformations typical of peripheral communities within a larger, centrally governed system.

This dissertation links a community-based study of environmental change in Fort Resolution, Northwest Territories, Canada to evolving adaptation science. The study was prompted by local concern about changing environmental conditions caused by climatic, hydrological and resource development drivers. Its collaborative research …

The Human Activity-Travel Rescheduling Decision Process, Andrew F. Clark

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Over the past few decades the activity scheduling decision process has become an important topic for transportation researchers, including how people reschedule their daily activities and travel in reaction to change. Rescheduling decisions include modifications/updates to timing, location/route, involved persons, event/mode type, and other attributes of activities/trips, as well as addition and deletion of completely new events. Such decisions occur as part of an ongoing process over time, space and across individuals. This thesis developed and applied a new data collection methodology for exploring the rescheduling decision process. The methodology had four main stages: capturing preplanned schedules; Global Positioning System …