Human Geography Commons^™

No. 09: Emerging Digital Technologies And Cross-Border Food Remittances Of Zimbabwean Migrants In Cape Town, South Africa, During The Early Covid-19 Pandemic, Sean Sithole, Daniel Tevera, Mulugeta F. Dinbabo

Migration and Food Security (MiFOOD) Network

This paper examines the emerging unexplored synergies between digital-mobile technologies and cross-border food remittances in Southern Africa. Cell phones and apps or applications for smart mobile devices offer migrants new formal ways of sending food remittances. With large volumes of cash and non-cash items flowing through it, the South Africa-Zimbabwe remittance corridor is a priority market for these new fintech companies. However, recent discussions on digital remittances have focused largely on cash transfers. Similarly, limited attention has been paid to food remittances in the broad discussion on remittances, even though cross-border food transfers are crucial for food and nutrition security …

No. 08: Young People’S Mobilities, Farming Aspirations And Engagements In Northern Ghana, Siera Vercillo, Bruce Frayne

Migration and Food Security (MiFOOD) Network

Development policies targeting young people and African agriculture tend to focus on their abandonment of the sector and the need to attract new generations to agricultural activities through its commercialization. This paper points to potential gaps in such interventions by investigating the diverse mobilities, aspirations, and engagements of young people in farming, through a qualitative case study in rural northern Ghana. Our study also challenges the prevalent assumption of African farmers’ movements from rural to rural areas, from rural to urban areas, and out of farming altogether, as we found evidence of young people migrating from urban to rural areas. …

No. 07: The Sdgs, Migrant Remittances And Food Security In Jamaica, Elizabeth Thomas-Hope

Migration and Food Security (MiFOOD) Network

This paper raises questions about the implications of migration for inclusive social development in Kingston, Jamaica. This is based on an assessment of the relationship between remittances and food security at the household level. Emphasis is placed on whether remittances have made a difference in reducing the food insecurity associated with poverty and thus could contribute to inclusive social development. A city-wide survey of Kingston based on a sample of households in communities spanning different socioeconomic sectors was conducted to provide the data. Three indicators were used to measure food security/insecurity. Since there were the highest levels of food insecurity …

No. 06: Incomplete Documentation, Isolation And Food Security Among Central American Migrants In Mexico City, Tiana Bakić Hayden

Migration and Food Security (MiFOOD) Network

This paper examines some of the factors that contribute to food insecurity among the growing populations of Central American migrants who reside in Mexico City. It contributes to a growing body of literature that focuses on the relationship between migration and food security by analyzing the specific challenges faced by migrants who are (semi)permanently settled in an urban area (rather than border region). The main argument of this paper is that although many of the challenges faced by migrants are parallel to those faced by low-income citizens and internal migrants in Mexico City, transnational migrants face unique challenges that contribute …

No. 05: Migrant Women’S Food Insecurity Experiences In The Breadbasket Of Ghana, Jemima Nomunume Baada, Moses Kansanga, Joseph Kangmennaang, Isaac Luginaah

Migration and Food Security (MiFOOD) Network

Migration has become a safety net for smallholder farmers across Africa in response to rapidly deteriorating climatic conditions and the resulting low agricultural productivity. In semi-arid northern Ghana, especially the Upper West Region, many people migrate to rural farming communities in the Middle Belt of the country – popularly referred to as Ghana’s breadbasket – to meet their food security needs. In recent times, there has been an increase in the involvement of women in these migration patterns. This notwithstanding, many studies on migration and food security in Ghana continue to focus on the experiences of households or male migrants, …

Complexities Of Health And Care Worker Migration Pathways And Corresponding International Reporting Requirements, Margaret Walton-Roberts, Ivy Bourgeault, Denise Spitzer

Global Nurse Migration Pathways: A Comparative Project

The increasing complexity of the migration pathways of health and care workers is a critical consideration in the reporting requirements of international agreements designed to address their impacts. There are inherent challenges across these different agreements including reporting functions that are misaligned across different data collection tools, variable capacity of country respondents, and a lack of transparency or accountability in the reporting process. Moreover, reporting processes often neglect to recognize the broader intersectional gendered and racialized political economy of health and care worker migration. We argue for a more coordinated approach to the various international reporting requirements and processes that …

The Future Of Health Care Work And The Place Of Migrant Workers Within It: Internationally Educated Nurses In Ontario Canada During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Margaret Walton-Roberts

Global Nurse Migration Pathways: A Comparative Project

The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the importance of immigrant health workers in OECD nations, and intensified debates about the current and future supply and distribution of such workers, particularly nurses. This review paper considers internationally educated nurses in the case of Ontario, Canada, and the policy responses developed during the pandemic to address the increased utilization of immigrant health workers. To further consider the evolving place of migrant workers within health, the broader issue of the future of health care work is examined to imagine what a sustainable and resilient health workforce agenda that integrates internationally educated nurses might look like.

No. 57: Pandemic Precarity And Food Insecurity In Urban Ghana During Covid-19, Elizabeth Opiyo Onyango, Bernard Owusu, Jonathan Crush

Hungry Cities Partnership

The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on urban households in the Global South has not yet been adequately explored, despite an emerging consensus that impacts of the pandemic were more severe in urban than rural Africa. This paper addresses the knowledge gap by examining the relationship between pandemic precarity and food insecurity in Ghana’s urban areas during the pandemic in 2020. The data comes from the World Bank (WB) and Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) COVID-19 High-Frequency Phone Survey. Using a sub-sample of 1,423 urban households, the paper evaluates household experiences of the pandemic. Our findings show that household demographic characteristics …

No. 58: Wild Foods, The Nutrition Transition And Urban Food Security In Northern Namibia, Ndeyapo Nickanor, Lawrence Kazembe, Jonathan Crush

Hungry Cities Partnership

Rapid urbanization and food system transformation in Africa have been accompanied by growing food insecurity, reduced dietary diversity and an epidemic of non-communicable disease. While the contribution of wild and indigenous foods (WIF) to the quality of rural household diets has been of longstanding attention, research on their consumption and role amongst urban households is much more recent. This paper focuses on the consumption of WIF in three towns in northern Namibia with close ties to the surrounding rural agricultural areas. Based on data from a household survey of food sourcing and consumption patterns in 2018, the paper shows that …

No. 60: Opening Access To Urban Food Security Data In Africa From The Hungry Cities Partnership, Gareth Haysom, Bruce Mcdougall, Samuel Owuor, Ndeyapo Nickanor, Ines Raimundo, Lawrence Kazembe, Lynn Woolfrey, Jonathan Crush

Hungry Cities Partnership

The Hungry Cities Partnership (HCP) initiated a 7-year programme of food system research in eight cities of the Global South in January 2015: Mexico City, Mexico; Kingston, Jamaica; Windhoek, Namibia; Cape Town, South Africa; Maputo, Mozambique; Nairobi, Kenya; Bangalore, India; and Nanjing, China. This paper describes the research process in the four African cities of Cape Town, Maputo, Nairobi, and Windhoek. The HCP data provide rich and context-specific information useful in avoiding generalizations in theory and inserting a Southern and African perspective into wider food studies and global policy debates. The paper describes and compares the survey methodology in the …

No. 59: Increasing The Use Of Spatial Data In Urban Household-Level Food Security Measurement, Jordan Blekking, Kurt Waldman

Hungry Cities Partnership

Measuring urban food security in Africa is challenging because the current food security metrics were designed for rural contexts, and often feature a bias toward food availability, yet limited urban food production means urban food security measurement requires a multi-dimensional evaluation that also takes stock of the spatial and behavioural dimensions of food security. Current metrics are poorly suited to evaluate urban food security because they do not incorporate the spatial and behavioural dimensions of urban livelihoods, which relate to the variability of entitlements across space and how urban infrastructure accessibility enhances or constrains the choices available for a household …

No. 56: Towards A New Food Security Index For Urban Household Food Security, Cameron Mccordic, Bruce Frayne, Naomi Sunu, Clare Williamson

Hungry Cities Partnership

The multidimensionality of food security can confound both statistical modelling and clear policy narratives. That complexity can become amplified in urban areas where food security is often a function of both local and global factors. Rather than focusing on one dimension of food security metrics, this investigation proposes a method for building an index of urban household food access, utilization and stability. The performance of this index is compared across three aggregation methods using household surveys collected from five cities around the world. The findings indicate that each aggregation method was internally consistent, although one of the aggregation methods, relying …

The Vital Role Of Dehcho Dene Knowledges In Climate Change & Permafrost Thaw Adaptation In Jean Marie River First Nation Nwt, Mackenzie Bell

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Across the globe climate change has become an issue of growing concern for both Indigenous and non – Indigenous peoples alike. In Northern Canada this narrative is no different. For Indigenous groups such as the Jean Marie River First Nation (JMRFN) anthropogenic climate change is not only a reality but is visible through their daily interactions with the environment around them. Additional insight pertaining to these climatic changes and their impacts can be found through analyzing the traditional knowledge systems of the JMRFN and how these before mentioned interactions have changed over time. This two-year participatory research project has investigated …

Wildlife Value Orientations And Recreation Conflict: A Focus On Hunters And Non-Hunters In Alberta, Canada, Yuvana Sequeira

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Parks and other forms of protected areas are considered a vital tool in the effective conservation of biodiversity. These areas also provide important spaces for nature-based tourism and recreation (NBTR), where activities such as hiking, swimming, canoeing, and socializing with friends and family often occur. In some cases, hunting may also occur within a protected area, but there is little understanding of how such activities affect the experience and overall satisfaction of other recreationists (and vise-versa). While NBTR is a popular and growing industry, there is limited research in Canada about the values of tourists and recreationists and the …

Water Stories: An Exploration Of Human-Water Connectedness In Ontario And The Implications For Water Sustainability, Tracey Ehl

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Abstract

Water is the great connector. Water connects people, health, wellness, culture, spirituality, nature, and the economy. Clean, safe water (potable water) and sanitation were recognized over a decade ago by the United Nations General Assembly (UN) as a basic human right, and more recently the UN has also identified water sustainability and management as one of 17 sustainable development goals for all people in all countries. Water is inextricably connected to humans. Yet, in Ontario, Canada, a place with access to some of the largest freshwater reserves in the world, robust regulatory frameworks, involvement, some investment by all levels …

No. 04: Pandemic Precarity And Food Insecurity: Zimbabwean Migrants In South Africa During Covid-19, Godfrey Tawodzera, Jonathan Crush

Migration and Food Security (MiFOOD) Network

A notable silence in the emerging literature on migrant precarity is any consideration of the relationship between precarity and food insecurity. The links between migrant precarity and sudden economic, political or environmental shocks are relatively untheorized. Researchers were thus conceptually under-prepared to understand how and in what ways the COVID-19 pandemic intersected with general forms of precarity and food insecurity. More recently, the concept of pandemic precarity has been proposed as a corrective. At its most basic, pandemic precarity refers to the increased incidence and severity of pre-pandemic conditions of poverty, inequality and economic insecurity during COVID-19. In relation to …

No. 03: Covid-19, The Hukou System And Migrant Food Security In Urban China, Fei Xu, Taiyang Zhong, Jonathan Crush

Migration and Food Security (MiFOOD) Network

The COVID-19 pandemic has issued significant challenges to food systems and the food security of urban and mobile populations. COVID-19 has had a disproportionate negative impact on household food security. In China, there have been no studies to date specifically focusing on the food security of migrants during the pandemic. This paper uses data from an online questionnaire survey of food security in Nanjing City, China, conducted in March 2020 to examine the different experiences of migrant and non-migrant households. The paper situates the research findings in the general literature on the migrant experience more generally during the pandemic and …

No. 54: Affordable Food Shops And Urban Food Security In China, Taiyang Zhong, Jonathan Crush, Yaya Song, Zhenzhong Si, Steffanie Scott, Yuxin Peng

Hungry Cities Partnership

Food subsidies have been widely implemented as part of government policies to mitigate food insecurity among the urban poor. The effectiveness of supply and demand-side subsidies have been a source of debate in the literature. One form of supply-side subsidy designed to make food more affordable to low-income consumers is to offer subsidies to retail outlets. China’s affordable food shop (AFS) program is one such example. The program was introduced by the central government in 2011 and implemented by municipal governments. Shops signing on to the program were required to sell a list of essential food items at a discount …

No. 55: Food Clusters, Food Security And The Urban Food System Of Northern Namibia, Lawrence Kazembe, Jonathan Crush, Ndeyapo Nickanor

Hungry Cities Partnership

A central feature of the transformation of urban food systems in cities of the Global South is the growing presence of supermarkets and their supply chains, often termed supermarketization or a supermarket revolution. A key issue in the African context is whether supermarkets are a threat to other sources of food including informal sector vendors. Most research on the supermarket revolution and competition with other food retailers focuses on large urban conurbations with little attention paid to the role of supermarkets in secondary urban centres. This paper aims to rectify this situation through a case study of the role of …

Political Culture: An Unexplored Factor In Climate Change Diplomacy, Alexander Suen

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

As climate change continues to ravage the world, mitigation efforts continue to be insufficient to rise to the challenge. Inaction on climate change has been traditionally explained by economic incentives, but some of the variability in climate policies cannot be explained by economics alone. Some variations could be accounted for by the deeply rooted national political culture of Anglo-settler colonies. This political culture may inhibit the willingness of such states to cooperate on climate change. In this dissertation, I describe the political philosophy of the Anglo-settler colony, and the histories of domination of its white settlers over the indigenous peoples …

'Indirect Pathways Into Practice': Philippine Internationally Educated Nurses And Their Entry Into Ontario's Nursing Profession, Lualhati Marcelino

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

While there are several studies that highlight the quantitative and statistical profiles of internationally educated nurses (IENs) from the Philippines who migrate to countries throughout Asia, the Middle East, Europe, the United States and Canada, there is little research that delves deeply into the qualitative review and analysis of their experiences in their own words. This study addresses that gap by applying the transnational feminist concept of “global care chains” in a single case study design that explores the experience of nurses who migrated to Ontario through permanent and temporary immigration streams and were interviewed in 2011 to 2012 to …

Exploring The Relationship Between Drought And Population Change On The North American Great Plains, 1970-2010, George Heath

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Through the second half of the 20th century, the North American Great Plains saw widespread rural out-migration, a continuation of trends that began with the Dust Bowl crisis during the Great Depression of the 1930s. As part of a wider academic focus on the roles climate and environmental changes have on migration, this research project sought to understand the relationship between drought conditions and rural population decline on the Great Plains. In this explorative research, census population data for Canada and the US from 1970-2010 were analyzed along with temperature, precipitation, and Palmer Drought Severity Index data for the same …

Bee Cities And More-Than-Human Communities: Protecting Pollinators In The Anthropocene, Jennifer Marshman

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Grounded in political ecology and the ecological humanities, the aim of this research is to examine the Bee City movement as a conservation engagement strategy at the municipal level. While pollinator research occurs from a variety of perspectives – biology, entomology, phylogeny, ecology, and agricultural sciences - social engagement strategies and the human dimensions of pollinator conservation have yet to be widely investigated. This research questions if these strategies put in place, and contribute to, important political and socio-ecological mechanisms in the local context. Through a collective case study methodology, this research points to the Bee City movement as a …

Does Air Pollution Cause Residents Of New Delhi, India To Migrate Internationally?, Snigdha Basu

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Delhi, India, and the surrounding cities of Noida, Gurugram, Faridabad, and Ghaziabad consistently rank among the world's most polluted cities. For many parts of the year, air pollution levels are so high as to cause significant harm to human health, economy and the environment. Despite overwhelming evidence of the severity and consequences of air pollution, institutional measures to control it remain insufficient.

There is growing evidence that environmental degradation has the potential to generate migration of people out of affected areas. However, the links between environmental factors and migration are complex, with migration often being a result of interactions between …

Exploring Visitor Perceptions And Behaviours Related To Ticks And Lyme Disease Risk In An Ontario Protected Area, Ryan Brady

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Lyme disease is the most common vector-borne zoonosis in North America and over the past decade, reported cases of the disease have been rapidly increasing in many regions throughout Canada. The relative novelty of this public health threat presents nature-based tourism and recreation organizations with a range of policy and management challenges. Currently, there is a limited understanding of public perceptions and behaviours associated with tick and Lyme disease risk, especially within a Canadian parks and protected areas visitation and visitor experience context. To address this practical and scholarly knowledge gap, this study utilized in-situ surveys to explore visitor perceptions, …

Adaptive Capacity And Mobility In The Bahamas: Examining The Social Costs Of Displacement In Response To Hurricane Dorian, Kearney Coupland

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

In 2021, over 30 million people were displaced by disasters, most of which were weather related and nearly half of which were the result of storms. While research on disaster displacement has provided broad observations of post-hurricane human mobility and the socioeconomic and demographic characteristics that influence displacement, few studies examine the factors that influence household mobility decisions after a disaster. My dissertation uses a primarily qualitative research approach to empirically investigate the relationship between mobility and the capacity of displaced households to cope and adapt to the impacts of hurricanes through a detailed examination of Hurricane Dorian displacement in …

No. 01: South-South Migration, Food Insecurity And The Covid-19 Pandemic, Jonathan Crush, Diana Thomaz, Sujata Ramachandran

Migration and Food Security (MiFOOD) Network

The implementation of global migration governance processes such as the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda and the Global Compact for Migration has been stalled by the COVID-19 crisis as flows of and opportunities for international migrants shrink through the containment strategies adopted by most governments in response to the pandemic. Migrants have been disproportionately affected by COVID-19 and the policies taken in response to the pandemic, with higher risk of exposure to the virus, greater likelihood of working in sectors that have experienced major economic downturn, lower rates of access to social support mechanisms and health care, and increased vulnerability to …

No. 02: Food Remittances, Migration And Rural-Urban Linkages In Kenya, Elizabeth Opiyo Onyango, Jonathan Crush, Samuel Owuor

Migration and Food Security (MiFOOD) Network

Rural-urban migrants in Sub-Saharan Africa do not generally cut their links with rural homes and much has been written about the character, types and implications of connections between rural areas and rapidly growing cities. The persistence of circular migration and the perpetuation of rural-urban connectivity is a distinctive feature of Kenyan urbanization. Informal non-market food remitting from rural to urban areas has received little attention in comparison with cash remitting from city to countryside. This paper presents new evidence from a household survey in Nairobi on the extent, frequency and nature of informal food remitting from rural areas to migrants …

No. 53: Changing Priorities In Urban Food Security Research: A Bibliometric Analysis, Bruce Frayne, Truzaar Dordi, Cameron Mccordic, Naomi Sunu, Clare Williamson

Hungry Cities Partnership

The study of urban food security has evolved dramatically over the past few decades. This evolution has been punctuated, and catalyzed, by insights into the dynamic transformation of food systems in cities across the Global South. The evolution of this field provides an important vantage point for understanding both the dynamic transformation of urban food systems as well as the lens through which that transformation has been understood. This investigation of the field adopted a bibliometric methodology, blending quantitative and qualitative analytical techniques, to assess the dynamic evolution of the literature over time. The methodology included a quantitative analysis of …

No. 51: State-Led Localization Of Food Provisioning And Food Security In Urban China, Taiyang Zhong, Steffanie Scott, Zhenzhong Si, Jonathan Crush

Hungry Cities Partnership

Food localization has been extensively studied and advocated in Western countries, focusing on its oppositional stance to food system globalization, long food supply chains and agribusiness, the disconnect between producers and consumers, and a desire to reconnect urban consumers with small farmers in the hinterland of cities. More recently, these localization models have been taken up by international agencies and others and “exported” to the Global South. Rapid urbanization in the Global South has led to a major and growing crisis of food insecurity, which these models and approaches are ill-equipped to address. Hence, it is important to examine other …