10,736 research outputs found
Central-provincial Politics and Industrial Policy-making in the Electric Power Sector in China
In addition to the studies that provide meaningful insights into the complexity of technical and economic issues, increasing studies have focused on the political process of market transition in network industries such as the electric power sector. This dissertation studies the centralâprovincial interactions in industrial policy-making and implementation, and attempts to evaluate the roles of Chinese provinces in the market reform process of the electric power sector. Market reforms of this sector are used as an illustrative case because the new round of market reforms had achieved some significant breakthroughs in areas such as pricing reform and wholesale market trading. Other policy measures, such as the liberalization of the distribution market and cross-regional market-building, are still at a nascent stage and have only scored moderate progress. It is important to investigate why some policy areas make greater progress in market reforms than others. It is also interesting to examine the impacts of Chinese central-provincial politics on producing the different market reform outcomes. Guangdong and Xinjiang are two provinces being analyzed in this dissertation. The progress of market reforms in these two provinces showed similarities although the provinces are very different in terms of local conditions such as the stages of their economic development and energy structures. The actual reform can be understood as the outcomes of certain modes of interactions between the central and provincial actors in the context of their particular capabilities and preferences in different policy areas. This dissertation argues that market reform is more successful in policy areas where the central and provincial authorities are able to engage mainly in integrative negotiations than in areas where they engage mainly in distributive negotiations
Implementing Health Impact Assessment as a Required Component of Government Policymaking: A Multi-Level Exploration of the Determinants of Healthy Public Policy
It is widely understood that the public policies of ânon-healthâ government sectors have greater impacts on population health than those of the traditional healthcare realm. Health Impact Assessment (HIA) is a decision support tool that identifies and promotes the health benefits of policies while also mitigating their unintended negative consequences. Despite numerous calls to do so, the Ontario government has yet to implement HIA as a required component of policy development. This dissertation therefore sought to identify the contexts and factors that may both enable and impede HIA use at the sub-national (i.e., provincial, territorial, or state) government level.
The three integrated articles of this dissertation provide insights into specific aspects of the policy process as they relate to HIA. Chapter one details a case study of purposive information-seeking among public servants within Ontarioâs Ministry of Education (MOE). Situated within Ontarioâs Ministry of Health (MOH), chapter two presents a case study of policy collaboration between health and ânon-healthâ ministries. Finally, chapter three details a framework analysis of the political factors supporting health impact tool use in two sub-national jurisdictions â namely, QuĂ©bec and South Australia.
MOE respondents (N=9) identified four components of policymaking âdue diligenceâ, including evidence retrieval, consultation and collaboration, referencing, and risk analysis. As prospective HIA users, they also confirmed that information is not routinely sought to mitigate the potential negative health impacts of education-based policies. MOH respondents (N=8) identified the bureaucratic hierarchy as the brokering mechanism for inter-ministerial policy development. As prospective HIA stewards, they also confirmed that the ministry does not proactively flag the potential negative health impacts of non-health sector policies. Finally, âlessons learnedâ from case articles specific to QuĂ©bec (n=12) and South Australia (n=17) identified the political factors supporting tool use at different stages of the policy cycle, including agenda setting (âpolicy elitesâ and âpolitical cultureâ), implementation (âjurisdictionâ), and sustained implementation (âinstitutional powerâ).
This work provides important insights into âreal lifeâ policymaking. By highlighting existing facilitators of and barriers to HIA use, the findings offer a useful starting point from which proponents may tailor context-specific strategies to sustainably implement HIA at the sub-national government level
Animating potential for intensities and becoming in writing: challenging discursively constructed structures and writing conventions in academia through the use of storying and other post qualitative inquiries
Written for everyone ever denied the opportunity of fulfilling their academic potential, this is âChloeâs storyâ. Using composite selves, a phrase chosen to indicate multiplicities and movement, to story both the initial event leading to âChloeâsâ immediate withdrawal from a Further Education college and an imaginary second chance to support her whilst at university, this Deleuzo-Guattarian (2015a) âassemblageâ of post qualitative inquiries offers challenge to discursively constructed structures and writing conventions in academia. Adopting a posthuman approach to theorising to shift attention towards affects and intensities always relationally in action in multiple âassemblagesâ, these inquiries aim to decentre individual âlecturerâ and âstudentâ identities. Illuminating movements and moments quivering with potential for change, then, hoping thereby to generate second chances for all, different approaches to writing are exemplified which trouble those academic constraints by fostering inquiry and speculation: moving away from âwhat isâ towards âwhat ifâ.
With the formatting of this thesis itself also always troubling the rigid Deleuzo-Guattarian (2015a) âsegmentary linesâ structuring orthodox academic practice, imbricated in these inquiries are attempts to exemplify Manningâs (2015; 2016) âartfulnessâ through shifts in thinking within and around an emerging PhD thesis. As writing resists organising, the verb thesisising comes into play to describe the processes involved in creating this always-moving thesis. Using âlanding sitesâ (Arakawa and Gins, 2009) as a landscaping device, freely creating emerging âlines of flightâ (Deleuze and Guattari, 2015a) so often denied to students forced to adhere to strict academic conventions, this âmovement-movingâ (Manning, 2014) opens up opportunities for change as in Manningâs (2016) âresearch-creationâ. Arguing for a moving away from writing-representing towards writing-inquiring, towards a writing âthat doesâ (Wyatt and Gale, 2018: 127), and toward writing as immanent doing, it is hoped to animate potential for intensities and becoming in writing, offering opportunities and glimmerings of the not-yet-known
Marvellous real in the Middle East: a comparative study of magical realism in contemporary womenâs fiction
Magical realism has been studied extensively in relation to Latin America and subsequently in other parts of the world, yet the Middle East has not received adequate attention in academic scholarship. This PhD study examines a selection of contemporary female-authored narratives from the Middle East to establish an understanding of the practice of magical realism in this region. The selected texts for this study are: Raja Alemâs Fatma and My Thousand and One Nights; Shahrnush Parsipurâs Women Without Men and Touba and the Meaning of Night; Elif Shafakâs The Bastard of Istanbul and Gina B. Nahaiâs Moonlight on the Avenue of Faith.
This study firstly explores the concept of magical realism as a mode of writing and determines its relationship to the Middle Eastern context. It then evaluates the texts under scrutiny by examining how the narrative of magical realism is constructed and what the sources are of the magical component in these texts, specifically in relation to Middle Eastern mythology. It also investigates the ideological aspect behind the employment of magical realism and whether it serves any political goal. The analysis of the selected texts is approached from three standpoints, that is, from literary, mythological and ideological perspectives. I argue that magical realism serves various purposes and that it is applied from perspectives that can be regarded as marginal to their communitiesâ dominant values, to subvert mainstream ideology. I also demonstrate that the Middle East is a crucial place to investigate magical realism because of the numerous complex cultural values that interact with each other in this region, and which enrich the practice of magical realism
âMental fightâ and âseeing & writingâ in Virginia Woolf and William Blake
This thesis is the first full-length study to assess the writer and publisher Virginia Woolfâs (1882-1941) responses to the radical Romantic poet-painter, and engraver, William Blake (1757-1827). I trace Woolfâs public and private, overt and subtle references to Blake in fiction, essays, notebooks, diaries, letters and drawings. I have examined volumes in Leonard and Virginia Woolfâs library that are pertinent, directly and indirectly, to Woolfâs understanding of Blake. I focus on Woolfâs key phrases about Blake: âMental fightâ, and âseeing & writing.â
I consider the other phrases Woolf uses to think about Blake in the context of these two categories. Woolf and Blake are both interested in combining visual and verbal aesthetics (âseeing & writingâ). They are both critical of their respective cultures (âMental fightâ). Woolf mentions âseeing & writingâ in connection to Blake in a 1940 notebook. She engages with Blakeâs âMental fightâ in âThoughts on Peace in an Air Raidâ (1940).
I map late nineteenth and early twentieth-century opinion on Blake and explore Woolfâs engagement with Blake in these wider contexts. I make use of the circumstantial detail of Woolfâs friendship with the great Blake collector and scholar, Geoffrey Keynes (1887-1982), brother of Bloomsbury economist John Maynard Keynes. Woolf was party to the Blake centenary celebrations courtesy of Geoffrey Keynesâs organisation of the centenary exhibition in London in 1927.
Chapter One introduces Woolfâs explicit references to Blake and examines the record of Woolf scholarship that unites Woolf and Blake. To see how her predecessors had responded, Chapter Two examines the nineteenth-century interest in Blake and Woolfâs engagement with key nineteenth-century Blakeans. Chapter Three looks at the modernist, early twentieth-century engagement with Blake, to contextualise Woolfâs position on Blake. Chapter Four assesses how Woolf and Blake use âMental fightâ to oppose warmongering and fascist politics. Chapter Five is about what Woolf and Blake write and think about the country and the city. Chapter Six discusses Woolfâs reading of John Milton (1608-1674) in relation to her interest in Blake, drawing on the evidence of Blakeâs intense reading of Milton. Chapter Seven examines further miscellaneous continuities between Woolf and Blake. Chapter Eight proposes, in conclusion, that we can only form an impression of Woolfâs Blake.
The thesis also has three appendices. First, a chronology of key publications which chart Blakeâs reputation as well as Woolfâs allusions to Blake. Second a list all of Blakeâs poetry represented in Woolfâs library including contents page. The third lists all the other volumes in Woolfâs library that proved relevant. Although Woolfâs writing is the subject of this thesis, my project necessitates an attempt to recover how Blake was understood and misunderstood by numerous writers in the early twentieth century. The thesis argues Blake is a model radical Romantic who combines the visual and the verbal and that Woolf sees him as a kindred artist
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Home and School Literacy Practices of Children in a Rural Village in India: An Ethnography
The Indian state is responsible for providing free and compulsory education to all its 6-14-year-old children. A significant majority of these children attend state schools and belong to some of the most socio-economically disadvantaged sections of the country. Researchers who document teaching in these schools continue to provide accounts of teacher-led instruction. Both international and Indian assessments of literacy also evidence dismal levels of learning among children.
Unlike previous studies from India which have focused on teachers and teaching, this study broadens its focus to include children and learning. It does this by exploring the range of literacy practices that children engage with at home and school, and by taking into consideration the beliefs of caregivers and teachers shaping these practices. Theoretically rooted in a sociocultural theory, it shines a light on how childrenâs literacy practices are cultural and personal and, consequently, uncovers the relationship between home and school practices.
Ethnography provides the methodological framework for the study. The five participant children live in a resource-poor, agrarian village and attend the state school within the village. The literacy practices of two are discussed in detail in this current study. Participant observation of childrenâs practices in naturalistic settings, that is, their homes and school, and conversations with them lie at the heart of the fieldwork. Interviews with caregivers and teachers were also undertaken. Data were recorded with audio and video devices, in the form of fieldnotes, and childrenâs texts were captured through photographs. Consequently, it is the first known research to endeavour a qualitative exploration of childrenâs home literacy practices in India and to do so within a rural community.
This study makes significant contributions to theory. This has been possible because of the depth of its fieldwork and the theories it has chosen to draw on for analysis. The cultural nature of childrenâs practices has been highlighted using Geeâs (2002, 2012, 2014) conceptualisation of Discourse and identity and their personal nature has been examined using Hedges and her colleagues (Hedges et al., 2011; Hedges & Cooper, 2016) theorisation of interests. As a result, this study has been successful in highlighting the personal nature of childrenâs literacy practices. It also provides evidence of the potential of both theories to illuminate the nature of childrenâs literacy practices
Walking with the Earth: Intercultural Perspectives on Ethics of Ecological Caring
It is commonly believed that considering nature different from us, human beings (qua rational, cultural, religious and social actors), is detrimental to our engagement for the preservation of nature. An obvious example is animal rights, a deep concern for all living beings, including non-human living creatures, which is understandable only if we approach nature, without fearing it, as something which should remain outside of our true home. âWalking with the earthâ aims at questioning any similar preconceptions in the wide sense, including allegoric-poetic contributions. We invited 14 authors from 4 continents to express all sorts of ways of saying why caring is so important, why togetherness, being-with each others, as a spiritual but also embodied ethics is important in a divided world
In her own words: exploring the subjectivity of Freudâs âteacherâ Anna von Lieben
This project is inspired by Roy Porter (1985), who draws attention to the patient-shaped gap in medical history, and Rita Charon (2006), who emphasises the need to bring the patientâs narrative to the fore in the practice of medicine. The principal aim was to devise a means of accessing the lived experience of a patient who is no longer alive in order to gain an understanding of her narrative. Anna von Lieben was identified as a suitable subject as she wrote a substantial quantity of autopathographical poetry suitable for analysis and her status as Freudâs patient makes her a person of significant interest to the history of medicine.
The poems were analysed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA), an idiographic and inductive method of qualitative research, based on Heideggerian hermeneutic phenomenology, which explores the lived experience of individuals and is committed to understanding the first-person perspective from the third-person position.
The main findings from the IPA study reveal that Anna experienced a prolonged period of malaise, starting in late adolescence which she believed to result, at least partly, from a traumatic experience which occurred at that time. The analysis also indicates that Anna suffered from deep and lasting feelings of guilt and shame. The discovery of additional family documentation enabled me to contextualise and add substance to the findings of the IPA study. Annaâs husbandâs diaries in particular reveal that Anna:
âą had a severe and longstanding gynaecological disorder
âą suffered from severe morphinism
âą did not benefit from Freudâs treatment which seemed neither to ease her symptoms nor identify any cause
âą was treated in Paris, not by Jean-Martin Charcot as previously supposed, but by a French hydrotherapist, Theodore Keller, who appears to have become a person of considerable significance in her life.
The above findings led me to investigate Annaâs comorbidities (gynaecological disease and morphinism) and to show how those could be responsible for much of the symptomatology identified by Freud as âhysteriaâ. I then explore the possibility that her psychotic-like experiences could have been iatrogenically induced by her treatment first by Keller and then by Freud. Finally, I propose a fourfold set of hypotheses as an alternative to Freudâs diagnosis of hysteria
The fairy tale therapist
Creative Work: The Fairy Tale Therapist:-
My original intention was to create a new form of self-help book using fairy tale characters to address psychological problems. The book I wrote does use fairy tale characters to address psychological problems, but it isnât written as a typical self-help book.
Instead, itâs the story of Helen, a therapist whose personal life suddenly and dramatically falls apart. Her solution? Not one she would suggest to her clients. She leaves everyone she knows and sets up a new practice in a small village in Wales, where her troubles start to fade. Until, that is, the fairy tale characters start coming in through her office window.
Contextualising Research: The Fragility of Equilibrium in Therapy and Writing:-
In this part of the thesis, I explore the methodologies, underpinning literature and the personal journey of discovery that led to the final book. I examine bibliotherapy, the self-help genre and case studies after selecting a canon of well-known self-help books. I then review classical fairy tales and I try using fairy tale characters rather than case studies as examples in a self-help book. I present these attempts and argue why this straight substitution doesnât work well. Instead, therefore, I decided to use fairy tale charactersâ dilemmas to illustrate the process of psychotherapy, so readers can better understand the aims and processes in therapy, and see inside a therapistâs mind.
The resulting book ('The Fairy Tale Therapist', the creative part of my thesis), raised two further questions which I answer and explore in the critical component.
Is there a concept that is central both to writing fiction and to carrying out/undergoing psychotherapy, and if so how does it achieve this? Story is the bridge that links these disciplines, and I found the key within story is the concept of equilibrium, the desire to return to a stable state an organism is disrupted by a challenge. Equilibrium is, however, elusive: once achieved, disequilibrium begins again.
How might changing perspective help to better understand characters in fiction and clients in therapy/self-help? I found that by adhering to the plot but looking at what happens from a different perspective, as an author I gained a deeper understanding of characters other than the central character. I can also apply this technique to help my patients. Instead of trying to change whatâs going on outside of themselves, I can challenge them to try changing the way they consider whatâs going on, and in so doing help them to learn to acceptâperhaps even celebrateâtheir circumstances
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