Re-Framing Music Festivals: Exploring Space, Solidarity, Spirituality and Self with Young People

This thesis is concerned with the representation of young people at music festivals, it seeks to challenge common, negative and superficial perceptions of young people as they take part in these annual events. he analysis of empirical, qualitative and creative data gained at music festivals over a three-year period, has enabled a re-presentation of youth in relation to music festivals; empirical examples of youth spaces; and the potential for music festivals to offer an alternative blue print for youth society. The research offers a challenge to prevalent stereotypes and representations surrounding young people at music festivals. Furthermore, an investigation of these youth spaces, shows they are used by young people, to explore space, solidarity, spirituality and self. The research seeks to offer a counter cultural landscape created by young people. The development of immersive and participatory research methods has enabled stereotypes to be confronted. The work has advanced theory concerned with young people’s agency and enabled a new focus on the way young people construct and subvert space in music festivals in the UK

A critical institutionalist analysis of youth participation in Jordan's spatial planning the case of Amman 2025

By 2050, it is estimated that 84% of the population in the Global South will be living in urban areas. As a country of the Global South, Jordan has experienced dramatic growth of urban areas over the past decades. Cities in Jordan contain 83% of the population, of which, it is estimated, 24% are in the age group 15–24. Youth input, effort and experience in the planning process are recognised by academic research and international aid donors as a significant element in catalysing positive social and economic change and ensuring sustainable development across the Global South. Consequently, this research aims to investigate whether young groups’ vision and aspirations for, and perspectives on the city of Amman were translated into strategies or projects in urban policy. In doing so, it aims to explore the wide range of institutional challenges and opportunities that either hinder or encourage youth participation in policymaking. To achieve this aim, this study followed the inductive–deductive cycle of knowledge. This research starts with a critical literature review of theories in planning, governance, youth participation and spatial planning in Jordan. Healey’s systemic institutional design for collaborative planning was employed to critically analyse the planning system (hard infrastructure) and planning practice (soft infrastructure) within the chosen case study of Amman 2025. Amman 2025 is a significant and unique strategic spatial planning project in Jordan designed to encourage public participation in the policymaking process regarding urban development in Amman. New primary data were collected through extensive qualitative research in the form of semi-structured interviews and focus groups to cover the period from the start of Amman 2025, in 2006, to the conducting of data collection in 2015. With the research objectives in mind, a thematic analysis was conducted to identify salient themes in order to address the research aims. The findings of this study show that youth participation in Jordan is neither inherent in the legal, political and administrative framework of the planning system nor in the embedded institutional settings within the planning practice of Jordan. Most importantly, cultural imperialism in Jordan weakens young people’s chances of being considered for any decision-making roles relevant to planning activities. Enhancing youth participation in spatial planning in Jordan requires the institutional capacity of urban governance to be built up to enable a more collaborative planning practice, in addition to applying principles of good governance in the planning system

INFLUENCE OF TEACHERS PERCEPTION ON IMPLEMENTATION OF FEDERAL CHARACTER PRINCIPLE IN NIGERIAN UNIVERSITIES: A STUDY OF NNAMDI AZIKIWE UNIVERSITY, ANAMBRA STATE, NIGERIA

This study probes the influence teachers’ perception and implementation of federal character principle in Nigerian Universities: a study of Nnamdi Azikiwe University. The research design adopted for this study is the descriptive survey research deign. The sample size for this study is 200 academic staff (educators’) of Nnamdi Azikiwe University. The findings of research question one indicated that academic staff of Nnamdi Azikiwe University agreed that the challenges of implementation of federal character principles associated with securing admission into federal university revealed that admission are not mostly done on merit and the quota system used in admission does not favour all applicants. The findings of this research question two found that most institutions do not comply with recruitment guidelines in the federal character principle document during recruitment, meritocracy or competencies are compromised in staff recruitment in Universities, vacancies are not advertised as stipulated in the federal character principle during staff recruitment, lobbying takes precedence in staff recruitment in universities, job description are not known during recruitment which is against the federal character principle statement etc. With reference to research question three, the findings indicated that most universities are being marginalized in fund allocation due to most Universities in disadvantaged states attract more funds than their counterparts in advantaged states, etc. According to research question four, the findings revealed that the challenges of implementation of federal character principles associated with appointment of staff to managerial posts include; appointments into managerial positions does not reflect the country’s diversity, the composition of positions are predominantly occupied by persons from few states, ethnicity and tribalism affects the appointment of persons into managerial posts, meritocracy is not considered during appointments and there is no equity in terms of access to be appointed in managerial positions. Finally, the findings of research question five, revealed that academic staff of Nnamdi Azikiwe University did agree to the strategies for mitigating the challenges to the implementation of the federal character principle in federal universities in Nigeria. Based on the findings and educational implications of this study, the following recommendations are made. The quota system principle should be equitably considered to benefit all citizens as the case may be. The federal character principle should be applied the way the framers of the policy envisaged. Finally, the duties and responsibilities of every nation are to ensure equal educational opportunities to all the citizens of the country with no form of sentiment attached to such responsibilities.  Article visualizations

EXPLORING THE POLITICS OF LOCAL PARTICIPATION IN RURAL DEVELOPMENT PROJECTS: SMALL DAMS REHABILITATION PROJECT IN ZIMBABWE

The study sought to evaluate the effectiveness of community participation in rural development projects in Zimbabwe testing the credibility of the popularized supposition that almost all contemporary development efforts characteristically embrace local participation. Public participation is widely assumed to be an essential ingredient for the fruition of rural development efforts. The research made use of quantitative and qualitative research methodologies in which unstructured interviews, focus group discussions and questionnaires were used as data gathering instruments. The analysis of data was enabled by the use of People-Centered Development (PCD) as a conceptual framework. Findings revealed that the level of community participation in the district is not only minimal, but it is also top down. This has much to do with the negative perceptions by facilitating agents viewing local people as passive recipients of externally crafted models of development and other factors such as the power dynamics within and between the community and other stakeholders. The research also found preferential treatment of other tribal groups by the facilitating agent, intra group conflicts and bureaucratic and political influence as obstacles militating against effective participation. Based on these findings, and consistent with the wider literature, recommendation are that the nature of community engagement should be based on the principle of equal partnership among all stakeholders as this would encourage full cooperation and thus effective participation

Antecedents of brand tribalism and its influence on purchase intention in the luxury housing market

A research report submitted to the Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management, University of the Witwatersrand, in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Management in Strategic Marketing 19 June 2017The purpose of the study was to determine the antecedents of brand tribalism and its influence on purchase intention in the luxury housing market. A research conceptual model was developed to assess the potential relations between luxury brand preference, corporate philanthropy, social identity, brand fetish, brand tribalism and luxury brand purchase intention. The research objectives and proposed hypothesis were also based on the above-mentioned variables. The study adopted the positivist approach whereby it was quantitative in nature. Research data was collected from 267 willing participants from the Gauteng province in various industries. Their selection for the study was based on convenience sampling. In order to analyse the data the structural equation modelling approach was utilised in which SPSS 24 and AMOS 24 were used. Numerous findings were observed from five hypotheses that were developed for the purposes of the study. The proposed hypotheses were found to be supported and significant except for one. The relationships not significant were those of social identity and brand tribalism. This was also the weakest relationship and suggested that to identify socially; one did not need to be part of a brand tribe. Lastly, recommendations for marketing practitioners, housing market government officials and academicians were provided in the study.MT201

An afrocentric critique of the discourse of good governance and its limitations as a means of addressing development challenges in Nigeria

The current study is an African-centred critique of the idea of ‘good governance’; which since the 1990s, has been a prescription of the international development institutions for all development challenges facing developing countries. Despite almost two decades of implementation of good governance reforms in Nigeria, poverty, corruption and underdevelopment persist. The analysis showed that the limited involvement of local people in the design of donor-sponsored good governance reforms mainly produced a universal, donor-conceptualized good governance agenda, which did not fully capture local issues. Given this, the main objective of the current study was to develop a cultural, context-specific governance model that shares local citizens’ understanding of governance, as well as, addresses challenges of governance at local levels in Nigeria. However, given the diversity of cultures in Nigeria and the uniqueness of each of them, this study only focused on Southwest Nigeria. Afrocentricity is the theoretical framework for this study. Mainstream development theories have mainly guided the development efforts of African countries but these theories are based on the experience of the European countries and primarily seek their interests. Given the failure of Eurocentric development theories in Nigeria, this study deemed it fit to adopt a theoretical framework that is based on African experience and that seeks African interests. Afrocentricity is the only theory in which the centrality of African interests, principles, and perceptions predominate (Pellebon 2007: 174). In terms of methodology, this study adopted the case study design. The study also used both the qualitative and quantitative methods of data collection. But the study was largely qualitative because it relied on participants’ interpretations. The inclusion of quantitative data was for purposes of expanding and complementing the interpretive information. The study is significant because the findings provide agency to indigenous people in Nigeria by the voicing their perception of governance. The study also identified context-specific issues affecting governance in Nigeria, which were not captured in the donor’s universal good governance agenda. The study proposed how the principles that have enabled the effectiveness of traditional governance systems could be incorporated into formal governance to achieve better government performance. Most importantly, this study offers context-specific and people-centred recommendations to address Nigeria’s governance and development challenges. This study’s Afrocentric approach to the understanding of good governance is an epistemological rupture against the Eurocentric idea of good governance.Development StudiesPhD (Philosophy

Ethnicity, voting and the promises of the independence movement in Tanzania: the case of the 2010 general elections in Mwanza

This dissertation explores the influence of ethnicity on determining voters’ choices in Tanzania. The issue of explaining ethnicity and voting in Tanzania is puzzling. The puzzle stems from the fact that Tanzania is less ethnically politicised compared to most African states, despite being ethnically diverse with over 120 ethnic groups, sharing the colonial history and an ongoing anxiety about competitive politics and liberal economics breeding ethnic salience in voting. The overriding literature on influences of ethnicity on voting in Africa revolves around the paradigms of ethnic structure and neo-patrimonial or hybrid systems. Whereas the concept of ethnic structure contends that salience of ethnicity in voting is determined by the ability of ethnic groups to form a minimum winning coalition (MWC) in elections, the neo-patrimonial and hybrid schools explain the same from Africa’s presumed traditional primordialism – as opposed to legal-rational institutions of governance (LRIs) or historically grown values preventing ethnic voting. The assumption of ethnic motivations and the reference to traditional structures has long concealed the role of shared history, political thoughts and innovative practices in Tanzania’s management of ethnicity, particularly in voters’ choices in elections. Such backdrop warranted exploration of an alternative analytical framework. This study developed an analytic narrative method that mainly relied on interviews with privileged witnesses as well as ordinary voters (65). The fundamental factor, we established, in explaining ethnicity’s low salience in voters’ choices in Tanzania has been the Promises of the Independence Movement (PsIM), namely a political imaginary about realising and enhancing promises of national unity (PNU), equitable distribution of national resources (EDNR) and peace. The PsIM in sum created a nationalist political culture against ethnic polarisation and salience in politics capable of sustaining low salience of ethnicity in voting for 50 years after independence. Based on the interviews, we reject the neo-patrimonial theory and hybrid schools and brand them as inadequate tools for understanding the significance of ethnicity on determining voters’ choices in Tanzania. The rejection is predicated on the fact that the Tanzanian case does not support the primary tenets of the theory in divulging the influences of ethnicity on voting as explained above. Ideals deduced from a nationalist political culture as embedded in the PsIM, informed legal rational rules and institutions, values as well as experiences that militate against the salience of ethnicity on determining electorates’ choices. On this basis, we can give credit to, but also critically examine, the indigenous political thoughts informed by African political thought and practices that determine voting practices

Electronic Dance Music Events as Modern-Day Ritual

Electronic dance music (EDM) events may function as a ritual space for psycho-spiritual exploration and personal development, often linked to the occurrence of non-ordinary states of consciousness in participants. This paper reviews the literature addressing the spiritual, religious, and transpersonal facets of participants’ experiences at EDM events, with an emphasis on the subsequent integration of these experiences into daily life. Several empirical studies conducted in the past two decades, of which the most recent was conducted by the first author of the present paper (Redfield, 2017, this issue), provides grounds to argue that EDM events can be vectors for enhancing personal and psychosocial wellbeing for their participants—a discussion that was omitted in previous studies that strictly emphasized either the dangers or the purely hedonistic nature of EDM participation. The paper concludes with suggestions for further research into the specific ways in which EDM events may benefit individual participants

Group Brands as an Innovative Pedagogical Tool: Using marketing theory in real-world collaborative teaching

This teaching and learning pedagogy paper demonstrates how group brands were used as interdisciplinary teaching tools in marketing, business, research, and social science classes by applying theories of branding, collaborative learning, affinity, and social identity in experiential learning. There were two primary reasons why this project was done. First, implementing a pedagogical tool would bring students together in a collaborative team over the period of a semester gaining a critically important business tool; the requirement of working in teams and networked relationships. Second, by enriching the curriculum of business marketing and social science courses through incorporating a semester long term-based project would improve student learning. The two year study integrated group branding with a student affinity project completed in the classroom. Each collaborative group was to design a brand to represent themselves including name, logo, colors, motto, and rationale. The project demonstrates how group dynamics and affinity are used effectively in tremendously diverse New York City classrooms to overcome tribalism to build collaborative learning communities. It was especially effective with urban commuter students as social bridge-builders of difference bringing together both first and second language learners, students from similar neighborhoods, ethnic traits and cultures, and other commonalities