From sari to salwar kameez : changes in the lives of female garment workers in Bangladesh : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Philosophy in Development Studies at Massey University

This thesis aims to give voice to what female garment workers attending the Working Women's Education Centre in Dhaka, Bangladesh perceive as personal changes that have occurred in their lives since taking up employment in the Ready Made Garment Industry. It examines these changes to see whether they are indicative of personal, relational or collective empowerment of these women and attempts to ascertain if there is any relationship between the type of clothing worn by the garment worker and aspects of her empowerment. Changes most often mentioned by these women were earning personal money, increased decision making power, self-confidence, self-reliance and freedom: in sum a greater sense of control over their own lives and hope for the future. Personal empowerment of most of the women studied was evident in a heightened sense of self, built on greater awareness of one's own capacities and value as a person. The ability of many of these women to negotiate and get support within the marriage relationship and family was indicative of some degree of relational empowerment. These garment workers, by reconstructing purdah to suit their work situation, were shown to be gradually gaining the support of Bangladesh society for women working outside of the home. There was little evidence of collective empowerment apart from attendance at the WWEC Centre which could be seen as a first step in this direction. This thesis also explored whether the trend for married garment workers to wear salwar kameez rather than a sari as work attire was a reflection of these women's increasing sense of confidence and control over their own lives. It concluded that the wearing of a salwar kameez was indicative of women's ability to challenge cultural traditions imposed on them by men and negotiate with their husbands the right to make this personal decision. Such a choice could therefore be seen as being related to aspects of the worker's personal and relational empowerment

Feeling good and feeling safe in the landscape: a `syntactic' approach

Space syntax is a theory and set of tools and techniques for the analysis of spatial configurations. It was developed at UCL in the late 1970s, as an approach to understanding human spatial organisation and to help architects and urban designers to simulate the likely social consequences of their projects. The fundamental proposition of space syntax is that a building or place can be broken down into spatial components, so that an analysis of the interrelations of the components will yield information about the pattern of space that is meaningful and functionally relevant. Over the past thirty years, space syntax has been successfully applied to resolve problems as diverse as master planning entire cities or revealing the imprint of culture in domestic settings. With this in mind, this paper will explore opportunities and challenges of taking a syntactic approach to the spatial analysis of landscape. To the extent that people avoid walking through landscapes in which they feel apprehensive, understanding the spatial characteristics of such environments should enable landscape designers to create vital landscapes that support healthy lifestyles and avoid those conditions where people may feel insecure. The paper will focus on how the tools/techniques of space syntax can be adapted to understand the circumstances in which people feel motivated to explore their local landscape and the spatial factors that may deter people from incorporating walking into their everyday routines

Universal rate constants for reactive collisions of ultracold molecules

A simple quantum defect model gives analytic expressions for the complex scattering length and threshold collision rates of ultracold molecules. If the probability of reaction in the short-range part of the collision is high, the model gives universal rate constants for s- and p-wave collisions that are independent of short-range dynamics. This model explains the magnitudes of the recently measured rate constants for collisions of two ultracold 40K87Rb molecules, or an ultracold 40K atom with the 40K87Rb molecule [Ospelkaus et al., Science 327, 853 (2010)].Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures; v2: final version, accepted for publication in Physical Review Letter

Simple Theoretical Models for Resonant Cold Atom Interactions

Magnetically tunable scattering resonances have been used with great success for precise control of s-wave scattering lengths in ultracold atomic collisions. We describe relatively simple yet quite powerful analytic treatments of such resonances based on the analytic properties of the van der Waals long range potential. This theory can be used to characterize a number of properties of specific resonances that have been used successfully in various experiments with $^{87}$Rb, $^{85}$Rb, $^{40}$K, and $^{6}$Li. Optical Feshbach resonances are also possible and may be practical with narrow intercombination line photoassociative transitions in species like Sr and Yb.Comment: To be published in the Proceedings of the 20th International Conference on Atomic Physics, held in Innsbruck, Austria, July 200