Liquid Gold: An Ethnographic Exploration of the Water-Gender-Power Nexus in Tigray – Highland Ethiopia

Water is a crucial global resource and in this thesis I seek to find out how at the local level it is used and abused. This thesis examines the cultural politics of water within the development process by drawing on ethnographic fieldwork conducted over a one-year period in rural Tigray, Highland Ethiopia. I explore people's ideas about water and analyse what is being done by local communities, NGOs and government policies to improve matters. These are important issues not only because of their impact on beneficiaries themselves but also on project outcomes, NGOs and policy makers. The literature regarding the anthropology of development describes the failure of most development projects to meet the needs of the stated beneficiaries, such as women and the poor and needy. My study highlights the multiple realities underpinning the operation of and relations between agencies, institutions and local people involved in the implementation of water supply and sanitation (WSS) projects. My key question focuses on relations of power. The discourse of development masks the multifarious power relations that underscore the modernisation project. In this thesis I ask: how is power articulated (manifested) at the local level? Does this local situation mirror global power relations? By building on work carried out on gender and development I explore the discourse and rhetoric of development, particularly key terms such as 'empowerment' and 'participation'. I link this to what actually happens on the ground and ask: why do projects fall? I discuss this question with village people and explore the workings of the various institutions such as NGOs and local government bodies involved in the water development process in Tigray, Highland Ethiopia. The gap between rhetoric and reality is explicable [on] at many different levels. Power struggles of many kinds occur during the various stages of project planning, implementation and evaluation. There are also many constraints on resources, particularly time and labour. I set these issues within the wider social contexts in which they are embedded, making the connections between global and local power relations and aid. I focused on an indigenous NGO, The Relief Society of Tigray (REST) to explore the contestations of power between the stakeholders in water resource use and development. To this end I suggest that there are at several levels a dynamic I term 'power blindness'. A major concern of the thesis is gender and it explores a series of questions concerning the dynamic I term the water - gender - power nexus. NGOs and other actors in the development process espouse an ideology of gender equality and empowerment which differs from local views of gender relations. Is women's reluctance to participate in water projects a rejection of changing gender identities as the new 'modem' nation state is reconstructed as part of the globalisation project? I explore this tension from a feminist perspective and link this to the literature on gender and development, drawing on the work of Kandiyoti (1997) Cleaver (2000), Mosse (2005) and Abu-Lughod (1998) as well as critiquing other scholars such as Hammond (1999)

Listening to Learners

As Hammersley (2002) argues, one of the fundamental challenges for educational research is making the journey from research to policy and practice. For too long the perspective of learners has been ignored in educational research: “….rarely are their voices taken seriously into account in policies devised to improve teaching, learning and achievement” (Wood, 2003:365-6), despite the fact that learners, as Pollard, Triggs, Broadfoot et al (2000) have noted, are expert commentators. Learner voice is coming of age and through research, practice is developing and understanding deepening. This report is organised into two parts: the first part is a review of the literature on learner voice, which was used to inform our ongoing learner voice work as well as highlighting issues of common concern across all phases of education, primary, secondary and tertiary as well as identify gaps in the literature which could be discussed at the one day conference linked to this work. The one day conference: Listening to Learners: Partnerships in Action, aimed to disseminate innovative work in progress as well as good practice from other projects and initiatives. There were key note presentations from a number of speakers: researchers, academics and practitioners who provided details of current research (Pippa Lord), theoretical underpinnings (Michael Fielding), good practice (Gill Mullis and Laurie Goodlad). However the most important contributions came from young people, secondary school pupils, who presented during the plenary session and also facilitated the workshops. Following the event a conference wiki (http://listeningtolearners.pbworks.com)was set up to enable delegates to continue discussions and conversations on learner voice as well as a repository for conference materials. There have been a number of reviews of the literature on learner voice undertaken by individuals and organisations, which are reviewed and cited in our own work. Our review cannot claim to be comprehensive nor exhaustive but serves as a useful starting point in setting out the policy background and context to learner voice, the various typologies and theoretical frameworks that have been developed, as well as some of the methodological issues and ethical concerns associated with learner voice work. The second part is a case study of a student voice project which UEL has been engaged in since 2007. This case study is significant for three reasons. Firstly, it examines some of the tensions and ambiguities that exist when students are asked to become independent researchers. Secondly, it considers the extent to which student voice represents joint responsibility in the developments taking place or just the minority voices within pupil and teacher communities of practice. Thirdly, it raises questions about societal values and the contrived distance between adults and children in different cultural contexts. At a time when research reveals that British children represent some of the unhappiest within the industrialised world, recognising the pervasiveness of the “ideology of immaturity” (Ruddock and Fielding, 2006:225) that exists in many schools in England can reduce hope in an increasingly complex world. Often couched in terms of inevitability, such an ideology can drain energy and commitment of both learners and teachers. The case study illustrates how young people, if listened to, have the potential to transform school processes, purposes and procedures. The voices of the learners in the study and their concerns give rise to complex hope in exceedingly complex times

Liquid gold : an ethnographic exploration of the water - gender - power nexus in Tigray, Highland Ethiopia

EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Evaluation of quantitative miRNA expression platforms in the microRNA quality control (miRQC) study

MicroRNAs are important negative regulators of protein-coding gene expression and have been studied intensively over the past years. Several measurement platforms have been developed to determine relative miRNA abundance in biological samples using different technologies such as small RNA sequencing, reverse transcription quantitative PCR (RT-qPCR) and (microarray) hybridization. In this study, we systematically compared 12 commercially available platforms for analysis of microRNA expression. We measured an identical set of 20 standardized positive and negative control samples, including human universal reference RNA, human brain RNA and titrations thereof, human serum samples and synthetic spikes from micro RNA family members with varying homology. We developed robust quality metrics to objectively assess platform performance in terms of reproducibility, sensitivity, accuracy, specificity and concordance of differential expression. The results indicate that each method has its strengths and weaknesses, which help to guide informed selection of a quantitative microRNA gene expression platform for particular study goals

Evaluation of quantitative miRNA expression platforms in the microRNA quality control (miRQC) study

MicroRNAs are important negative regulators of protein-coding gene expression and have been studied intensively over the past years. Several measurement platforms have been developed to determine relative miRNA abundance in biological samples using different technologies such as small RNA sequencing, reverse transcription quantitative PCR (RT-qPCR) and (microarray) hybridization. In this study, we systematically compared 12 commercially available platforms for analysis of microRNA expression. We measured an identical set of 20 standardized positive and negative control samples, including human universal reference RNA, human brain RNA and titrations thereof, human serum samples and synthetic spikes from micro RNA family members with varying homology. We developed robust quality metrics to objectively assess platform performance in terms of reproducibility, sensitivity, accuracy, specificity and concordance of differential expression. The results indicate that each method has its strengths and weaknesses, which help to guide informed selection of a quantitative microRNA gene expression platform for particular study goals