Feeding unrest : food prices, food security and protest participation in Africa and South Africa

Recent food riots throughout much of Africa and the Middle East in the wake of spikes in international food commodity prices have fueled a renewed academic and popular interest in the long-recognized connection between food prices and social unrest. This dissertation addresses the question how do rising prices and food insecurity contribute to socio-political unrest of all types, rather than focusing on events labeled food riots in the popular media. The dissertation addresses this question at the macro and the micro levels. It begins with a macro-level analysis of changing consumer food price indices and the occurrence of unrest in 40 African countries. It then proceeds to a case study of protest of in South Africa. This case study first reviews the history of political protest in South Africa and the context of a rash of protests that have plagued South Africa over the past decade focusing on local government service delivery. Next a careful examination of trends of economic inequality and food spending in South Africa provides an understanding of the structural factors contributing to relative deprivation in South Africa. Finally, the results of an original survey conducted in a service delivery protest hotspot in Cape Town, reveals that food insecurity is a significant determinant of individual protest participation. These macro and micro level studies lead to the conclusion that food insecurity and rising food prices contribute to increased relative deprivation and predisposition to political protest at the individual level and, consequently, to increased incidence of socio-political unrest.Public Polic

Conservation genetics of the endemic root holoparasite, Dactylanthus taylorii : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Plant Biology at Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand

Dactylanthus taylorii is a New Zealand endemic root holoparasite in the family Balanophoraceae. The vegetative body is extremely reduced and the majority of the plant grows underground attached to its host root. Flowers are dioecious and are pollinated by the short tail bat; a native seed disperser is unknown. Pollen records indicate D. taylorii was formerly more widespread over the North Island of New Zealand but habitat fragmentation and browsing by introduced mammals is thought to have severely reduced population sizes. The species is classified as nationally vulnerable and conservation management is overseen by the New Zealand Department of Conservation. Here, a conservation genetics approach was taken in order to understand the genetic variation and structure of D. taylorii populations. Previously, the genetic structure of 17 populations had been studied using randomly amplified polymorphic DNAs (RAPDs) and a broad geographical pattern was identified, but was not suitable for conservation management. Alternative molecular markers are microsatellites, which have many favourable attributes for use in conservation genetic studies. Microsatellites allow for estimates of allele frequencies and therefore can be used to determine heterozygosity and their high mutation rate can be used to detect more recent changes in the genetic structure of populations. Next-generation sequencing was used in order to develop microsatellite markers as this method does not require cloning. From the 62,000 sequences obtained, 4,000 microsatellites were identified and primers were able to be designed for 750 repeats. From this primer pool, 72 were chosen to be screened and ten microsatellite loci were found to be polymorphic and consistently amplifiable. These ten were used to genotype 241 D. taylorii individuals from 31 populations. Across all populations a high number of alleles were identified, although a high percentage of these were private alleles. Within-population assessment of genetic variation indicated that many populations have low levels of genetic diversity and a high proportion of homozygotes. A high degree of genetic differentiation was detected and was found to be strongly correlated to geographic distance between populations. Also, populations grouped into two, three or eight clusters that were reflective of geography. Possible explanations for the geographic pattern observed include iv volcanism, mountains as physical barriers to gene flow, habitat availability and gene flow mediated by the short tail bat. This information suggests that although populations are secure from environmental risks such as habitat loss or herbivory, there is a genetic threat to extinction. In order to increase genetic variation within-populations, translocation of genetic variation (i.e. pollen or seed) is suggested between geographically adjacent populations

The Genomic Distribution of L1 Elements: The Role of Insertion Bias and Natural Selection

LINE-1 (L1) retrotransposons constitute the most successful family of retroelements in mammals and account for as much as 20% of mammalian DNA. L1 elements can be found in all genomic regions but they are far more abundant in AT-rich, gene-poor, and low-recombining regions of the genome. In addition, the sex chromosomes and some genes seem disproportionately enriched in L1 elements. Insertion bias and selective processes can both account for this biased distribution of L1 elements. L1 elements do not appear to insert randomly in the genome and this insertion bias can at least partially explain the genomic distribution of L1. The contrasted distribution of L1 and Alu elements suggests that postinsertional processes play a major role in shaping L1 distribution. The most likely mechanism is the loss of recently integrated L1 elements that are deleterious (negative selection) either because of disruption of gene function or their ability to mediate ectopic recombination. By comparison, the retention of L1 elements because of some positive effect is limited to a small fraction of the genome. Understanding the respective importance of insertion bias and selection will require a better knowledge of insertion mechanisms and the dynamics of L1 inserts in populations

New platform, old habits? Candidates’ use of Twitter during the 2010 British and Dutch general election campaigns

Twitter has become one of the most important online spaces for political communication practice and research. Through a hand-coded content analysis, this study compares how British and Dutch Parliamentary candidates used Twitter during the 2010 general elections. We found that Dutch politicians were more likely to use Twitter than UK candidates and on average tweeted over twice as much as their British counterparts. Dutch candidates were also more likely to embrace the interactive potential of Twitter, and it appeared that the public responded to this by engaging in further dialogue. We attribute the more conservative approach of British candidates compared to the Netherlands to historic differences in the appropriation of social media by national elites, and differing levels of discipline imposed from the central party machines

Complaining and sharing personal concerns as political acts:How everyday talk about childcare and parenting on online forums increases public deliberation and civic engagement in China

Based on a comparative content analysis of political talk in three popular Chinese online forums (government-run, commercial-lifestyle, and commercial-topical), this paper investigates how the private and public spheres are connected thru everyday talk about childcare concerns. Compared to the government-run (party-state) forum, the nonpolitical (lifestyle and topical) forums created open and inclusive ‘third spaces’ for citizens to engage in child welfare politics. In such spaces, the reason, rule-based deliberation was not the dominant communicative practice. Rather, political (narrative) acts of complaining and sharing personal concerns – grounded in citizens’ life experiences – were the norm, capturing and recognizing public problems in the private sphere. We argue that to understand the nature of political talk in Chinese third spaces, communicative acts that have not been considered central to deliberative reasoning, such as complaining and sharing personal concerns should be given more normative importance

Personal Branding on Twitter:How employed and freelance journalists stage themselves on social media

Social media are increasingly embedded into everyday communication. This challenges journalism to anticipate the changes that social media trigger in the use and production of (news) media. In this paper, we focus on personal branding on Twitter. Journalists are increasingly encouraged to develop a personal brand on Twitter. This offers them the opportunity to become news and opinion hubs and to increase their “market value”. Erving Goffman’s theatre metaphor is used as an analytical framework in which journalists are conceptualized as performers who are acting on a stage in front of an audience. Through a quantitative content analysis of the tweeting behaviour of 40 employed and freelance journalists, we explore the way they use social media to present themselves and which dilemma’s they are facing. We analyse tweeting behaviour in terms of the types of tweets, functions of tweets and modes of interaction. The quantitative content analysis is supplemented with in-depth interviews with 12 journalists, in order to analyse the reasoning behind their social media habits. Our findings show that journalists particularly struggle with being factual or opinionated, being personal or professional, how to balance broadcasting their message with engagement and how to promote themselves strategically

A framework for the evaluation of turbulence closures used in mesoscale ocean large-eddy simulations

We present a methodology to determine the best turbulence closure for an eddy-permitting ocean model through measurement of the error-landscape of the closure's subgrid spectral transfers and flux. We apply this method to 6 different closures for forced-dissipative simulations of the barotropic vorticity equation on a f-plane (2D Navier-Stokes equation). Using a high-resolution benchmark, we compare each closure's model of energy and enstrophy transfer to the actual transfer observed in the benchmark run. The error-landscape norms enable us to both make objective comparisons between the closures and to optimize each closure's free parameter for a fair comparison. The hyper-viscous closure most closely reproduces the enstrophy cascade, especially at larger scales due to the concentration of its dissipative effects to the very smallest scales. The viscous and Leith closures perform nearly as well, especially at smaller scales where all three models were dissipative. The Smagorinsky closure dissipates enstrophy at the wrong scales. The anticipated potential vorticity closure was the only model to reproduce the upscale transfer of kinetic energy from the unresolved scales, but would require high-order Laplacian corrections in order to concentrate dissipation at the smallest scales. The Lagrangian-averaged alpha-model closure did not perform successfully for forced 2D isotropic Navier-Stokes: small-scale filamentation is only slightly reduced by the model while small-scale roll-up is prevented. Together, this reduces the effects of diffusion.Comment: 44 pages, 21 figures, 1 Appendix, submitted to Ocean Modelin

Strengthening Social Ties While Walking the Neighbourhood?

Social connectedness among neighbours impacts health and well-being, especially during stressful life events like a pandemic. An activity such as neighbourhood walking enables urban inhabitants to engage in incidental sociability and acts of "neighbouring" - that is, authentic social interactions with neighbours - to potentially bolster the social fabric of neighbourhoods and strengthen relationships. With the potential of neighbourhood walking in mind, this article investigates how everyday encounters while engaged in routine neighbourhood walks strengthen and/or weaken social ties among neighbours. To this end, the article draws on three sources of qualitative data from neighbourhood walkers in Southwestern Ontario, Canada: (a) "walking diaries" in which participants took note of their walking routes, the people they observed on their walks, and other details of their walking experiences; (b) maps of their neighbourhoods that outlined the boundaries of their self-identified neighbourhoods, their routine walking routes, and the people they recognized during their neighbourhood walks; and (c) one-on-one interviews during which participants provided crucial context and meaning to the maps and their walking experiences. The findings provide evidence of how interactions among inhabitants, while engaged in neighbourhood walking, help generate greater social connectedness