http://bura.brunel.ac.uk/handle/2438/280 2026-04-22T11:37:55Z http://bura.brunel.ac.uk/handle/2438/11238 Title: Power, emotions and embodied knowledges: doing PAR with poor young people in El Salvador Authors: Van Wijnendaele, Barbara Abstract: From March 2006 until March 2008 I worked and did research with young people in El Salvador. I coordinated a local youth participation project in the capital, where, at the same time, I conducted fieldwork for my PhD research. The youth project aimed at empowering young people through participatory action research (PAR) and, together with the young participants, I critically reflected on the empowering impact of this participatory process. While participatory researchers and practitioners traditionally stress the importance of critical consciousness and critical discourse as the principal motors for individual and social transformation, my research with the young people particularly confronted me with the power of emotions and embodied knowledges. This research focuses in particular on the politics of emotions; their role in confirming exclusion and oppression and in facilitating empowerment and resistance. In this thesis, I bring together different bodies of theory. I start from the critical literature on PAR and from a poststructuralist account of power and empowerment. I build on an understanding of emotions as socio-culturally constructed and, at the same time, as deeply embodied phenomena. I look into emotional geographies considering emotions as relational and as always functioning within power relations and I use non-representational theory to challenge the privilege of cognition by focussing on practical and embodied knowledges and explicitly recognising their political and empowering potential. I conclude that although participatory researchers have increasingly extended and refined their understanding of power and empowerment, they still focus too much on critical reflection, discourse and conscious/linguistic representation as key to personal and social change. This focus has distracted their attention from the way power works through emotions and embodied knowledges. I believe that participatory researchers should become more sensitive still to the subtleties of power by paying more explicit attention to how emotions and embodied knowledges function within power relations to reproduce or challenge the existing status quo. Such a focus also opens new doors to new ways of empowerment (and politics) by considering alternative methods and media directly engaging with the power of emotions and embodied knowledges to shape the social world. Description: This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University 2011-01-01T00:00:00Z http://bura.brunel.ac.uk/handle/2438/11101 Title: Geographers out of place: Institutions, (inter)disciplinarity and identity Authors: Wainwright, E; Barker, J; Ansell, N; Buckingham, S; Hemming, P; Smith, F Abstract: Ten years ago, the decision was taken to close Brunel University's Department of Geography and Earth Sciences and its undergraduate programmes. Since this time, most of the human geographers have remained at Brunel, but now work from beyond the boundaries of conventional academic Geography. In this paper we argue that this situation, which is not uncommon for geographers in the UK and elsewhere, has significant implications for both individuals and the discipline more broadly. Through our everyday experiences of interdisciplinary working, this paper reflects on what it means to be a geographer working outside of 'Geography'. The paper examines the implications of this at three different yet related scales: the immediately personal scale in terms of identity and individual academic performance, the institutional scale and its organisation that can lead to the presence/absence of academic subject areas, and then finally the disciplinary scale with its attendant spaces of knowledge generation, dissemination and protectionism. Our arguments are framed by neoliberal-led higher education changes and conceptualisations of institutions, (inter)disciplinarity and identity, and point to broader significances for the shape of the discipline. Description: This article also appears in: Borders, borderlands and bordering. 2014-08-07T00:00:00Z http://bura.brunel.ac.uk/handle/2438/8846 Title: Foresight scenario building and multi-criteria appraisal to inform sustainable development in small islands Authors: Benedicto Royuela, Jose Abstract: This thesis is the result of applying a novel methodology which I labelled ‘participative foresight scenario mapping’. This methodology couples participatory methods for building holistic foresight scenarios for sustainable development in Flores Island (Azores, Portugal) with a multi-criteria appraisal method, Multi-criteria mapping (Stirling, 1997), to assess these scenarios alongside five sector based regional scenarios (Secretaria Regional do Ambiente e do Mar, 2006). The main research question was to reflect on how small isolated societies, which have a distant relation with strategic decision-making centres, can define their transitions to sustainability. Small islands represent interesting cases to reflect on sustainability, these small territories distant from main decision-making centres challenge decision-making and require a consideration of the issues of scale. Islands have also been seen as small, manageable models of the world, providing the opportunity to explore innovative solutions at a scale that allows inclusion of as many different factors as possible. Small islands’ populations are especially linked to their island and they develop, by the effects of isolation, a strong particular relation to the place, the role of identity is then crucial in fostering sustainable practices adapted to the island. A succession of individual scoping interviews with twenty four regional and local decision-makers and key informants and seven focus groups with a total of thirty local lay citizens gave me the opportunity to develop two differentiated multi-sector scenarios for Flores Island which were identified as Standard and Balanced development scenarios. The Balanced development scenario reflects a desire to develop an island that bases its economy on greater self-sufficiency for agricultural products, quality and certified products, and natural conservation and valorisation. The Standard development scenario is based on economic growth through tourism and primary sector intensification, and public investment in infrastructures; this scenario can be summarized as the continuation of the actual model of development. The appraisal of both holistic narratives allows in depth exploration of the complex issues related to sustainability, such as the preference between weak and strong sustainability, that otherwise would have been too difficult to assess by such a variety of research participants. Working with holistic scenarios raised the limits of the capacity to show proficiency in a wide variety of fields. The research demonstrated the feasibility of applying the multi-criteria mapping method to support the analysis of holistic non-technical scenarios. The combination of qualitative and quantitative data brought depth to the analysis and improved the understanding of the desired sustainable futures in islands. But the quantitative appraisal was overshadowed by strong uncertainties that made difficult the identification of a best scenario. Uncertainty was explained by the risks inherent to the scenarios, the limited expertise in all the criteria, the complexity of the holistic scenarios, the time horizon (20 years), doubts on the effective implementation of the chosen scenario, and the existence of potentially disrupting external factors. The process was also the opportunity to understand the role that social capital might play in the transition to the desired future for this island. It is shown in the thesis that a successful transition to sustainable development can only be reached if the objectives are understood and shared by the population. Description: This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University. 2014-01-01T00:00:00Z http://bura.brunel.ac.uk/handle/2438/8166 Title: Pupils or prisoners? Institutional geographies and internal exclusion in UK secondary schools Authors: Barker, J; Alldred, P; Watts, DM; Dodman, H Abstract: A growing interest in the geographies of schooling has led to an exploration of a variety of school spaces. An increasing number of secondary schools offer internal fixed-term exclusions so that temporary removal from school is not seen as ‘time off’ for students. This particular strategy has led to the creation of a new type of space in schools. Drawing upon research undertaken in a London secondary school, this paper explores the geography of these new secluded spaces. We highlight that the configuration of physical space in Seclusion Units and the regulation of spatial practices create highly controlled and segregated spaces of punishment. We explore the powerful transformative effects of these spaces to change students' behaviour, social interaction and attitudes to learning. However, rather than simply creating docile subjects, we recognise that domination is never complete and we explore the extent and the limit of student resistance to the discipline and control of the Seclusion Unit. Description: This is the accepted version of the following article: Barker, J., Alldred, P., Watts, M. and Dodman, H. (2010), Pupils or prisoners? Institutional geographies and internal exclusion in UK secondary schools. Area, 42: 378–386, which has been published in final form at the link below. Copyright © 2010 The Authors. 2010-01-01T00:00:00Z