This study investigates the normative framework and the experienced reality of a social norm to enable effective policymaking, which improves the financial situation of the underserved in Eastern...Show moreThis study investigates the normative framework and the experienced reality of a social norm to enable effective policymaking, which improves the financial situation of the underserved in Eastern Province, Zambia. Social norms are becoming increasingly part of social science research, but working with social norms is not straightforward. This thesis contributes to this field of knowledge by giving in-depth qualitative knowledge of how a social norm influences people in rural Zambia. A previously conducted quantitative research revealed tensions between the desire for individual control over money and social and personal norms prohibiting secrecy, advocating the communal over personal interests. During a fieldwork period of ten weeks, seven group and twenty-two individual interviews were conducted. The group interviews show the content of the social norm and how salient it is in the communities where the interviews were conducted. The individual interviews shed light on how a social norm and its behavioral prescriptions are personally experienced. The main conclusion is that it is context-dependent on how social norms influence people's behavior choices, and this differs with time and personal circumstances. The behavioral prescriptions of the social norm prohibiting saving in secret do not guide all community members' actual behavior all the time. Some people sporadically elude or violate the norm secretly, while others do it openly, and again others never transgress. This norm is dynamically and flexibly interpreted depending on people's living situations. Effective policies should include this variety of households and living situations to improve the financial situation of the underserved.Show less
This research examines how entrepreneurship can influence Mauritian women entrepreneurs’ sense of empowerment. It seeks to shed light on the empowerment of women entrepreneurs in a fast-developing,...Show moreThis research examines how entrepreneurship can influence Mauritian women entrepreneurs’ sense of empowerment. It seeks to shed light on the empowerment of women entrepreneurs in a fast-developing, ethnically diverse country. A critical approach was adopted, in which an analysis was made on the different areas in life (dimensions) in which women feel (more) empowered by their business or not. Furthermore, it recognized women as a heterogeneous group and researches how personal and entrepreneurial background influence sense of empowerment. During a fieldwork period of six months in Mauritius, data was collected. A mixed-methods approach was adopted and two datasets were created in order to both demonstrate (quantitative data) and explain (qualitative data) differences in empowerment. A main conclusion that can be drawn is that women generally do feel empowered by their business. However, entrepreneurship affects women’s areas of life in different ways, which can partly be explained by the woman’s background. Also, it was found that a sense of community and collective groups of women entrepreneur contributed enormously to women’s sense of empowerment in multiple ways. This research thus contributes to discussions about women’s empowerment through entrepreneurship by emphasizing that empowerment is an inherent individual process and that women have different backgrounds and entrepreneurial experiences, which in turn influences the way they feel empowered by their own business.Show less
AIM: It is the aim of this study to understand how and why South Sudanese women living in refugee settlements in Adjumani look for treatment in regard to Tuberculosis (TB), by answering the main...Show moreAIM: It is the aim of this study to understand how and why South Sudanese women living in refugee settlements in Adjumani look for treatment in regard to Tuberculosis (TB), by answering the main question ‘What are the health beliefs and health-seeking behaviour within the South Sudanese community in Adjumani district in regard to Tuberculosis?’. The sub-questions focus on different factors that influence health-seeking behaviour and health beliefs. METHODS: Focus group discussions (FGDs) (15) and individual interviews (3) with South Sudanese women were held in different refugee settlements in the Adjumani district in Northern Uganda. These were transcribed and analysed through ‘open’, ‘axial’ and ‘selective’ coding. Also, respondents were asked to draw something TB related, to make a visual interpretation of their knowledge about TB. By using Seale’s (2008) scheme, factors that influence health beliefs and health-seeking behaviour were formulated to answer the main question. Additionally, the district TB focal person was interviewed. RESULTS: The main health beliefs were that TB is a contagious disease which is mainly transmitted through sharing a cup with an infected person and that it is curable. Still, in more than half of the FGDs respondents said TB is caused by other factors (such as heavy work or fear) and in about one third of the FGDs no respondents mentioned the early symptoms of TB. In more than half of FGDs respondents said they would isolate someone with TB. The health-seeking behaviour of the respondents was commendable, since all respondents sought to find treatment when necessary. However, the majority would end up looking for treatment at a private clinic or a distant health facility, since the closest health facility would not provide them with medicine or the treatment they were expecting. In one in five of the FGDs a respondent mentioned self-treatment in the form of finishing old medication or using local herbs. The main factors that influence health beliefs about TB in this study are body perception, perception of susceptibility, supernatural beliefs, levels of education and familiarity with TB. The main factors that influence health-seeking behaviour are experiences with health care in Uganda, distance to the health facility, familiarity with TB, compliance and identity. CONCLUSION: To conclude, even though the health beliefs and perceptions about TB among the South Sudanese women were often different from medical or professional points of view, the health seeking behaviour was very much present and the South Sudanese women were willing to find treatment whenever they considered it necessary. Nevertheless, due to bad experiences with the health facilities, which was mainly about frequent drug-stock-outs, bad attitude of health workers, lay-professional rivalry and inappropriate testing machines, the South Sudanese mothers believe that the district’s health facilities are often unable to make a proper diagnosis. With the insecurity of how the conflict in South Sudan will continue, it will be important for the district to more strongly monitor the spread of TB and include the perspective of the South Sudanese community in order to understand why and where people look for treatment. Recommendations for the district health office and for future research were formulated.Show less
The African continent is about to play a prominent role on the world stage, yet challenges regarding health, environment, corruption and inequality remain. To address this, previous years have...Show moreThe African continent is about to play a prominent role on the world stage, yet challenges regarding health, environment, corruption and inequality remain. To address this, previous years have witnessed the rise of ‘social entrepreneurship’ in sub-Sahara Africa. Incorporating a societal or environmental vision at its core, the social enterprise has the potential to be particularly effective in stimulating (local) economic growth. In their own environment, these social entrepreneurs face an array of unique challenges that ordinary Western business literature does not cover. This thesis makes a case to acknowledge the context in which these social entrepreneurs operate and investigates how they incorporate Western business tools in their own strategies. It also considers the importance of knowledge interpretation and creation and the influence of urbanization, globalization and digitalization on this process. The research questions are: How are Western business concepts and technologies interpreted and applied by local social entrepreneurs in Lagos, Nigeria and in what ways are they helpful in tackling the social entrepreneur’s unique challenges? Additionally, this thesis examines whether there are other sources from which local social entrepreneurs can derive strategies and tools in order to solve their problems and become more effective in creating impact. The findings, which are based on a single case study and a focus group discussion with several Lagos-based social entrepreneurs suggest that while Western business concepts can be very useful on some levels, the local social entrepreneurs have difficulty in effectively applying them to their own situation. Finally, the discoveries in this thesis suggest that African social entrepreneurs can tackle these challenges by creating, recording and sharing their own data and knowledge with each other in order to seize agency in the field of social entrepreneurship.Show less
Academic research on the controversial Fast Track Land Reform Programme (FTLRP) in Zimbabwe during the early 2000s has continuously overlooked or generalised the experiences of farm workers, bar a...Show moreAcademic research on the controversial Fast Track Land Reform Programme (FTLRP) in Zimbabwe during the early 2000s has continuously overlooked or generalised the experiences of farm workers, bar a few key pieces of literature. A similar trend can be found in official discourse, despite the fact farm workers were one of the main groups affected. This oversight can be attributed to their role in Zimbabwean society and the space they occupied within it; from their position under ‘domestic governance’ on Large Scale Commercial Farms (LSCF) as Blair Rutherford has outlined, to their ambiguity in terms of rights to citizenship and perceived ‘foreignness’. This study chooses to enter this discussion through analysis of two of the main print publications at the time: the state-funded The Herald and the independent The Daily News. On a superficial level, these two newspapers have been posited as being at two opposite ends of the political spectrum, with The Herald parroting state rhetoric and The Daily News advocating the views of the main opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). However, this study finds that these two publications were not so divergent, but instead deployed the same discourse in describing the experiences of farm workers during the height of FTLRP between 2001 and 2002. Farm worker experiences were co-opted for the benefit of those with discursive authority, for different reasons, but to the same effect. This discourse did and continues to shadow farm worker realities on-the-ground. Thus, farm workers were routinely denied space within Zimbabwe because they were not easily definable in the binary construction of the actors involved in FTLRP.Show less
