Climate and Terrain Characteristics Linked to Mud Ejection Occurrence in the Canadian High Arctic

Pressurised slurries of fine-grained sediment expelled from the base of the active layer have been observed in recent years in the High Arctic. Such mud ejections, however, are poorly understood in terms of how exactly climate and landscape factors determine when and where they occur. Mud ejections at the Cape Bounty Arctic Watershed Observatory, Melville Island, Nunavut, were systematically mapped in 2012 and 2013, and this was combined with observations of mud ejection activity and climatic measurements carried out since 2003. The mud ejections occur late in the melt season during warm years and closely following major rainfall events. High-resolution satellite imagery demonstrates that mud ejections are associated with polar semi-desert vegetative settings, flat or low-sloping terrain and south-facing slopes. The localised occurrence of mud ejections appears to be related to differential soil moisture retention.

Terrain Controls and Landscape-Scale Susceptibility Modelling of Active-Layer Detachments, Sabine Peninsula, Melville Island, Nunavut

Modelling the susceptibility of permafrost slopes to disturbance can identify areas at risk to future disturbance and result in safer infrastructure and resource development in the Arctic. In this study, we use terrain attributes derived from a digital elevation model, an inventory of permafrost slope disturbances known as active-layer detachments (ALDs) and generalised additive modelling to produce a map of permafrost slope disturbance susceptibility for an area on northern Melville Island, in the Canadian High Arctic. By examining terrain variables and their relative importance, we identified factors important for initiating slope disturbance. The model was calibrated and validated using 70 and 30 per cent of a data-set of 760 mapped ALDs, including disturbed and randomised undisturbed samples. The generalised additive model calibrated and validated very well, with areas under the receiver operating characteristic curve of 0.89 and 0.81, respectively, demonstrating its effectiveness at predicting disturbed and undisturbed samples. ALDs were most likely to occur below the marine limit on slope angles between 3 and 10° and in areas with low values of potential incoming solar radiation (north-facing slopes).

Cultural Politics of Resilience in Kingston, Jamaica

Recently, resilience has become a catchall solution for some of the world’s most pressing ecological, economic and social problems. This dissertation analyzes the cultural politics of resilience in Kingston, Jamaica by examining them through their purported universal principles of adaptation and flexibility. On the one hand, mainstream development regimes conceptualize resilience as a necessary and positive attribute of economies, societies and cultures if we are to survive any number of disasters or disturbances. Therefore, in Jamaican cultural and development policy resilience is championed as both a means and an end of development. On the other hand, critics of resilience see the new rollout of resilience projects as deepening neoliberalism, capitalism and new forms of governmentality because resilience projects provide the terrain for new forms of securitization and surveillance practices. These scholars argue that resilience often forecloses the possibilities to resist that which threatens us. However, rather than dismissing resilience as solely a sign of domination and governmentality, this dissertation argues that resilience must be understood as much more ambiguous and complex, rather than within binaries such as subversion vs. neoliberal and resistance vs. resilience. Overly simplistic dualities of this nature have been the dominant approach in the scholarship thus far. This dissertation provides a close analysis of resilience in both multilateral and Jamaican government policy documents, while exploring the historical and contemporary production of resilience in the lives of marginalized populations. Through three sites within Kingston, Jamaica—namely dancehall and street dances, WMW-Jamaica and the activist platform SO((U))L HQ—this dissertation demonstrates that “resilience” is best understood as an ambiguous site of power negotiations, social reproduction and survival in Jamaica today. It is often precisely this ambiguous power of ordinary resilience that is capitalized on and exploited to the detriment of vulnerable groups. At once demonstrating creative negotiation and reproduction of colonial capitalist social relations within the realms of NGO, activist work and cultural production, this dissertation demonstrates the complexity of resilience. Ultimately, this dissertation draws attention to the importance of studying spaces of cultural production in order to understand the power and limits of contemporary policy discourses and political economy.