Digging Deeper than Platinum: South Africa's Participation in an Emergent Fuel Cell Industry

Thesis (Master, Environmental Studies) -- Queen's University, 2016-09-09 11:52:31.446

CLASHES IN CONFINEMENT: MEN’S GENDERED EXPERIENCES WITH CONFLICT IN CANADIAN PRISONS

This dissertation presents the results of in-depth qualitative interviews with twenty-three formerly imprisoned men regarding their lived experience with prison conflict and the pain of incarceration. The results suggest that prison is a gendered ‘total institution’ (Goffman 1961). The pains that men experience in prison are uniquely gendered in that the deprivations imposed by incarceration– deprivation of autonomy, liberty, goods and services, heterosexual sex, and security (Sykes 1958) – in the reverse, define idealized masculinity as it is currently socially constructed: self-reliance, independence, toughness or invulnerability, material and economic success, and heterosexual prowess. From these shared deprivations emerges a gendered code of conduct that perpetuates a hierarchy among incarcerated men by constructing violent masculinity as a subcultural norm. The results suggest that the gender code in prison represents a set of rules that create opportunities for men to police each other’s gender performance and make claims to masculine statuses. Because status is inextricably tied to survival in this context, many men feel pressured to perform violent masculinities in prison despite privately subscribing to a non-violent sense of self-concept. The results suggest that violence is an expressive and instrumental resource for men in prison. A gender theory of prison violence, methodological findings, theoretical implications, ethical considerations and the short and long term aftermath of violent prison conflict are discussed.

The Influence of Healed Intrablock Rockmass Structure on the Behaviour of Deep Excavations in Complex Rockmasses

Conventional rockmass characterization and analysis methods for geotechnical assessment in mining, civil tunnelling, and other excavations consider only the intact rock properties and the discrete fractures that are present and form blocks within rockmasses. Field logging and classification protocols are based on historically useful but highly simplified design techniques, including direct empirical design and empirical strength assessment for simplified ground reaction and support analysis. As modern underground excavations go deeper and enter into more high stress environments with complex excavation geometries and associated stress paths, healed structures within initially intact rock blocks such as sedimentary nodule boundaries and hydrothermal veins, veinlets and stockwork (termed intrablock structure) are having an increasing influence on rockmass behaviour and should be included in modern geotechnical design. Due to the reliance on geotechnical classification methods which predate computer aided analysis, these complexities are ignored in conventional design. Given the comparatively complex, sophisticated and powerful numerical simulation and analysis techniques now practically available to the geotechnical engineer, this research is driven by the need for enhanced characterization of intrablock structure for application to numerical methods. Intrablock structure governs stress-driven behaviour at depth, gravity driven disintegration for large shallow spans, and controls ultimate fragmentation. This research addresses the characterization of intrablock structure and the understanding of its behaviour at laboratory testing and excavation scales, and presents new methodologies and tools to incorporate intrablock structure into geotechnical design practice. A new field characterization tool, the Composite Geological Strength Index, is used for outcrop or excavation face evaluation and provides direct input to continuum numerical models with implicit rockmass structure. A brittle overbreak estimation tool for complex rockmasses is developed using field observations. New methods to evaluate geometrical and mechanical properties of intrablock structure are developed. Finally, laboratory direct shear testing protocols for interblock structure are critically evaluated and extended to intrablock structure for the purpose of determining input parameters for numerical models with explicit structure.

Strategic Diplomacies: Indigenous Governance, International Politics, and Natural Resources in Canada

International Relations theory would predict that central governments, with their considerable material resources, would be unlikely to face a challenge from a substate government. However, substate governments, and particularly Indigenous governments, are pushing back against central government control in both domestic and international spheres. Indigenous governments are leveraging their local mining sectors to realize their interests and express local identities—interests and identities that may not be congruent with those of the central government. Applying the case study of the resource extraction sector in Canada, this thesis asks: under what conditions are substate governments able to challenge the authority of central governments in the international arena? Canada’s reliance on the global extractive resource sector is a major driver of its international policy preferences, but the increased engagement of Indigenous governments in the sector challenges the control of the federal government. Focusing on the resource extraction sectors in British Columbia, Saskatchewan, and Ontario, this thesis argues that there is a mutually reinforcing relationship between Indigenous governments’ international engagement and their domestic autonomy; both challenge the parameters of state authority. Both force the state to respond to claims of control from multiple sites and to clarify convoluted policy environments. A confluence of factors—including increased Indigenous connections to the globalized economy, new Canadian regulatory frameworks, and recent Supreme Court of Canada cases regarding Indigenous lands—have all altered the space in which Indigenous governments in Canada participate in the resource extraction sector and produce overlapping or multilevel governance structures. This thesis demonstrates that Indigenous international engagement entrenches the authority and political legitimacy manifest in Indigenous governments’ insistence on equitable and horizontal negotiations in Canada’s lucrative resource extraction sector. A cumulative process occurs in which domestic and international expressions of political autonomy reinforce each other, produce further opportunities to express authority in both environments, and trouble the state’s capacity to fully realize its international policy preferences.