Category Archives: Thesis

Featured thesis: Behind the green screen – critiquing the narratives of climate change documentaries

By Paige McKellar Strapp Bennett

https://dspace.library.uvic.ca:8443/handle/1828/12488

A Master of Arts thesis in the Department of Geography

Abstract:

As the climate crisis continues unabated, documentary films have become an increasingly popular medium through which to communicate its causes and impacts. Such films are an easily accessible form of mass media that has the potential to reach wide-ranging and large audiences, and often star popular celebrities. However, few academic studies have examined climate change documentaries and considered the ‘story’ of climate change that such films create. The lack of critical engagement with climate change documentaries is significant as it suggests the narratives of such films have been left largely unexamined despite their importance as a form of popular environmental communication. In this thesis, I use content analysis and narrative analysis to examine how 10 popular climate change documentaries tell the ‘story’ of climate change and produce specific ‘imaginative geographies’ about regions that are particularly vulnerable to climate change. Though I note throughout my analysis that there are several moments of rupture in which counter-narratives emerge, the dominant discourse throughout these 10 films is one that generally reinforces Western science and technocratic modernity as the solution to climate change, and racialized ‘Others’ as its passive victims. Understanding how climate change documentaries construct their narratives and select their specific topics of focus provides important insight into how popular ‘imaginaries’ regarding the climate crisis have been produced.

To read more, visit UVicSpace

*UVic’s open access repository, UVicspace, makes worldwide knowledge mobilization possible. Through this platform, researchers at any institution have access to dissertations (and theses and graduate projects) published by our graduate students. This also makes works available to the interested layperson, who may be engaged in learning more about the research being done at UVic, with no paywall. UVic’s graduate students are doing valuable research every day – but sometimes it goes unsung. Our goal with this series is to shine a light on our students by featuring excellence, one achievement at a time.

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Featured Thesis: Entangled with/in empire – Indigenous nations, settler preservations, and the return of buffalo to Banff National Park

By Brydon Kramer

https://dspace.library.uvic.ca:8443/handle/1828/12476

A Master of Arts thesis in the Department of Political Science

Abstract:

This thesis mobilizes the concept of “colonial entanglement” to emphasize the deep complexity and unpredictability of Indigenous and non-Indigenous relationships within what is now known as the Banff-Bow Valley. Responding to various literatures—including Indigenous Studies, Settler Colonial Studies, Political Theory, and Canadian Politics—I posit that the concept of colonial entanglements offers a parallax view of contexts, such as the Banff-Bow Valley, and events like the Buffalo Reintroduction Project. Not only does such a concept reveal how Indigenous nations— both human and non-human—are targeted by the racializing and gendered entanglements of colonizing regimes that seek to break up and replace them, but it also shows how these nations continue to persist and resist despite colonizing efforts to achieve otherwise. In other words, colonial entanglements compel one to also consider how nations like the Ĩyãħé Nakoda also exert influence on other Indigenous and non-Indigenous life in the Banff-Bow Valley—albeit, in different ways and to different degrees. After unpacking the concept in the first chapter, I use colonial entanglement to show how colonizing regimes and their expansionist modes of relationship react to the Indigenous nations they become entangled with. Using the signing of Treaty 7 and the establishment of a national park in Banff, I reveal how the Canadian state seeks to erect colonizing regimes of property that cater to capital as they transit the Banff-Bow Valley by ‘breaking up’ and ‘breaking from’ Indigenous nations and their expansive modes of relationship. Next, I consider how such reactionary violence is continually justified and legitimated through the articulation and reiteration of state of nature fictions that rely on notions of wilderness and tropes of Indigeneity to delegitimize the enduring presence of Indigenous nations. Specifically, I look at the Indian Act, the prohibition of hunting in the Park, and the Banff Indian Days festival to show how state of nature fictions articulate a supposed transition from a “past state of nature” to a contemporary “state of (dis)possession” entangled with white supremacist and heteropatriarchal forms of power. In doing so, these fictions make and reproduce colonial subjects who buy into and support colonizing violence and breakage that disproportionately targets those Indigenous to place. In the final chapter, I turn to focus on the Buffalo Reintroduction Project. Here, I consider how the project presents contemporary opportunities for both Indigenous and non-Indigenous people to support and/or disrupt colonizing states of (dis)possession and the state of nature fictions they rely on, while also considering the project’s potential for a politics oriented towards expansive modes of relationship revolving around principles of decolonization and anti-colonial internationalism.

To read more, visit UVicSpace

*UVic’s open access repository, UVicspace, makes worldwide knowledge mobilization possible. Through this platform, researchers at any institution have access to dissertations (and theses and graduate projects) published by our graduate students. This also makes works available to the interested layperson, who may be engaged in learning more about the research being done at UVic, with no paywall. UVic’s graduate students are doing valuable research every day – but sometimes it goes unsung. Our goal with this series is to shine a light on our students by featuring excellence, one achievement at a time.

The UVic LIbraries ePublishing Services Team

Featured Thesis: Altering the cafeteria environment to improve health: a pragmatic observational trial of nudges and a marketing campaign to increase salad purchasing by first-year students

By Nicole Fetterly

https://dspace.library.uvic.ca:8443/handle/1828/12475

A Master of Science thesis in the School of Exercise Science, Physical and Health Education

Abstract:

Chronic diseases, including obesity are a global epidemic with significant long term mental and physical health complications, as well as societal costs from loss of productivity and health care expenditures. The causes of chronic disease and obesity are multifaceted and are linked to the complexity of eating behaviour, which develops over many years and is a product of our food environment as well as our social influences. First-year undergraduate students living in residence and on meal plans have lower vegetable intake than is recommended for optimal health and disease and obesity prevention. They also gain on average 2-3 kg in their first year due to factors like stress, increased autonomy in food choices and the food environment they face. With more than 2 million Canadian young adults attending post-secondary institutions and the importance of diet to overall health and wellness, building healthy eating habits and preventing weight gain during this life transition is an important public health priority. Nudges or choice architecture interventions aim to encourage public health goals without removing choice for participants. Nudging seems to have a stronger effect in deterring the choice of unhealthy foods over motivating the choice of healthy foods. Conversely, pricing strategies where healthy foods are subsidized appear effective. Many intervention studies have been conducted in cafeterias with young adults but there was a need for studies that compared the impact of nudge interventions against economic strategies on the purchase of vegetables. This study occurred in the main cafeteria serving undergraduate students on meal plans at the University of Victoria (n=1700). A longitudinal, quasi-experimental, single case ABACA research design was conducted and salad bar sales data was tracked. After a baseline period (A), an economic incentive was provided in the form of a loyalty card (B), this was then withdrawn for a second baseline period (A), followed by a cognitive and affect nudge implemented in the form of tent cards and sandwich boards with reasons to eat more vegetables conveyed with eye-catching, colourful graphics and messaging (C) and finally a third baseline measure (A) after withdrawal of the cognitive nudge. The results showed that small economic incentives and nudges were not enough to have an impact on salad bar sales and that they declined throughout the term with too much overlapping data to establish an intervention effect. Larger economic incentives, behaviour or placement nudges and a focus on deterring unhealthy foods may have had an effect but these intervention options were not deemed feasible by food service management in this context. It may also be that there need to be more extensive changes to an individual’s microsystem and that these need to be supported by other changes in the microsystem and further changes at the level of the meso, macrosystem or exosystem through university-level intervention in food service operations or government policy or regulation.

To read more, visit UVicSpace

*UVic’s open access repository, UVicspace, makes worldwide knowledge mobilization possible. Through this platform, researchers at any institution have access to dissertations (and theses and graduate projects) published by our graduate students. This also makes works available to the interested layperson, who may be engaged in learning more about the research being done at UVic, with no paywall. UVic’s graduate students are doing valuable research every day – but sometimes it goes unsung. Our goal with this series is to shine a light on our students by featuring excellence, one achievement at a time.

The UVic LIbraries ePublishing Services Team

Featured Thesis – Fossils of the distant Galaxy: NGC 5466 and its stellar stream

By Jaclyn Jensen

https://dspace.library.uvic.ca:8443/handle/1828/12440

A Master of Science thesis in the department of Physics & Astronomy.

Abstract (excerpts):

The stellar halo of the Milky Way is populated by mostly old and metal-poor stars. As dynamical timescales are of order ~Gyrs at these large distances, accreted stellar substructures, such as dwarf galaxies or globular clusters, survive here as coherent entities longer than anywhere else in the Galaxy. These substructures represent our “fossil record” which can be used to reconstruct the Galaxy’s complex past. In this work, we seek to identify the structures found in the far reaches of the stellar halo as a step towards a correct interpretation of this fossil record. The advent of all-sky surveys in the Gaia era has ignited a prosperous period for this field of Galactic archaeology, but exploring the distant Milky Way (>10 kpc) with Gaia is difficult. Parallax measurements are much less accurate beyond the Solar neighborhood, though Gaia’s proper motions remain useful out to large radii.
(…)
We then identified several well-known satellites, including a group of stars in the vicinity of a distant globular cluster (NGC 5466). Analysis of their kinematics suggested a few of these BHBs outside the cluster’s tidal radius were co-moving with NGC 5466, implying they may be tidal debris from this system. Interestingly, a stream had previously been detected extending from this globular cluster. However, its properties had not been studied in the decade since its discovery, and previous dynamical models were unable to reproduce many of the reported features. As one of the (allegedly) longest globular cluster streams on the sky – and given its distance and utility to constrain the Milky Way’s mass at large Galactic radius – we sought to explore this structure further.
(…)
This success reflects the updated properties of data measured in this work, and the inclusion of new data (especially proper motions). Our model suggests that the pericenter and apocenter of NGC 5466’s orbit are 6.4 and 43 kpc, respectively, resulting in a very eccentric orbit (ε = 0.74). We also find evidence that the cluster experienced a recent interaction (within the past ~100 Myrs) with the Galactic disk, suggesting that the primary source of mass loss in this system may be caused by disk-shocking. The NGC 5466 stellar stream also exhibits an interesting heliocentric gradient in the leading arm, which our simplistic spherical halo model does not fully reproduce. Dynamical experiments with various halo shapes fit to this stream will prove interesting for future work. For local cosmology in particular, long, thin, dynamically cold stellar streams are ideal systems for constraining properties of the Milky Way’s dark matter halo, and streams at large radius are especially useful for measuring the Galaxy’s mass interior to the stream. In this respect, we anticipate that NGC 5466 will be exceptionally useful as a probe of the shape, mass, and dark substructure of the Milky Way’s distant dark matter halo.

To read more, visit UVicSpace

*UVic’s open access repository, UVicspace, makes worldwide knowledge mobilization possible. Through this platform, researchers at any institution have access to dissertations (and theses and graduate projects) published by our graduate students. This also makes works available to the interested layperson, who may be engaged in learning more about the research being done at UVic, with no paywall. UVic’s graduate students are doing valuable research every day – but sometimes it goes unsung. Our goal with this series is to shine a light on our students by featuring excellence, one achievement at a time.

The UVic LIbraries ePublishing Services Team

Featured Thesis: Traitors, Harlots and Monsters, The Anti-Aristocratic Caricatures of the French Revolution

By Stephen A. W. Chapco

https://dspace.library.uvic.ca/handle/1828/6669

An M.A. thesis in the Department of History.

Abstract:

The opening of the Estates General in 1789 came at a time of momentous national crisis. France’s separate Three Estates were summoned to meet and collectively decide about how best to remedy France’s many ills. However, the initial collegial spirit between the privileged First and Second Estates and the assertive Third Estate quickly evaporated. Antipathy towards certain nobles, particularly those perceived as corrupt and debauched, quickly crystalized in 1789 into hostile attacks on the entire Second Estate, who were all labeled dangerous “aristocrats”. The rapid disempowerment of one of Europe’s strongest élites is difficult to interpret without discussing the important role of widely produced anti-noble caricatures that targeted France’s nobility. Anti-noble caricatures, ranging from the malicious to the comical, were an essential component in the rapid sidelining and demonization of the nobility. From approximately 1789-1793 anti-noble caricatures constantly degraded and demonized their targets, in unrelenting and accessible imagery, marking them out as traitorous enemies. Caricatures not only helped convince the public that nobles were not only inhuman, but so dangerous in fact, that persecution and violence became options in order to purge France of its alleged aristocratic fifth columnists.

To read more, visit UVicSpace

*UVic’s open access repository, UVicspace, makes worldwide knowledge mobilization possible. Through this platform, researchers at any institution have access to dissertations (and theses and graduate projects) published by our graduate students. This also makes works available to the interested layperson, who may be engaged in learning more about the research being done at UVic, with no paywall. UVic’s graduate students are doing valuable research every day – but sometimes it goes unsung. Our goal with this series is to shine a light on our students by featuring excellence, one achievement at a time.

The UVic LIbraries ePublishing Services Team

Featured Thesis: GULE | The masks we carry

By Kl. Peruzzo de Andrade

https://dspace.library.uvic.ca:8443/handle/1828/12159

An M.A. thesis in the Social Dimensions of Health Program.

Abstract:

This thesis documents and discusses the production of a film about the Gule Wamkulu Mask Dance, in the village of Mzonde, in the area of traditional authority of Nkanda, Malawi. Through an Ubuntu framework of place-based epistemology, critical race theory and the principles of Indigenous research, I describe my journey of self-reflection about what it means to be Caá-Poré Cafuzo and how I came to understand belonging in the context of diasporic, Black and Indigenous relationships and governance.

To read more, visit UVicSpace

*UVic’s open access repository, UVicspace, makes worldwide knowledge mobilization possible. Through this platform, researchers at any institution have access to dissertations (and theses and graduate projects) published by our graduate students. This also makes works available to the interested layperson, who may be engaged in learning more about the research being done at UVic, with no paywall. UVic’s graduate students are doing valuable research every day – but sometimes it goes unsung. Our goal with this series is to shine a light on our students by featuring excellence, one achievement at a time.

The UVic LIbraries ePublishing Services Team

Featured Thesis: Harry Potter et les mots fantastiques

By Sandra Justice

https://dspace.library.uvic.ca:8443/handle/1828/12164

An M.A. thesis in the Department of French.

Abstract:

This thesis examines the French translation of the 224 neologisms in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the seventh book in J.K. Rowling’s fantasy series. By analyzing the original neologisms and their French equivalents, this research compares the word formation processes used by both the author and the translator, Jean-François Ménard. Additionally, to categorize Ménard’s translation techniques, this study adapts a framework designed by Jacqueline Henry to classify translations of word play. While Ménard uses the same types of word formation as Rowling to create his lexicon, this study reveals that he often chooses a different neological process or distinct lexemes to recreate the effect of the original neologism. To achieve this, Ménard relies on his own creativity and embraces the norms of the French language to give his audience a reading experience comparable to that offered to the readers of the original text.

To read more, visit UVicSpace

*UVic’s open access repository, UVicspace, makes worldwide knowledge mobilization possible. Through this platform, researchers at any institution have access to dissertations (and theses and graduate projects) published by our graduate students. This also makes works available to the interested layperson, who may be engaged in learning more about the research being done at UVic, with no paywall. UVic’s graduate students are doing valuable research every day – but sometimes it goes unsung. Our goal with this series is to shine a light on our students by featuring excellence, one achievement at a time.

The UVic LIbraries ePublishing Services Team

Featured Thesis: Caring for lhuq’us (pyropia spp.)

By Jack Baker

https://dspace.library.uvic.ca:8443/handle/1828/12149

An M.A.. thesis in the Department of Anthropology

Abstract:

Hul’qumi’num communities on south eastern Vancouver Island have concerns about the status and safety of marine foods potentially impacted by environmental change and the urbanization and industrialization of their territories. Collaborative research undertaken with the Hul’q’umi’num’ Lands and Resources Society is part of a broader effort to revitalize cultural practices, language, and food systems. Lhuq’us (the Hul’q’umi’num’ language term for pohrpyra/pyropia spp. (commonly known as red laver or black gold)) is a flavourful and nutritious intertidal seaweed that grows on rocky beaches across the Pacific Northwest. Hul’q’umi’num’ language, cultural values, teachings, and family histories are all interwoven into the harvesting and consumption of lhuq’us in Hul’qumi’num territories. Lhuq’us is one of the species that have been persistently mentioned in conversations with state regulatory agencies and though these concerns have been raised for at least two decades there has been no systematic monitoring of the species. There are two broad streams of inquiry taken by thesis thesis. The first, employing ethnographic methodology including interviews and observant participation, seeks to both document the cultural values, oral histories, lived experiences associated with lhuq’us as well as concerns for the future collaborators have for lhuq’us and lhuq’us beaches. The second stream, based in a geographic approach, asks whether Unoccupied Aerial Vehicle (UAV) technologies could be employed to record the status of lhuq’us as a baseline for monitoring. Two study sites in the Salish sea were surveyed using UAV techniques: ȾEL,IȽĆ and St’utl’qulus. The overall accuracies of the UAV imagery classifications and the particular accuracies of the class representing lhuq’us suggest that UAV technologies paired with Google Earth Engine (GEE) object based image analysis (OBIA) methodologies can effectively detect lhuq’us. There are serious concerns and cultural values and practices deeply interconnected with culturally important species like lhuq’us. Through holding these concerns and values side by side with systematic observation and analyses maps and materials were created which communities can use to assert their rights, enact their own monitoring of territories and re-prioritize environmental decision-making done by federal, provincial, and municipal management agencies.

To read more, visit UVicSpace

*UVic’s open access repository, UVicspace, makes worldwide knowledge mobilization possible. Through this platform, researchers at any institution have access to dissertations (and theses and graduate projects) published by our graduate students. This also makes works available to the interested layperson, who may be engaged in learning more about the research being done at UVic, with no paywall. UVic’s graduate students are doing valuable research every day – but sometimes it goes unsung. Our goal with this series is to shine a light on our students by featuring excellence, one achievement at a time.

The UVic LIbraries ePublishing Services Team