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Summary of the thesis: Deng Xiaoping China´s ascendancy into the "workshop of the world" is largely premised upon the supply of cheap labor from the countryside. The 277 million strong army of peasant-workers generally lack urban citizenship but retain land tenure rights in the countryside. The move of peasant into the city is commonly narrated by scholars through the construct of "transition", where the rural-urban movement of peasants for work is interpreted «…to involve not simply a movement in space but an epochal leap in evolutionary time» (Ferguson, 1999: 4). Taking the experiences of work for peasant migrant workers in post-Deng China as the point of entry, this thesis aims to illuminate how peasant-workers live within the transition. The thesis is based on qualitative empirical research in Yunnan, southwestern China, in the provincial capital Kunming and its adjacent countryside. The empirical materials - consisting of interviews with peasant-workers, their kin and neighbors, and observations – are the result of two periods of fieldwork. I draw upon practice theory to understand how everyday experiences are shaped within larger translocal relations, particularly the changing context of smallholder agriculture, and precarious urban wage-labor. Through three articles, I illuminate how peasant-workers are compelled to invest their life-projects, motility and expectations in both smallholding and wage-labor, with variations throughout the life-course. Simultaneously, expectations and life-projects are not unaffected by more than 30 years of market reforms and rapid urbanization. The thesis illuminates how a generational gap between peasant-workers has emerged, particularly as the young generation dis-identify with smallholder agriculture. Yet, the generational gap is partly offset as both generations depend on the soil for sustenance and yearn for more autonomy than offered by low-skilled wage-labor. In addition to the empirical contributions, this thesis aims to expose the limitations of the conception of work in Chinese peasant-worker studies. Based on Marxist-feminist theories of work, this thesis narrates the waged work of peasant-workers in the city and the unwaged labor of their kin at the smallholding are intertwined. As such, this thesis contributes with an alternative perspective on the rural-urban mobility of peasant-workers than offered by the construct of "transition". Sammendrag av avhandlingen: Kina har etter Deng Xiaopings lederskap (1978-1992) fått en posisjon som den globale produksjonsmetropolen, noe som er muliggjort av en strøm av billig arbeidskraft fra landsbygda til fabrikkene i byene. Denne arméen av 277 millioner småbønder er ekskludert fra urbant medborgerskap, men beholder sine rettigheter til å drive med jordbruk på landsbygda. Flyttestrømmen av småbønder inn til byen blir gjerne fortolket av forskere ved bruk av idéen om "transition", som impliserer at forflyttingen fra landbruket til lønnsarbeidet " ikke bare innebærer en geografisk forflytting, men et epokegjørende sprang i evolusjonær tid" (Ferguson, 1994: 4, min oversettelse). Ved å ta utgangspunkt i småbønders erfaringer fra arbeid i post-Deng Kina, ser denne doktorgradsavhandlingen nærmere på hvordan småbønder tilpasser seg overgangen mellom agrarsamfunnet og den moderne byen. Avhandlingen er basert på kvalitative empiriske undersøkelser på landsbygda i Yunnan, og i provinshovedstaden Kunming. Det empiriske materialet består av intervjuer med småbønder som jobber i byen, deres familie på landsbygda i tillegg til egne observasjoner, og er basert på to perioder med feltarbeid. I avhandlingen benytter jeg praksisteori for å forstå hvordan hverdagslivet formes av småbrukets økonomiske begrensninger, samt det usikre lønnsarbeidet i byen. Gjennom tre artikler belyser jeg hvordan småbønder i post-Deng Kina er tvunget til å investere sine livsprosjekter både i småbruket og i lønnsarbeid i varierende grad gjennom livsløpet. Småbønders forventninger er samtidig ikke uberørt av mer enn 30 år med markedsreformer og rask urbanisering. Avhandlingen avdekker hvordan det har oppstått et gap mellom to generasjoner av småbønder, noe som spesielt kommer til uttrykk gjennom den unge generasjonens distansering fra småskala jordbruk. Samtidig er begge generasjonene avhengige av småbruket for overlevelse over tid, og begge drømmer om autonomi fra løsarbeidet i byen. I tillegg til de empiriske bidragene, er målet med denne avhandlingen å avdekke begrensninger i forståelsen av arbeid slik det blir konseptualisert innenfor studier av den kinesiske småbonde-arbeiderklassen. Basert på Marxistisk-feministiske teorier om arbeid, ser jeg det lønnede arbeidet til småbønder i byen og det ulønnede arbeidet til deres familier på landsbygda under ett. Slik bidrar avhandlingen til å utvide fortolkningsrammen av småbønders rural-urbane migrasjon utover idéen om "transition".

This thesis studies the impact of out‐migration of people from rural households in a particular setting in Yunnan Province, China, and the distribution of resources between these households. Household interviews were conducted and based on the data collected households were categorized, based on income, ownership, and consumption, in order to investigate the relationship between migration and household resources. Additionally, number of adult laborers in the households and size of landholdings were included, in the analysis, as factors that influence the distribution of resources between households. The findings from this thesis to a large degree overlaps the findings of Murphy (2002); labor migration affect the distribution of resources between households, as households with migrants have a clear tendency towards being better off. Households without migrants show the opposite tendency and are more often situated in the lowlevel resource categories. However, this thesis finds that, based on Chayanovian‐theory, number of adult laborers distributed between households is the main source of inequalities at the time of this single‐moment study. Households with many workers have easier access to participate in migration. Additionally, findings show support of the argument that second‐generation migrants are less loyal towards their households than first‐generation migrants and contribute with less remittance back to the household. However, second‐generation migrant households do not seem to be as dependent on receiving these remittances as first‐generation migrant households.

Ensuring that everyone has good accessibility to health services remains a challenge, especially in developing country contexts, even though the concept of health care accessibility has been extensively investigated in the existing health geography literature. For this reason, this study has tested a novel model whereby spatial, quantitative and qualitative data has been triangulated to give an alternative explanation to understand and improve health care accessibility. Particular attention is hereby divided to explain the difference between measured and perceived accessibility by making use of qualitative methodology. This difference has been explored through the lived experiences of female heads of households in Malawi, whereby the role of geographical factors, individual context and their mutual influence on health care access has been identified. The attention has been divided to female heads to identify whether they are an effective target group for Malawian health care policy makers to improve health care accessibility, since they have been a relatively unexplored population group in the Malawian society. This study has revealed that specific targeting of female heads is not required, however a more integrated approach, whereby both the supply- and demand side of the health care system are addressed in parallel by both governmental and collective action initiatives, will be of value to improve the Malawian health care environment. Besides the insight this study provides into the lived experiences of female heads in Malawi, does it also provides some recommendation for Malawian health care policy makers.

Ranging from the smallest local to the largest international migration is a substance in the process of globalization which drives the present economic, political, social, cultural and technological engines of individuals and groups across various geographic domains in the world. The smallest internal rural to urban migration, which is driven by various factors and ended up with different outcomes in the everyday lives of migrants in towns, is therefore, not isolated from the global process. Therefore, the aim of this study is to explore the diverse cause to rural- urban migration and migrants' town livelihood activities in Berehet district, Ethiopia which is also thought as the fraction of global process. This study also further focuses on migrants' social capital after migration in the town Metehbila. With the application of qualitative approach, the study used Lee's push- pull, the new economy of migration theory and the livelihood approach. It is from the ground that theories and approaches are important to visualize the world in every context and hence, they are used in this research to construct and define the research problem itself and to frame the entire process of the researching. Both the migration theories and livelihood approach are used interdependently to understand the various physical and socio-economic causes for rural to urban migration. The Push factors which are mentioned in Lee's migration theory are the vulnerability contexts in livelihood framework and hence, they are used together than independently. The new economy migration theory is used to envisage migration decision, economic causes for migration and the contending issues of internal migration remittance. The livelihood approach is used to frame migrants' urban livelihood activities and strategies that they established to make their living real in the town. It further is used to concretize the social integrations that migrants develop with urban host communities. With the combination of the theories and the livelihood framework components-vulnerability contexts, social capital, strategies and outcome, the analytical framework was developed to entirely shape this study. With life history mode of analysis and other tabular description approaches of the data which are obtained from primarily and secondary sources, the study found that the causes for rural to urban migration in Berehet district are physical factors such as absence of rainfall, land shortage(also economic) and family death. Socio-economic factors such as forced early marriage, the resulting fistula, conflict with land borders, education and formal marriage. The study in the cloud of socio-cultural factors shows that the district is under increasing human right abuse, abduction, rape and subsequent urban ward migration. It also found that, most of the economic factors are in vision level by migrants. Migrants after their migration are in increasing desire to get better living with better occupations and incomes. In investigating the urban forms of migrants livelihood strategies, the study shows that most migrants are participating in local drink preparation such as tela and areke selling, retailing onion and potatoes on crowded market. Few migrants are also engaging in wood and welding works, stone cutting and street work/begging. The study generally shows that most migrants in the town established survival livelihood strategies by which they only work to eat and trend the same fashion of living as they were yesterday and decades ago. Contrary to this, few migrants are at the verge to maintain adaptive livelihood strategy by which they relatively could develop better livelihood in the town. Again, the study under investigating the choices of livelihood strategies by migrants, shows that male and female migrants make a stratified working cultural space in the town in which male migrants do not work what women migrants do and the vise versa. It is those male migrants in better off and on the verge to developed sustainable livelihood while women migrants are subjected with indoor activities by which they show no progress in their livelihood in the town. At the end, the study found that migrants in the town formed various town associations with their town host communities. The associations are Idir, Iqub, Tsiwa and Baltna. The study found that all of these associations are variously important to migrants for securing social capital which serves them to alleviate their everyday town living challenges such death, health shocks and property losses.