This dissertation is comprised of three qualitative studies that look at a number of urban processes in M'Bour, Senegal through three separate theoretical lenses. Urban agriculture (UA) serves as the entry point to, and framework for, the inquiry. The diverse approaches are held together with a common conceptual framework of place. In an era dominated by a mode of development that aims to 'flatten the world,' in which 'success' is contingent on the erasure of diverse ways of living and enrollment in a universal, 'globalized' process, narratives of place push back and argue for alternative courses of action that profoundly engage with culture, environment and identity from place-based, though not place-bound, perspectives.Each study in this dissertation represents a different methodological approach to accessing place. Analytical approaches were chosen based on their potential to ground the analysis in place by engaging with the materiality of lived experience, the interactions between social and ecological systems, and for their ability to see and consider variables across space and time. This dissertation presents three ways to explore place: Through (1) emplaced performances of gender, (2) Theodore Schatzki's practice theory, and (3) vulnerability, adaptive capacity, and resilience of socio-ecological systems.
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