As COVID-19 ravaged the world, its management was undercut by conspiracy perceptions that construct different versions of reality about the pandemic. This has hugely attracted scholarly attention in several fields but discourse analysis. This study was thus motivated to investigate the discursive constructions of conspiracies, the interpretive repertoires, expressed feelings, and enacted social actions. Data were sourced from posts and comments on Coronavirus and the vaccines on Twitter, Facebook, and Nairaland social media platforms, and subjected to discourse analysis. Three conspiracy perceptions were identified: COVID-19 as fraud, COVID-19 vaccine (COVAX) as a depopulation plan, and COVAX as associated with the 5G network. These were constructed in COVAX conspiracy discourse through these interpretive repertoires: reference, evaluative devices, time clauses, and intensifiers under lexicogrammar; and inclusive/exclusive distinctions, argumentation, historical allusion, rhetorical question, and narratorial trope under rhetorical strategies. These enacted the social actions of disputing, alleging, justifying, denouncing, and prognosticating, which worked up the negative emotions of dissatisfaction, apprehension, anger, insecurity, and disinclination expressed in terse textual voices that suppress the official COVAX narrative and endorse the alternative views.

Table of contents 1 INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale 1.2 Urban development dynamics and food access 1.3 Urban daily lives and food vending and consumption 1.4 Intersection between food provisioning and consumption 1.4.1 Ready-to-eat food vending 1.4.2 Ready-to-eat food vending and consumption: health and quality of food provisioned 1.4.3 Dietary diversity as proxy for health and quality food provisioned 1.5 Governance arrangements and informal food practices in the urban areas 1.6 Theoretical perspective: Social practice approach to understand food vending and consumption 1.7 Research questions 1.8 Research methods 1.8.1 Study location 1.8.2 Ready-to-eat food vending: a case study of Nigeria 1.9 Measuring dietary diversity: a practice-based approach 1.10 Research methods employed 1.11 Outline of the thesis 2 URBAN DAILY LIVES AND OUT-OF-HOME FOOD CONSUMPTION AMONG THE URBAN POOR IN NIGERIA: A PRACTICE-BASED APPROACH Abstract 2.1 Introduction 2.2 Out-of-home food consumption practices 2.3 Applying social practice insights to out-of-home food consumption 2.4 Material and Methods 2.4.1 Research context 2.4.2 Mapping and categorizing food vending 2.4.3 Data description, collection and analysis 2.4.4 Quantitative research 6 Table of contents Results2.5.1 Brief description of socioeconomic attributes of out-of-home food consumers 2.5.2 Frequency of out-of-home food consumption 2.5.3 Interconnections between consumers' socio-economic and out-of-home food consumption practices 2.5.4 Interlocking of daily life's practices with "kinds and forms" of ready-to-eat foods 2.5.5 Interconnections between convenience and taste in informal ready-to-eat food vending practices 2.5.6 Packaging and informal ready-to-eat food vending 2.5.7 Daily life's practices: synergies between food vending and out-of-home consumption practices 2.5.7.1 Mobility practices 2.5.7.2 Consumer's workplace and domestic practices 2.6 Discussion 2.6.1 Consumer's socio-economic and out-of-home food consumption 2.6.2 Daily life's practices and ready-to-eat foods 2.7 Conclusion 3 INFORMAL READY-TO-EAT FOOD VENDING: A SOCIAL PRACTICE PERSPECTIVE ON URBAN FOOD PROVISIONING IN NIGERIA Abstract 3.1 Introduction 3.2 Applying social practice theory to study informal food provisioning 3.3 Materials and methods 3.3.1 Description of the study area 3.3.2 Research participants, sampling, and data collection strategies 3.3.3 Measuring diversity of ready-to-eat food groups provisioned 3.4 Results 3.4.1 Profile of informal food vendors 3.4.2 Diversity and health of food groups provisioned 3.4.3 Diversity classification of food groups provisioned by food vending practices 3.4.4 Health classification of food groups provisioned by food vending practices 3.4.5 Exploring dynamic elements of food provisioning practices Table of contents 3.4.5.1 Relevance and informality of ready-to-eat food vending practices 3.4.5.2 Application and transmissions of skills and competences 3.4.5.3 Food provisioning period/time 3.4.5.4 Material Resources: Procurement of raw materials 3.4.5.5 Informal ready-...