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Orthorexia was initially named in 1996, referring to symptoms of patients who were obsessed with healthy eating and food purity, rather than body size and weight as in cases of anorexia nervosa. Recent popular interest in 'clean eating' in twenty-first century Britain, along with the rise of health gurus through expanding social media networks, such as Ella Mills (Deliciously Ella), has been cited as the cause of an outbreak of orthorexia. Current medical discourse on the illness presents it as a modern development in the wider history of eating disorders, with campaigners fighting for its inclusion in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. This thesis understands orthorexia and clean eating not as something entirely new, dependent on the age of social media, but rather as part of a longer history of obsession with dieting and healthy eating. This work builds on historical studies of dieting and eating disorders to explore the relationship between the individual, the body, wider culture and society, and food - and importantly, how these relationships become disordered. Chapter One explores histories of food, wellness, and dieting. Chapter Two provides a detailed examination of the work of British clean eaters, while Chapter Three discusses the backlash they faced. Chapter Four uses the history of anorexia nervosa to develop an understanding of the creation of eating disorders. Finally, Chapter Five explores orthorexia considering this history. Using a variety of primary sources including cookbooks, self-help literature, newspapers, and social media, it asks the fundamental question: can clean eating and orthorexia be understood as part of a wider history of dieting and disordered eating, furthered by contemporary obsessions with social media and influencers, as current medical literature would suggest? Or rather, is it part of a longer cultural obsession with our own health and diet?

Much of the scholarship on Egypt's 2011 uprising that removed Hosni Mubarak from power has concentrated either on so-called 'high politics' - constitutional changes, elite decision making etc. - or on the social movement dynamics that led to the uprising. Questions of art and culture have generally been relegated to the margins in the study of political change, despite the flourishing of creativity witnessed during the uprising. When art and cultural production have been studied, they are often treated in isolation from politics, as well as from Egypt's wider historical context. The thesis seeks to explore the relationship between aesthetics and politics in Egypt through the following questions: How did aesthetics feature in the 2011 uprising? How did the aesthetics of the uprising relate to a longer history of aesthetics in Egyptian art and culture? What were the political implications of these aesthetics? This thesis seeks to centre art and cultural productions in its study of Egypt's 2011 uprising as an important element of post-2011 political change. Towards this end, the thesis draws on the theoretical work of Jacques Rancière, which argues that politics contains within it an inherently aesthetic dimension. Specifically, his notion of the partage du sensible, or the distribution of the sensible, points to the role of power (what he calls 'the police') in determining what can be seen, heard or spoken and how, in turn, these perceptions create and naturalize hierarchies of social life. Politics, then, involves breaking with this overarching distribution of the sensible. With some exceptions - for instance work by Charles Tripp - few scholars have utilised Rancière's political philosophy to look at politics and aesthetics in the Middle East context. The degree to which Egyptian art and cultural production in the 2011 uprising managed to disrupt the distribution of the sensible and to create new perceptions is central to the thesis. The thesis analyses various cultural production, namely street art, music production and film, both new and re-emergent, that circulated during the events of 2011 and their aftermath. The thesis employs methods from the fields of art history and visual culture, namely semiology and iconography, to 'read' aesthetics in relation to the overarching distribution of the sensible. The thesis focuses in particular on the aesthetics of cultural representations of national identity, gender, class and urban space in terms of the degree to which they reshape perceptions and challenge the existing distribution of the sensible.

People use others to inform their own eating behaviours and weight judgements. This thesis aimed to understand perceptions of social norms and reference groups in relation to eating behaviours and weight judgements. Chapter 1 describes the key concepts and background information to understand the context of the current PhD thesis. It begins by introducing the concept of social norms. Followed by a summary of research studies that have investigated social influences on eating behaviours in general. Next, it discusses the key reference groups that people compare their eating behaviours with and considers social media as a reference group for eating behaviours. It presents research that suggests colleagues are an important reference group for eating behaviours. Chapter 2 presents a systematic review investigating factors affecting eating behaviours in the office-based workforce. Findings suggest colleagues influence people's eating behaviour at work. Based on this, I employed a broader approach and explored some fundamental research questions; How do people make weight judgements? and who do they make weight judgements with? These questions formed the basis of studies in this thesis. Chapter 3 discusses the implications of the systematic review findings and considers colleagues as an important reference group for body weight judgements. It considers what is known about who people compare themselves with to make a weight judgement and what is known about reference groups more generally. Next, a summary of theories of how people make body weight judgments and an introduction to rank based judgements. Then, a summary of the key points covered in chapters one, two and three. Finally, an outline of the objectives and aims of the thesis, as well as an overview of the thesis structure. Chapter 4 provides an overview and background to the methods utilised in this thesis. First, an overview of study design, participant recruitment, and participant characteristics included within each of the studies are presented (studies 1-7). Then, a description of the research methods used within the thesis and discussion of the rationale for the methods used in each study and finally a chapter summary. Chapter 5 examines whether people use perceived rank of weight with others to inform weight judgements and explored reference group composition. Three studies suggest people use rank with others to make a weight judgement, explaining the cognitive mechanisms behind how people make weight judgements. Friends and people the same gender are important reference groups for weight judgements. Chapter 6 investigates whether people's judgments are sensitive to the rank position of a judged stimuli among other stimuli or if they are sensitive to the mean in a comparison context. Judgments of weight in context appear to be sensitive to the rank position of weight relative to the weights of others. Chapter 7 explored perceptions of restrained eating in reference groups (Instagram/UK population). Two studies utilised a rank-based approach as an underlying mechanism to explain people's judgements towards their restrained eating, results were inconclusive. Chapter 8 discusses theoretical and practical implications of all findings. People use rank to make judgements about weight. Findings support rank-based models of human judgment, offering insight into the exact mechanisms by which people judge weight of themselves and others.

In the sphere of customary law, an insult to a man and woman's honour must be restored with a corresponding punishment equal to the initial act. However, to prevent the initiation of violent retaliations and protecting their communities from social disorganisation, small-scale communities also established reconciliation processes as an antidote to the deleterious consequences of revenge for securing social order. This also happened on the Island of Crete (Greece), where since the first formation of mountain villages a reconciliation practice known as Sasmos has been used to avoid revenge. Little is known about Sasmos, which so far has attracted scarce academic attention. This study addresses Sasmos and aims to identify and discuss: the factors that have contributed to the existence of Sasmos in contemporary Crete, how locals have prevented the occurrence of vendettas and secured social order through Sasmos. It also examines how Sasmos impacts the lives of the victims, wrongdoers, their families, and the community. A participatory ethnographic approach was adopted to reach the study's aims, according to the needs of the cultural environment and the participants under study, along with their ethical principles. The data was obtained by a combination of in-depth interviews, focus groups and participant observation. The findings show that locals prefer a customary approach to justice. This is due to the antagonism between the Cretan culture and social environment and the Western-derived approaches to justice and order that the Greek state establishes. Above all, by following an original approach, it was found that Sasmos is a sui generis restorative approach to justice which centres around harm repairation, reintegration of the wrongdoer, and reconciliation.

This thesis aims to show the extent to which the accurate identification and reconstruction of historical martial techniques is possible through the analysis of historical written texts. In doing so I will trace from its origins the process of achieving adequate embodied knowledge, from the acquiring of one's habitus to the various foundational factors that interact with one another in order to facilitate the creation of specific, accessible embodied knowledge. I further argue that an interdisciplinary expertise is needed to confidently identify such historical martial techniques: in order to maximize one's insights and the credibility of one's analysis one must have sufficient knowledge and understanding of the social, cultural, linguistic, and literary foundations within which the texts were written as well as an embodied, corporeal knowledge of the martial art or practice in question. I use as a case study for this research the sagas of Icelanders (Íslendingasögur) and legendary sagas (fornaldarsögur): two of the most celebrated genres of medieval Scandinavian literature. In conjunction with the sagas' particular historicity regarding the social norms and pastimes of medieval Iceland I argue that wrestling, in its broadest sense, is a primordial mode of combat that is universally found throughout human history and civilization. Due to wrestling's ubiquitous and primordial nature, I argue that a modern scholar and grappler, with sufficient expertise in regard to both the literary/cultural aspects of the sagas as well as embodied knowledge in grappling, can accurately identify and recreate the wrestling techniques found in these and perhaps other historical texts. In evidencing my argument I critique contemporary claims about the wrestling style(s) found within the sagas and also argue that the frequent lack of relevant embodied knowledge in academia should be addressed as it manifests itself in poor or inaccurate translations of embodied techniques (such as grappling manoeuvres) found within historical texts and an incomplete understanding of both the source culture's literature and society. Clarifying these issues will not only benefit scholarly understanding of previously misunderstood aspects of the sagas and the cultures they belonged to but will also shed light upon the potential values of integrating embodied knowledge into the toolset or references of the modern academic.

Background: The food environment in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) has transformed rapidly in recent decades to increase the availability of unhealthy food options. Dietary changes are significantly contributing to adverse environmental impacts and a rapidly increasing burden of obesity and diet-related noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) co-existing with unresolved undernutrition and communicable disease prevalence. Trends in the consumption of foods, the characteristics of the prevailing food environment, and how individuals interact with their food environment to contribute to the double malnutrition burden in SSA are less understood. The aims of this PhD were to examine secular trends in consumption of food groups important for health in SSA; examine the food environment characteristics in a case study elite urban community in Ghana; investigate how residents of the urban community interact with their food environment to shape dietary behaviours; and explore their willingness and attitudes towards the adoption of healthy and sustainable diets. Methods: A mixed methods approach was adopted as follows: (1) evidence synthesis of literature reporting meat, fruit, and vegetable (MFV) consumption in SSA and (2) of literature reporting ultra-processed foods consumption in SSA; (3) Geographic Information Systems (GIS) tools were used to collect data on the characteristics of the food environment within University of Ghana campus including the location, count, and distribution of food outlets. An adapted food classification tool was utilized to categorise outlets as NCD-health, NCD-intermediate or NCD-unhealthy; and (4) qualitative focus group discussions (FGDs) and dyadic interviews with best friend pairs (or best friend pair interviews-BFPIs) were used to collect students' perspectives of their interaction with their food environment and how it impacts their dietary practices. The FGDs and BFPIs also gathered students' attitudes to dietary change in relation to health and environmental sustainability. Results: Study components 1 and 2 highlighted that MFV consumption has seen upward trends in SSA populations over the last 38-year period between 1977 and 2015, although fruit and vegetable consumption remain significantly below WHO recommendations. Richer SSA countries are consuming more meat (ß =36.76, p=0.04) and vegetable (ß =43.49, p=0.00) than poorer countries. Further, it suggested that ultra-processed foods (UPFs) consumption in SSA populations has gone up and highlighted key gaps in the UPFs consumption literature in SSA. Urban residents and females appeared to be consuming more UPFs than rural dwellers and males. Study 3 showed that the characteristics of the food environment is suggestive of an obesogenic one, dominated by more NCD-unhealthy than NCD-healthy food-outlets (50.72% vs 39.86%). Food outlets were unevenly distributed over the university foodscape, with more NCD-unhealthy outlets clustering closer to residential than departmental buildings. This difference was statistically significant for food outlets within 100-meter buffer (p=0.00) of residential structures and those within 100 and 500 meters from departmental buildings/lecture halls (p=0.05 and p=0.00, respectively). Study component 4 (n=46) identified a complex interplay of individual and social level factors interacting with food environment characteristics to shape dietary behaviours. Conclusion: The findings of this thesis provide detailed understanding of trends in consumption of food groups important for health and the environmental sustainability in Sub-Saharan Africa. It also provides in-depth understanding of how young adults interact with their food environment and how the food environment influences dietary behaviours, which could be used to inform context and culturally specific interventions.

Contemporary cultural consumers are now much more likely to listen to recorded classical music in a private setting than attend a concert. One effect of this has been the aging of the audience at classical concerts. Many experts assume that most of this concert audience will simply die out in the next 10-15 years. This might suggest the demise of the classical concert - but there is still considerable interest in this musical style among the younger population. Thus, the problem seems not to be the music, but rather the form in which it is conveyed. Since the second half of the 19th century little or nothing has changed in the dramaturgical process, the design of the concert hall and (particularly for this thesis) the rigorous ritualization of the concert itself. The question for concert promoters is how to change the concert format to attract a younger audience. This study focuses primarily on changes in ritualization, applying Randal Collins' (2005) Ritual Framework, which considers: community feeling, group assembly, barriers to outsiders, bodily co-presence, and mutual focus of attention or shared mood. From my position, with my many years of professional experience in the organization of classical concerts, concert's strict ritualization appears 'fusty and old-fashioned' to younger concert goers and literally discourages them from attending. This proposition was examined through Action Learning (AL). An Action Learning Group (ALG), representing the desired target group of a younger classical audience, identified rituals they felt detracted from the current classical concert experience, developed interventions (changes to concert ritualization) that were subsequently implemented at real concerts and audience responses gauged (audience survey). Based on the knowledge gained, a new concert format was developed, tailored primarily to a subset of this younger concert audience (the family with young children) and again responses to it sought through audience feedback. This study demonstrates that fulfilling today's concert visitors' individual expectations is essential to achieving satisfaction with classical concerts. The shared experience with friends or acquaintances proved to be of overriding importance, moving individual expectations of the event' staging to the background. The study also shows that the sense of community in the audience can be increased if the focus of attention can be reinforced - even if not necessarily only on the music. In addition, the study demonstrates that changes in ritualization, which reduce barriers to outsiders, have a positive impact on the audience in times of ubiquitous concern about equality and discrimination. Finally, the study also highlights that it is not enough to merely change the ritualization of a classical concert to significantly improve its attractiveness to a younger audience.

My key objectives are to establish a new contextual framework of folklore in the realist novel so as to widen current Gothic interpretations of Charlotte Brontë's uses of the supernatural across her fiction, to provide evidence of local cultural and Romantic literary sources of folklore in her novels, arguing for their relevant influences on Brontë's narrative and ideological uses, and to connect Brontë's literary allusions to folk belief to her letters. Firstly, I establish Brontë's local folklore milieu as a narrative source in Shirley (1849), comparing the material to historical secondary sources. Secondly, I argue for Brontë's early adaptation of the literary antiquarian Walter Scott's narrative and thematic uses of folklore in the Glass Town and Angria Tales. Thirdly, with Scott's Romantic fairy tradition material as a resource, I argue for Brontë's transformative use of the fairy motif in the study of various socio-cultural issues in Jane Eyre (1847). Lastly, I examine Brontë's imitation and development of Scott's rhetoric of scepticism in his Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft (1830) for the study of Enlightenment Rationality and Christian truths, in relation to the ghost motif of Villette (1853).

This thesis investigates the common social practice of taking oaths in Late Antiquity, broadly defined as the third to sixth centuries CE. An oath in antiquity was a sworn undertaking to which an individual was bound by the threat of supernatural retribution. Modern scholars therefore generally view oath-taking as a means of inducing members of society to fulfil their commitments. However, as the practice could not always be relied upon to ensure that individuals maintained their promises, there is a tendency in the scholarship to disregard oath-taking as merely symbolic in significance or simply ineffective. The following discussion argues that even if the intended purpose of taking these oaths was not always realised, the practice still had a number of uses. Due to the evolving circumstances of the third to sixth centuries, Late Antiquity is a particularly useful period in which to analyse the effects that oaths and their swearing could have upon aspects of Roman society. This thesis examines four late antique contexts in which oath-taking played a prominent role. The first three chapters focus on the military oath of allegiance, oaths of office in the civil service, and diplomatic oath-taking respectively. These chapters analyse how the oaths in question were formulated, why they were deployed, how they were perceived by various groups in society, and what effects, intended or not, their swearing had. The final chapter investigates the Christian Church's relationship with oath-taking, which was technically forbidden in the Bible. These chapters all indicate that, even though oaths were often broken, oath-swearing was a respected and valued practice. The envisioned primary purposes of these promises, whether tying soldiers and civil servants to the emperor or foreign peoples to diplomatic pacts, were not the only effects they could have. Oaths could be used in attempts to manipulate and control, just as they could enhance the dynamics between certain groups. Equally, accounts of the taking or breaking of sworn promises could be deployed by authors as a literary device, while a range of individuals could utilise the practice to project messages about themselves to wider society. Above all else, oath-swearing had a performative function, which did not necessarily require that the promises involved were kept. Through this investigation into the roles oath-taking could play in Late Antiquity, we can come to a clearer understanding of a range of important social dynamics in the later Roman empire.

Asking how we can understand television through the way its people are dressed, this thesis aims to carve out a new field of study and enrich existing interdisciplinary scholarship by arguing for the key role of costume design and fashion in the meaningmaking process of serial television drama and by suggesting new ways to understand their value in terms of style, aesthetics and cultural expression. This project adopts a mixed-methodology approach linking textual analysis of selected case studies with the study of extra-textual material and interviews with costume designers. The chapters of the thesis each offer a different perspective on the subject to understand the workings of costume, fashion and dress in British and American television in relation to television's medium specificity (seriality, address, cultural understandings and technology), cultural notions of dress and fashion, and questions of aesthetics, gender, realism and authenticity. The thesis discusses seemingly 'transparent' as well as more 'spectacular' uses of costume and fashion on television and argues that this needs to be understood differently than in film. This becomes especially clear in examining how costume and fashion underpin seriality. Chapter 1 establishes the groundwork by outlining key issues in the conceptualisation of clothing on television from the 1980s to the 2010s. It re-evaluates assumptions about television and its uses of costume and fashion that have discouraged critical attention. Chapter 2 addresses how crime and legal dramas tread the line between realism and dramatization in the gendered professional dressing of their characters. Chapter 3 argues that style and substance are inextricable in television's creation of meaning, focusing on period costume in recent dramas set in the 1950s-60s. Costume, fashion and dress codes on television structure its meanings and need to be studied as a key form of cultural expression. This thesis begins that work.

The title of this thesis is 'Clergy, the 'Good Death' and Psychological Type'. While the 'good death' presents us with an apparent oxymoron, the researcher proposes that the manner of individual dying can contain ingredients that can make it feel either good or not for the dying person and those surrounding her. The researcher further proposes that the ingredients that make death feel good or not are, like all human behaviour, subject to patterning. Finally, the researcher proposes that psychological type theory provides a potential key to discovering the pattern underlying the various understandings of good death. The thesis is designed to test this hypothesis. The research population selected is Church of England clergy serving in dioceses on the island of Great Britain. The population sample is drawn from Church of England clergy attending residential conferences organised by ten of these dioceses. The researcher uses a quantitative methodology, a questionnaire, as the principal research instrument. This is supplemented by qualitative methodologies, a Delphi Group and semi structured interviews, at the questionnaire design stage. The finished questionnaire is in three parts: first, biographical questions for the research participants; second, the well-evaluated Francis Psychological Type Scales (Francis, 2005), an instrument designed to explore the dichotomies of psychological type theory in large research populations; and third, a new set of scales, which is designed to marry end of life care behaviours to the dichotomies of psychological type theory. This new instrument is called the Knight End of Life Scales (KELS). The data resulting from the questionnaire is then analysed using several routines in SPSS software. The principle statistical findings are: first, that the Francis Psychological Type Scales (Francis, 2005) perform effectively in this new area of psychological type research; and second, that the newly designed set of scales, through comparison with the Francis Psychological Type Scales (Francis, 2005), are argued to be successful in relating end of life care behaviours to the dichotomies of psychological type theory, with the exception of the Sensing and Intuition dichotomy. This finding suggests the eventual possibility of creating a tool to assist health and social care staff in engaging in end of life care conversations.

This research thesis further contributes to the understanding of both psychological influences on dietary choices and bodyweight status, and the impacts of diet interventions on psychological wellbeing. This thesis is split across three chapters, each outlined below: Chapter One A systematic review of the impacts of Mediterranean diet interventions on psychological wellbeing. Narrative synthesis within indicated that Mediterranean diet interventions may lead to a range of improvements in psychological wellbeing across clinical and non-clinical populations. Particular benefits on hedonic and eudaimonic psychological wellbeing are discussed. Clinical implications and future research directions are outlined. Chapter Two A research study examining the influence of implicit (relative to explicit) attitudes toward 'junk food', on habitual consumption of junk food and subsequent risk of overweight/obesity. Results suggested that implicit attitudes are significant and more powerful predictors of habitual consumption of junk food than explicit attitudes, and might influence risk of overweight/obesity. It is concluded that related interventions to improve public health may benefit from targeting implicit attitudes potentially influencing eating behaviours and habits. Chapter Three A personal reflective account of the process of conducting the research outlined in chapter one and two. A 'pragmatist reflective position' is broadly taken in order to aid learning from the research experiences. Following reflection across a range of topics within, numerous benefits to the role of clinical psychologist are highlighted and discussed.

British and French archaeology have both dedicated a central place to the study of the nature and impact of connections linking the Continent to the British Isles in the early medieval period. Research is, however, still limited in the western Channel, great migration and conversion period theories remaining the traditional explanation for cultural parallels between facing regions. This thesis constitutes the first detailed multiscale comparative analysis of burial practices in southwest Britain (Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, Somerset and Hampshire) and northwest France (Brittany, Loire Atlantique and Normandy) for the period c.600-1050AD, exploring the changes and permanencies in funerary rites in a period of great social, economic and religious transformation, and offering a new understanding of the connections existing in the western Channel throughout the early Middle Ages. The scale and nature of this project required the creation of a new comparative methodology relying on a precise bi-lingual vocabulary, allowing for the collection and analysis of data gathered in countries of distinctive archaeological traditions. Various aspects of the burial practice are considered through a thematic analysis, facilitating the presentation and study of data at different levels of precision, highlighting individual peculiarities and communal traditions alongside wider regional and Cross-Channel trend. This new approach reveals the diversity of funerary practices coexisting at different scales, offering a new perspective on the expression of multiple layers of identity, each funerary choice resulting from a composite sum of influences and personal experiences. Additionally, this study challenges previous hypothesis born from migration period theories and provides a re-assessment of the impact of the conversion period on the relationship between the dead and the living. Finally, this project emphasises the need for more comparative analyses, borrowing from different archaeological traditions to offer a new perspective on the study of burial practices in facing regions of the Channel and unlocking the potential of further European collaborations.

In this study offering and invitation conventionalized practices taking place in naturally-occurring encounters in Jordanian culture are investigated. The sociolinguistic and pragmatic phenomena involved in these routine occurrences are studied utilizing mainly the discursive approach and processed via ritual-oriented binoculars. More accurately, the study in hand adopts a blended view of politeness, which emphasizes the role of cross-contextual variables, participants' view as well as the most agreed-upon concepts of speech act, face and politeness theories over the last three decades. The three major aspects of both genuine and ostensible inviting/offering have been examined: inviting/offering, accepting an invitation and offer and refusing them. The study is meant to fill an important knowledge gap by providing a sociopragmatic conceptualization of spontaneous invitations and offers in Arab culture in general and Jordanian culture in particular. Besides, it attempts to shed light on the processes, aspects and structures manifested in making invitations and/or offers, and accepting or refusing them in Jordanian Arabic (JA). More generally, it aims at raising the pragmatic awareness and improving mutual understanding among Arabs and also between Arabs and non-Arabs by highlighting some pragmatic competence in everyday communication. In order to achieve the study goals, the immediate observation of these natural encounters, where the researcher - in about half of the encounters - holds the participant and observer status, has been adopted in gathering data. The other half of the data was collected from my brother, friends and friends of friends at multiple social settings. All the data gathered come from people in my own social milieu and they included various face-to face, telephone or WhatsApp naturally-occurring conversations performed by people of various ages, genders, statuses and relationships. The data encompassing these natural offering and invitation practices have been qualitatively and quantitatively analysed. About one third (17 out of 48) of the data has been qualitatively analysed based on a discursive ritual-oriented approach. Various intersecting practices of relational networks have been subject to a 'microscopic' examination in this collectivist high-context culture. More specifically, the multiple normative contextual factors, sequencing of interactional moves, and conventionalized practices have been examined in an attempt to identify the general patterns of behaviour salient in Jordanian culture. In addition, the most frequent linguistic tactics used by Jordanian interactants in performing, accepting, and declining offers manifested in these exchanges have been quantitatively investigated. All the collected naturally-occurring data (i.e. 48 encounters) were classified into 4 different categories (namely: 12 genuine invitations, 12 ostensible invitations, 12 genuine offers and 12 ostensible offers). The linguistic tactics employed in extending, accepting, or declining both genuine and ostensible invitations and offers by Jordanians were statistically computed utilizing SPSS software. The numbers and percentages obtained were later tabulated in an attempt to eventually come out with significant ratios about Jordanians' most frequent linguistic tactics when issuing or responding to invitations and/or offers. One theoretical contribution that this study offers is that it distinguishes between the terms 'invitation' and 'offer' although the two terms have been often used interchangeably by pragmatists. It also attempts to differentiate between genuine and ostensible invitations, offers and refusals. Furthermore, it identifies the typical trajectory patterns of the invitation sequences in Jordanian culture. It has been found that the behaviour of invitations and offers in Jordanian culture has several peculiar features. First, these invitations and offers are both patterned and 'seesaw' balanced. It has been observed that both opposing procedures of insistence and resistance have to adhere to a paradigm of common acts, reactions, and structuring of word strings. Second, invitation sequences in Jordan often have a tripartite structure, where the inviter is expected to make three invitations to the invitee before one of them concedes to the other's desire. Third, these invitations are usually gradually staged and streamlined in terms of both form and structure. Fourth, a typical invitation in Jordan is driven by strict social rubrics that are generally anticipated and governed by ritualised norms. Finally, the tactics utilized frequently index religious themes or ritual-oriented entities. Some of these tactics are classified in this study as supplication, stock blessing, ritualised compliment, plea refutation, oath taking, stock justification, formulaic plead, minimisation, motivation, intimidation. It is hoped that the findings and methodology of this study can lead to a more systematic theory tackling patterns of invitations and offers in Arab countries in general.

This thesis explores processes that have been described by scholars of transitional justice as post-war social repair. It interrogates the multifarious quests through which Lugbara people, living in the West Nile sub-region of north-west Uganda, seek to rebuild their intimate relationships and social lives, with recourse to explanations and therapies for suffering and misfortune. Scholars have recently found in such socio-cultural processes- which traverse the cosmological, social and economic landscape of everyday life- potential resources that could restore communal relations and assist post-war recovery. This thesis critically appraises this contention. Whilst scholars are invested in abstracting metaphysical meaning to map causal relationships, Lugbara people are simply seeking answers to misfortunes which continue to befall them as individuals, families, and collectives: enquiring about what issues are following them, and how addressing wrong acts may heal bodily suffering and social wounds. Since many sicknesses are regarded as a phenomenological signal of violations within families and clans- enquiring about their cases is occasion for to discuss notions of responsibility, loss and social peace. For Lugbara people, managing misfortune and past injustices are entangled. To understand the healing landscape of the present, this thesis draws on the past. A diachronic approach is deployed through re-evaluating writings on Lugbara ritual and practice described in Lugbara Religion by the mid-century anthropologist John Middleton. Like Middleton, this thesis is interested in how Lugbara people draw on logics and explanations through interconsistent and pragmatic practice. This thesis critically appraises the methodological underpinnings and gendered assumptions which produced particular knowledge about Lugbara peoples in Lugbara Religion, and which have been transposed onto subsequent studies of healing in the region. The body of this thesis presents novel ethnographic evidence which explores different faces of contemporary healing. Through a multi-sited ethnographic approach in villages across Arua and Maracha District, this enquiry explores how quests to "follow" suffering are structured amid unfolding post-war projects to revive - and resist - notions of Lugbara personhood and sociality premised on patriarchy and seniority. Concurrently, this thesis explores the fragility of these efforts in the face of ongoing loss, efforts that lead to the allocation of responsibility for illness through specific means and logics-that European scholars would term "witchcraft". Placing the historical record in conversation post-war healing shifts, this thesis engages with how long-standing social institutions endure in relation to post-war recovery, albeit through dynamic interaction with logics of faith and law, and creative internal struggles between generations, genders and believers.

Between the mid-1950s and the mid-1970s, British men let their hair down. Throughout the first half of the twentieth century the overwhelming majority of British males had worn short hair and, with the exception of the occasional moustache-craze, had been clean-shaven. In the space of a few short years all of this changed, and by the early 1970s long hair, sideburns, moustaches and beards – articles of appearance which had held connotations of delinquency, dirtiness, effeminacy and deviance – were a common sight on high streets across the country. This shift in fashion, highly contested and widely debated by contemporary observers, has yet to be analysed in any depth by historians of post-war Britain. This thesis represents the first critical social and cultural history of white men’s hair in Britain between the mid-1950s and the mid-1970s, providing a detailed examination of changing fashions and the explosion of discourse which surrounded these shifts in style. Drawing upon Alan Sinfield’s concept of ‘the faultline’, it argues that the stories that were told about men’s hair during the immediate post-war decades were inescapably intertwined with understandings, anxieties and hopes for a wider moment of social and cultural flux. Shifts in hair fashions reflected these broader upheavals, but men’s hair – and the surrounding discourse – also helped to shape how individuals understood a post-war society and culture which was changing around them. The thesis considers a series of case studies in order to explore both lived experience, and the discursive significance of men’s hair within British society between the mid-1950s and the mid-1970s: classroom disputes between teenagers, parents and schools over the length and styling of male pupils’ hair; the efforts to exclude long-haired “beatniks” from leisure spaces in English seaside towns; the emergence of a new, heterosexualised ideal of flamboyant “peacock” masculinity; and the rise of the upmarket men’s hairdressing salon during the post-war period. Each of these chapters engages with wider questions of class and gender to make interventions concerning the decline of deference, shifting ideals of masculinity, and the extent and character of post-war cultural change.

This thesis examines the representation of the scented female body in the literary culture of late Republican and early Imperial Rome. Recent years have seen increasing scholarly interest in odour and olfaction in antiquity, building on anthropological and sociological research on the cultural relativism of olfactory perception and its associations and interpretations. Through its connections to sexuality, bodily fluids, and corporeal corruption, odour provides a fascinating lens through which to scrutinise the ancient female body. To this end, this thesis draws together the fields of sensory studies, the body in antiquity, and ancient gender and sexuality, in order to facilitate the first holistic examination of the ways in which scent was used as a means to categorise and evaluate the character, behaviour, and morality of women in ancient Rome. After an analysis of ancient medical associations surrounding odour and the female body, the thesis examines the key properties and thematic concerns of perfumes, first across a range of Roman texts and then in the detailed assessment of perfumes by Pliny the Elder. It then demonstrates that female odour and perfume were deeply embedded in mythical traditions that were richly adapted by Roman poets and themselves extended to embrace female figures that populated the urban environment of Imperial Rome. It argues that the relationship between the female body and odour was frequently employed as a means of reasserting Roman hierarchies of gender and power. However, it also argues that the odour of the female body was powerful. Odour invaded, captivated and polluted the bodies it touched, and it was also the sense that best correlates to the traditional ambiguities, dangers, and wiles with which women were associated. The sensory manipulation enabled by perfume stoked these ambiguities and anxieties, permitting women a level of control over the ancient sensorium, potentially deceiving discerning male noses and thus disrupting the very hierarchies which characterised women as socially and biologically inferior.

Based on fieldwork among indigenous Pehuenche people living in the Andes in southern Chile, this thesis comprises an ethnographic exploration of intimate relationships that begin in Pehuenche households and expand outwards through various shared spaces. It shows how the shared sensorial experiences of these places act as vehicles for sociality and how children are introduced into these social dynamics. The first part of the thesis is primarily concerned with interactions that take place inside the house and examines how Pehuenche people engage in relationships with their closest kin inside the family home and with other households. It begins with an analysis of mate drinking, which affects the drinkers' perception of time and allows them to cultivate affectionate horizontal relations with each other. It then turns to the way in which the Pehuenche move beyond their households and expand their relationships through visiting and hosting as a key way of cultivating voluntary relationships. Next, the thesis provides an analysis of marriage and the potential conflict that arises between the traditionally hierarchical parent-child relation and the fostering of personal agency in partner selection. Together, these three chapters delineate a model of horizontal, voluntary, and caring relationships that I argue are strongly rooted in shared sensorial experiences, which are key for navigating hierarchy, the threat of witchcraft attacks as well as cultural change. The second part of the thesis expands outwards to consider sociality in settings further afield, notably the forest, the state school, and the Nguillatun fertility ritual. Pehuenche people routinely engage in relationships with non-human entities during their seasonal migration to the uncultivated forest, where children acquire traditional Pehuenche knowledge, skills, and ways of relating to the landscape. The state school, meanwhile, is effectively a hybrid space in which the model of relationships cultivated inside the household is confronted with practices of assimilation pushing people to blend into mainstream Chilean culture. This causes conflict between the community and school staff. Finally, through participation in the Ngillatun fertility ritual, and especially the sensorial experiences it entails, the Pehuenche are able to go beyond one-to-one bonds to establish a relation with their whole ritual community. The thesis contributes to anthropological understandings of Amerindian kinship and sociality by underscoring the role of shared sensorial experiences in creating relatedness that is grounded in the body but not necessarily on consubstantiality. It shows how sensory experiences comprise a thread connecting together Pehuenche understandings of similarity and difference, cooperation and amity.

The veil - most commonly known as hijab - is considered as the primary visible marker of a Muslim woman's religious identity and symbol of piety. Thus, its absence not only brings about feelings of conflict for the non-wearer (Izharuddin, 2018), but moreover invites unfair characterisation of their morals and values, as well as discrimination (Fadil, 2011; Othman, 2006; Wagner, Sen, Permanadeli, & Howarth, 2012). In light of this, this study seeks to examine the ways Muslim women construct their identities (with particular focus on religious identity) as women who do not wear the veil. It also investigates the challenges these women face as consequence of their non-veiling. Adopting a social constructionist paradigm, this study draws on almost 20 hours of in-depth interviews with non-veiled Muslim women in Malaysia as its primary data. It brings together interdisciplinary perspectives to analyse identity, by drawing upon Bucholtz and Hall's (2005) sociolinguistic principles for identity, Baxter's (2003) Feminist Poststructuralist Discourse Analysis (FPDA), and intersectionality. To supplement the analysis of the interview data, this study scrutinises a range of selected materials from contemporary media in Malaysia to explore Muslim women's representation with regards to the veil and non-veiling. Findings reveal that in the absence of the hijab, the women who participated in this study constructed themselves as being in alignment, or in contrast with, and/or in ambivalence to their respective ideal of a Muslim woman. In talking about their lives and experiences as non-veiled Muslim women, they 'talk into being' their religious and gender identities, which include (but are not limited to) ethnic and institutional identities. As the women live in Muslim-majority Malaysia that has been experiencing Islamisation since the past four decades, they also divulge stories of personal struggle and challenges they face in various domains of life such as in the family, institutions, and communities.

Background Personality disorder is highly prevalent among people in contact with criminal justice and forensic mental health services. People with an offending history and a personality disorder (personality disordered offenders; PDOs) experience poor health and reoffending outcomes. This impacts the individual concerned, victims of offending, public health and public services. Occupational participation describes undertaking personally meaningful and socially valued activities and roles. It is integral to health and associated with lower risk of reoffending. It is therefore an important outcome for PDOs in the community. Aim and research questions This research aimed to address gaps in the literature to inform development of an intervention to increase occupational participation for PDOs in the community. It answered three questions. For this population: • What factors influence occupational participation? • What are the required components of an intervention to increase occupational participation, and what should these components include? • How can a new intervention be implemented in a natural context for a feasibility study and pilot evaluation? Methods The research consisted of four work packages informed by Medical Research Council guidelines for developing and evaluating complex interventions. It was underpinned by a critical realist philosophy. Patient and Pubic Involvement was integrated throughout, along with an established theory of occupational participation and its associated model, the Model of Human Occupation. Work Package One involved two systematic reviews to establish what is already known about i) the factors that influence occupational participation for PDOs in the community, and ii) the effectiveness of interventions to increase it. The lack of evidence informed the remaining work packages. Work Package Two used a convergent parallel mixed-methods design to identify factors that influence occupational participation. Quantitative and qualitative data collected from interviews with 18 PDOs were analysed separately in three parallel sub-studies. This was followed by a structured integration process. Work Package Three utilised a three-round multi-disciplinary Delphi survey to establish consensus on the content of an intervention. In round one, participants rated the importance and modifiability of the factors, and described best practice to modify these. Responses were converted into statements about the potential effectiveness of different aspects of intervention. Participants rated their agreement in rounds two and three. When 75% of participants agreed with a statement, it was used to specify intervention content. Work Package Four involved specifying the intervention and modelling its outcomes and processes. Established processes to develop a manual, model the intervention, and produce a logic model were applied using the data collected in the previous work packages and additional literature searches. Results and findings Twenty-eight factors influence occupational participation for PDOs in the community. Some factors were not described by the Model of Human Occupation. The same factors influenced occupational participation in activities and roles valued by dominant society (prosocial occupations) and those considered deviant, criminal or harmful (antisocial occupations). Elaboration of the Model would increase its explanatory power with this population. The data supported the use of occupational adaptation to inform intervention development. Delphi participants reached consensus on 121 statements. They rated all 28 factors as above 5/10 for importance, but only eight above 5/10 for modifiability. Consensus was not reached on the integration of digital/internet technology. An intervention manual and a logic model were produced, both suitable for a feasibility study and pilot evaluation. The modelling process generated further questions and indicated that a process evaluation would be a beneficial addition in future research. Conclusions This research established the factors that influence occupational participation for PDOs in the community. It produced consensus on intervention content that is likely to effect change. These results make a unique contribution to knowledge. A complex intervention was developed to increase occupational participation for PDOs in the community. An intervention manual and logic model of the intervention provide a basis for further intervention development and evaluation. These outputs show the aim of the research was achieved.

Despite a recent revival in the research field, there remains a lack of nuanced discussion of urban informality, especially for cities in the global North. Moreover, existing studies (whatever their geographies) show a very limited engagement with issues of culture. The extant research is frequently focused on forms of economic value and thus fails to provide a multi-faceted valuation of informal cultural practices. My thesis sets out to address these gaps using a grounded theory approach. This methodology enables such a multi-faceted understanding, both theoretically and empirically, and it is developed through five case studies in two cities. These case studies include busking, book sharing initiatives and guerrilla gardening in London, as well as the open street event Equal Streets and 'spot fix' public space improvement practices in Mumbai. The findings show that urban actors are motivated by a wide variety of factors, stretching from intrinsic, personal reasons to more instrumental, social or environmental agendas. The study further emphasises that informality can be a tool and tactical choice for urban actors, deployed by many to fulfil their varied aims and ambitions, but also in response to the complex negotiations of internal values and external, contextual factors (including their interaction with public authorities). The thesis offers a robust challenge to the predominant economic-deterministic interpretations of culture in the urban context, and calls for a shift in the debate by academics and policy-makers alike towards a more multi-faceted valuation of informal cultural practices. Furthermore, this thesis goes beyond existing research on urban cultural informality in highlighting the tactical use of informal practices. Finally, by examining urban informality in the field of culture in both cities in the global South and the global North, this study contributes a rare exchange of empirical knowledge and theories in relation to data from such different geographies.

This thesis explores the experiences of women tattoo artists in what is still a male-dominated tattoo industry. The research is situated within the field of subcultural studies, whilst interjecting the fields of gender and labour. Since the 1990s, there has been a significant increase in women entering the industry as professional tattoo artists in the West; my research explores the ways in which women have had to navigate their position within the industry and how they have negotiated the industry's response to an increase in women artists. Using predominantly interviews by email, I talked to 15 women across the US, UK and Australia about their experiences of entering the industry and maintaining their position as a professional woman in an 'alternative' and sub-cultural occupation. Women have previously and extensively been researched as tattoo consumers but not as producers, and therefore my research considers this transition from tattooee to tattooer, exploring how women manage and navigate this shift in status to find space within the industry. I conceptualise the tattoo industry not only as a sub-cultural space but also as a place of employment and labour. Capital, hierarchies and resistance are problematised by considering them through a gendered lens, with women, femininity and femininities at the forefront of my analysis. Femininity is first considered in the analysis as something to be managed and as a potential barrier to success in a male-dominated field. However, femininity is then conceptualised as something utilised positively to enable change within the field. This creates a degree of contradiction and I analyse it by considering the paradox that women are considered to be too feminine for a male-dominated industry whilst at the same time, need or want to be feminine enough to employ distinctive elements of emotional labour associated with dominant versions of femininity. I also consider ways in which women, and other minority groups are attempting to change the industry and resist the hegemonic masculinities of tattoo culture. I show that women artists place importance on the labour they perform, and ask how queer artists are queering certain areas of the industry. I also look, however, at the ambivalence felt by many of the artists surrounding resistance, in relation to both the industry and the mainstream, and the complex dynamic this creates in and amongst artists, the industry and the mainstream.

While there has been a significant focus on how hospitality was commodified, commercialised and standardised in the literature, less attention is given to the extent of which local traditions and hospitality change and adapt to the demand of tourists. Through an empirically grounded investigation, this thesis at micro-level gives an insight to how local hospitality and traditions in Mekong Delta (Vietnam) transform in homestay practice under the pressure of tourism development. Normally, the local traditions and hospitality are offered by the host and experienced by the guests. However by focusing on contact zone, the settings and decoration of homestays, this thesis shows this mechanism in Mekong Delta is not one way but a dynamic process. The guests do not only passively receive but also have influences on what the hosts can offer. In fact, the homestay providers have capitalised on what tourists want to see. As consequence, local traditions and hospitality are changing and subject to re-invention to adapt to legal requirements, tourists demands, and social context. Ironically, tourists are using homestay believing they are experiencing true Vietnamese culture, while actually the local Vietnamese people are changing their traditional home styles and behaviour to accommodate the tourists.

The research at hand investigates how home is performed through foodscapes by focusing on the Turkish speaking communities in London. It is based on the premises that food has a strong connection to not just where home is, but how it manifests itself at different scales and registers of food activities in the ‘here and now’ of so-called migrant communities. Home is therefore taken as an act of dwelling that is both constitutive of and constituted by the specificities of the site of habitation. Based on Ingold’s conceptualisation of dwelling perspective, the research argues that the migrant skills deployed around food are trained and practiced in response to the environment of habitation (1993, 2000) as opposed to being imported as innate skills from the country of origin. Explored through the acts of eating, cooking, serving, sharing, celebrating and talking about food puissantly problematises the frameworks of host & guest migrants and home & host nations. Reflecting upon the constitution of home through food therefore has a double function: it liberates migrant homes from the geographical dominance of a past country where they are from and at the same time recognises the site-specific manifestations of their skills “within the current of their involved activity, in the specific relational contexts of their practical engagement with their surroundings” (Ingold 2000, p. 186). The economic, social, cultural and affective mobilisations of the members of Turkish Speaking Community in London display the dynamism and heterogeneity that is inherent to both food and home. The variety of the ways in which the ethnically and linguistically diverse members of this vaguely framed group relate to themselves, to each other, to the city and to the larger discourses of community and nation are explored in this research through performative and multi-sited ethnographic tools. From shopping together with the participants for the dinner ingredients to formal interview settings, from cooking along to temporarily managing an eating out establishment, practicing with and within the contexts of the participants contributed to the knowledge formation for this research. Three interrelated yet distinct foodscape clusters emerged out of this research: Restaurants, British Kebab Awards and the households. The term foodscape here aims at encapsulating the multiscalar, interconnected, always in-the-making and at times inconsistent practices and discourses that emerge in each of these sites. Even though all ethnographic encounters took place in London, in a seemingly singular site, the research gained a multi-sited character due to the different power dynamics, ethnographic requirements, and different imaginaries offered by each of these clusters. These three registers, in their heterogeneity, show that home, looked especially through the lens of food, appears to be re-creative, generative, tactical, site-specific, and multifold series of dwelling acts, rather than being the geographical elsewhere of a migrant. By means of food, the migrant becomes the skillful dweller, and London becomes home.

In recent decades, many Chinese have experienced changes in their eating as a result of a shift from food shortages to an expansion of food markets. Many urban Chinese make choices from a variety of food, and food safety incidents frequently reported in the media have raised consumer concerns with food quality and the potential effects of foods on human health. Meanwhile, some urban dwellers worry about overweight, hypertension, cardiovascular diseases, and other health threats as a result of, for example, diets that are high in fats and sugar. Some studies have examined how consumers respond to food-related anxieties in China. These studies have suggested that they may change their eating or shopping patterns and rely on external indicators such as, brands and vendor types. A number of these studies are based on quantitative calculations of patterns of participants’ behaviours or perceptions. However, they pay little attention to how ordinary people experience and deal with food-related anxieties. Moreover, individuals seem to be passive and dependent on institutional efforts to control food-related anxieties. With the use of interview and participant observation data, this research analyses how participants deal with the food-related anxieties they experience in everyday life through their daily food and eating practices. The research demonstrates participants’ activity to deal with their food safety and health concerns in light of Mauss’s (1973) concept of ‘body techniques’, and de Certeau’s (1984) discussion of ‘strategies’ and ‘tactics’. By drawing on Mauss’s (1973) concept, the study offers an understanding of food-related anxieties and the practice of home cooking to deal with those anxieties through the perspective of embodiment. My research also challenges the existing literature which suggests ordinary people are passive and subject to institutional strategies to deal with food-related anxieties. With reference to Mauss (1973) and de Certeau (1984), participants have agency to respond to food safety and health concerns according to their acquired eating habits and the social circumstances to which they belong. The findings suggest that participants tactically use embodied knowledge and techniques of home cooking transmitted across generations to deal with food safety and health concerns in contemporary China.

This thesis explores the embalming ritual of the Egyptian Late Period through Ptolemaic era (664 – 30 BC). Using an interdisciplinary approach, I incorporate primary and secondary texts, Egyptian funerary art and archaeological remains into my study. I utilize these lines of evidence to reconstruct the embalming ritual to the degree possible and analyze the ways in which its various stages were believed to fulfill the ultimate goal of this rite: preservation of the physical body and eternal life for the deceased. I focus particularly on the archaeological material and explore the visibility of religious practice in the archaeological record. I identify key changes and developments in the embalming ritual from the Late Period through the Ptolemaic Period in order to highlight religious significance placed on embalming during this time period. Funerary art, literature, and archaeological material of the Late through Greco-Roman Periods illustrate an increased focus on the integrity of the corpse as well as the manifestation of decay, the liquid \(rDw\). I examine these ancient sources in order to better understand the nature and development of body-centered funerary practices during this period of Egyptian history.

This thesis situates the issue of representing minority groups in the debate over the role of museum spaces in the contemporary society. In particular, the thesis explores the shifting relationships between the indigenous peoples and the wider Taiwanese society which is considered to be influential in forming indigenous representations. I conducted fieldwork in case-study museums, which are considered to be leading museums that are more resourceful and influential, and places beyond museum spaces, such as local cultural centres, indigenous communities and public occasions. In this thesis, I suggest that indigenous representations cannot be understood without considering the power relationships between the represented subjects and their surrounding parties, for example, colonial history and political changes. Because of the nature of museums, this thesis has shown that although there are limitations of museum representations, museums still play a symbolic role in Taiwanese society. I also expanded my examination of indigenous representations beyond museum spaces. I discovered that compared to museum representations, these representations are more responsive to the needs of both indigenous peoples and their audience. I also argued that although indigenous peoples obtain a greater autonomy in self-representing, internal power relationships and hierarchy also play a critical role in these self-representations.

Between 1542 and 1867, Quebec City area (Quebec, Canada) was briefly occupied by French explorers, colonised by French settlers and conquered by English forces about a century before becoming part of the Dominion of Canada. My thesis explores the emergence and development of colonialism and nationalism in the region following these changing social, political and economic circumstances. Instead of focusing on discourse, I draw attention towards lived experience by addressing these ideologies through the ways they were intertwined with local foodways, as reconstructed on the grounds of archaeobotanical data dating between 1542 and 1867. More specifically, I investigate how the social and biological biographies of consumed plants bound colonial communities to Europe, the Native world, and local wilderness through time, and in doing so expressed and contributed towards sustaining colonialist and nationalist ideologies. This approach sheds light on the lasting attachment of local colonists to Old World traditions and on how this predilection impacted the selection of wild local plants consumed. It further reveals a widespread disregard for Native populations whose foodstuffs were scantly, if at all, consumed. It is also possible to document the mechanisms which guided the introduction of wild indigenous plants into local menus and the tightening grip of the community over regional environments. The discussion finally underlines how these different propensities paved the way for a homogenisation of culinary habits decades before the publication of the first regional cookbooks and the birth of the nation.

Rural tourism is a long-established practice in the industrialised West, but it is a comparatively recent and on-going development in postsocialist contexts. This thesis examines the development of rural tourism in Romania and draws on fieldwork carried out in one of the oldest and most popular destinations of the country, as well as in a newer and less visited location. As homestays are central to rural tourism, my research has an extensive focus on what happens with guesthouses and their owners. Countryside tourism is a practice grounded in a discourse that praises images of unspoilt nature, close-knit communities, material and cultural heritage and natural healthy food. Discourses about rurality also suggest that for city dwellers, village stays in their own countries can provide a way of getting in touch with their national identity, building, at the same time a sense of belonging. In Romania, such discourses are promoted by NGOs, state institutions and tour operators that aim to develop rural tourism. In spite of their efforts, in the destinations that I studied, rural tourism has strayed away from the ideal model. Instead of bucolic cottages inspired by the vernacular architecture of the region, hosts welcome their guests into large, modern villas equipped with state-of-the art amenities. Tourists too show a strong concern with material aspects of their accommodation, they rarely venture in outdoor pursuits and have little interest in notions of ‘heritage’ or ‘traditions’. My findings show that the lived experiences of local entrepreneurs have shaped worldviews that in many respects are at odds with the ideal models and best tourism practices promoted by various institutions. I also show how hosts and guests share similar notions of achievement and success and how this has turned rural tourism into a house-centred event. In explaining why discourses have little grounding in reality, I pay close attention to the economics of tourism, trying to understand guesthouses as businesses interlinked both with the wider forces of the market and with the socio-economic history of rural Romania. I show how the development of pensiuni was influenced by specific material and social constraints, arguing that a long history of living under oppressive regimes actually endowed locals with qualities that made them ready to embark on entrepreneurial pursuits. I also examine how kinship can be both a catalyst for growth and a factor that contributes to the stagnation or decline of businesses. Most notably, however, it was the unstable and burdensome legislative environment that had perhaps the strongest impact over the evolution of guesthouses, determining over half of the owners to stay in the shadow economy. My findings raise questions about the effectiveness and utility of many of the norms currently imposed on tourist entrepreneurs and I conclude by discussing a few ways in which institutions could respond better to the needs of guesthouse owners.

In early modern England, the ‘banquet’ was a distinct meal type consisted solely of confectionery and fruit, accompanied by alcoholic distilled waters and wine. This dining practice has thus far received little scholarly attention, and this thesis provides the first full study of the sweet banquet. It takes account of a wide range of primary sources, including visual and material culture, architecture, household papers, inventories and literature in tracing the development of the banquet at court and its dissemination to the nobility, gentry and ‘middling’ sorts. That the practice of banqueting was ubiquitous at this time is a major new finding. The banquet is revealed to have fulfilled a range of well-defined social functions. An important element of court ceremony under both Henry VIII and Elizabeth I, it expressed contemporary ideas about kingship and articulated England’s place on a European stage. From the mid sixteenth century, the banquet is shown to have been central to elite sociability beyond the court. It was an important indicator of group membership, and a key site for relationship building and the demonstration of social status. Close attention to primary sources reveals that the banquet was intended as a recreation of the ancient symposium, a new finding which undermines the widely held assumption that Tudor visual culture did not engage with the continental renaissance. Finally the gendered nature of the banquet is considered in relation to feminist theory. This sheds new light on the relationship between public and private in early modern England, the gendered nature of space within the country house, and the extent to which feminine agency was possible in a patriarchal society. Overall, this study of the banquet is indicative of the value of studying ephemeral cultural practices, and the wide range of insights that this can generate.

This thesis charts the stakeholder communities, physical environment and daily life of two little studied Qādiriyya Sufi shrines associated with Shaikh ʿAbd al-Qādir al-Jīlānī (1077 – 1165 AD), a 12th century Ḥanbalī Muslim theologian and the posthumous founder of one of the oldest Sufi orders in Islam. The first shrine is based in Baghdad and houses his burial chamber; and the second shrine, on the outskirts of the city of ‘Aqra in the Kurdish region of northern Iraq, is that of his son Shaikh ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz (died 1206 AD). The latter was also known for lecturing in Ḥanbalī theology in the region, and venerated for this as well as his association with Shaikh ʿAbd al-Qādir. Driven by the research question “What shapes the identity orientations of these two Qādiriyya Sufi shrines in modern times?” the findings presented here are the result of field research carried out between November 2009 and February 2014. This field research revealed a complex context in which the two shrines existed and interacted, influenced by both Sufi and non-Sufi stakeholders who identified with and accessed these shrines to satisfy a variety of spiritual and practical needs, which in turn influenced the way each considered and viewed the two shrines from a number of orientations. These overlapping orientations include the Qādirī Sufi entity and the resting place of its patron saint; the orthodox Sunnī mosque with its muftī-imams, who are employed by the Iraqi government; the local Shīʿa community’s neighbourhood saint’s shrine and its destination for spiritual and practical aid; and the local provider of welfare to the poor of the city (soup kitchen, funeral parlour and electricity-generation amongst other services). The research findings also revealed a continuously changing and adapting Qādirī Sufi scene not immune from the national and regional socio-religio-political environments in which the two shrines exist: a non-Sufi national political class vying to influence and manipulate these shrines for their own purposes; and powerful national sectarian factions jostling to do the same. The mixture of stakeholders using and associating with the two shrines were found to be influential shapers of these entities, both physically and spiritually. Through encountering and interacting with each other, most stakeholders contributed to maintaining and rejuvenating the two shrines, but some also sought to adapt and change them driven by their particular orientation’s perspective.

In this thesis I develop a psychosocial approach to prejudice and discrimination among the Mexican-origin population in the U.S. state of Arizona. I argue that although the Mexican-origin population has been oppressed and discriminated against by the dominant white population for centuries, this minority group has its own history of intra-group prejudice and discrimination. Moreover, I argue that the attitudes and behaviours of Mexican immigrants and Mexican Americans, and the interactions between them, are influenced by three main elements: 1) structural factors (such as exploitation and inequality); 2) dominant ideologies (such as colonisation and white supremacy/superiority) and; 3) cultural commonalities between Mexican immigrants and Mexican Americans (in particular, the Spanish language). Within this context, I employed approximately thirty free association narrative interviews, notes based on ethnographic and participant observations, amongst other data sources (such as newspaper articles and informal interviews), to reveal much about the unconscious dynamics and processes under which Mexican immigrants and Mexican Americans interact. In the first half of the thesis I describe the social and political context of Arizona, which includes the history of the Mexican-origin population in that state as well as the implementation of the anti-immigration law, Senate Bill 1070 and its effects on the Mexican-origin population. In addition to this, I describe the methodology I used to conduct this research (participants, types of interviews and analysis of the collected data). In the second half of the thesis, I analyse prejudice and discrimination coming from ‘outside’ and ‘inside’ the Mexican-origin population with the use of psychoanalytic (Freud, Klein, Dalal), sociological (Douglas, Jimenez, Clarke) and post-colonial theories (Fanon, Memmi, Bhabha). In conclusion, I argue that the phenomenon of prejudice and discrimination among Mexican immigrants and Mexican Americans in Arizona cannot be reduced to psychological nor sociological explanations but that it needs to be addressed and approached by several disciplines.

The object of this thesis is to explore the representation of ‘ Thainess ’ in Thai wedding magazines. The thesis adopts semiotic and multimodal analysis as methods to examine how cover pages, photographs, editorial contents and advertisement s in the magazines communicate their denotative and connotative meanings through primary markers and modality markers such as pose, objects, setting, framing, lights, shadow and colour tone. Subsequently , each image is examined through its depiction of people in the image to determine any st ereotypical cultural attributes that highlight a distinction between the traditionalised Thai and modernised Thai bride. This thesis argues that the legacy of Thailand ’ s semi colonial history constructs an ambivalent relationship with the West and Thailand ’ s self - orientalising tendency, as well as the diffusion of hybrid cultures and modern Thai beauty ideals. Self - orientalising tendencies and the desire to encapsulate ‘ Thainess ’ are thusly observed in the magazines ’ representation of traditional ‘ Thainess ’ with a nostalgic overtone, by linking the ideals of traditional beauty to the imagined qualities of heroines in Thai classic literature and aristocratic ladies from pre-modern Siam through fashion and traditional beautifying remedies.

The taste for fish in England and the British Isles as a whole has fluctuated on several occasions and understanding the reasons behind these changes is vital, especially in light of the great importance fish held in later medieval diet and society. The beginnings of marine fishing have usually been thought to lie in the late Anglo-Saxon period and are believed to lie with economic changes. Indeed, most studies of fish in archaeology have centred around economic approaches. However it is extremely unlikely for economics to have been the sole reason. This thesis will attempt to fill in the gap currently extant in early medieval fish studies by taking a multidisciplinary approach to exploring the character of fishing and fish consumption in Anglo-Saxon England. Zooarchaeological data alongside isotope evidence, artefactual, structural and textual will be considered together to explore not just economic but also social factors, in effect, exploring the dynamics of fishing and fish consumption. This multidisciplinary approach will also hopefully highlight the fact that fish cannot just be studied in isolation; to gain a full understanding of the implications freshwater and marine fishing will have on communities and society as a whole all aspects of fishing must be considered.

This thesis provides the first sustained study of the material culture of dining among the gentry and ‘middling sort’ in early modern England. It focuses on the religious and ritual significance of the shared dining experience, interrogating the role objects played in engendering domestic commensality. The project establishes that through their material properties and ritualized uses, objects such as salt-cellars, eating utensils and banqueting trenchers, were essential instruments in the construction and communication of personal and social identities. I argue that developments in the material paraphernalia of dining functioned to create a sense of continuity and community during this period of profound religious and social change. Chapter One applies the anthropological theory of ‘distributed personhood’ to salt-cellars, offering new insights into why salts were considered particularly effective objects for conveying identity. Chapter Two draws connections between eating utensils and significant moments in the life cycle and argues that utensils could have strong ‘personal’ associations, which commemorated essential rites of passage and functioned as perpetual reminders of familial ties. Chapter Three investigates banqueting trenchers as tools for sociability and collective spiritual contemplation and examines how their visual and material qualities required a specific ‘performance’ from diners. As a whole, the thesis provides a framework for interpreting a neglected body of historical artefacts and it contributes new knowledge about how specific types of crafted objects communicated identity within the context of ritualized social activities.

This thesis explores the period of prominence experienced by wigs and wig wearing in England from the late seventeenth to the latter decades of the eighteenth century. Its primary focus is the ‘raw material’ from which wigs were made: human hair. Being produced from a part of the body placed wigs in a unique position as fashionable items. The act of ‘making’ a wig entailed taking a natural entity growing on the head, and turning it into an intrinsically unnatural artefact. ‘Wearing’ a wig meant for the wearer to invest time in shaving or cutting his own hair. Questions about why this became such an important and fashionable practice are explored here by starting with the hair itself, a topic not generally considered by the extensive literature on eighteenth-century wigs and wig-wearing. My thesis highlights the diverse functions a wig could fulfil, by presenting hair in the context of eighteenth-century understanding of medicine and the body. These functions included protecting the wearer from the elements and potential contagion, projecting a more healthy or youthful appearance, and marking status or profession. This thesis considers how hair - as part of the body - became a highly desirable commodity, and the moral and physical implications this entailed. The physicality of the raw material affected those who traded in human hair and made a living out of producing wigs, as well as those who wore wigs that defined their public image. This thesis challenges existing work, which has tended to focus on gender and dress, by emphasising the connection of hair to the body and how this was translated into the conspicuous fashion for wigs.

This study examines the archaeological reflections of group identity and socio-economic networks in the region of Essex and London in the Anglo-Saxon period, between c.400 and 1066. Given its location in the south-east of England, Essex was a key zone of socio-political interaction during the early medieval period. This doctoral research has brought together the stray and excavated archaeological material from the region for the first time. The thesis presented here is centred on diachronic, quantified distributional analyses of three key material culture classes: dress accessories, pottery, and coinage. The discussion synthesises the results of these analyses, examining the observed patterns within their broader archaeological context. The thesis reveals the emergence of a hybrid dress style in the 5th and 6th centuries. This appears to have been actively created in Essex to reflect a diverse cultural inheritance, but not a specific ethnic identity. However, from the mid-7th century these styles were rejected in favour of dynamic fashions, reflecting the maritime focus of the region, and especially links with the Merovingian/Carolingian Continent. From the later 9th century, Scandinavian dress and cultural practice are also apparent, particularly in north Essex This Continental orientation reflects the emergence and transformation of the North Sea network. The engagement of Essex communities with this network is studied in detail in this thesis. The coinage and pottery analyses reveal the emergence of several exchange hubs along the North Sea coast, as well as a generalized engagement with long-distance exchange among coastal communities. This system was disrupted, but not destroyed, by the Vikings, who linked Essex with wider Scandinavian networks. However, the long-term pattern shows the decline of coastal sites in favour of urban centres from the later 9th century.

Native American women played a key role in negotiating relations between settler and Native society, especially through their relationships with white men. Yet they have traditionally languished on the sidelines of Native American and colonial American history, often viewed as subordinate and thus tangential to the key themes of these histories. This dissertation redresses the imbalance by locating women at the centre of a narrative that has been dominated by discourses in masculine aspirations. It explores the variety of relations that developed between men and women of two frontier societies in eighteenth century North America: the Creeks of the Southeast, and the Mi’kmaq of Nova Scotia. This dissertation complicates existing histories of Native and colonial America by providing a study of Indian culture that, in a reversal of traditional inquiry, asks how Native women categorised and incorporated white people into their physical and spiritual worlds. One method was through ritualised violence and torture of captives. As primary agents of this process women often selected, rejected or adopted men into the tribes, depending on factors that ranged from nationality to religion. Such acts challenged contemporary Euro-American wisdom that ordained a nurturing, auxiliary role for women. However, this thesis shows that ‘anomalous’ violent behaviours of Indian women were rooted in a femininity inculcated from an early age. In this volatile world, women were not shielded from the horrors of war. Instead, they became one of those horrors. Therefore, viewing anomalous actions as central to the analysis provides an understanding of female identities outwith the straitjacket of the Euro-American gender binary. With violence as a legitimate and natural expression of feminine power, the Indian woman’s character was far removed from depictions of the sexualised exotic, self-sacrificing Pocahontas or stoic Sacagawea. The focus on women’s violent customs, which embodied several important and unusual manifestations of Native American femininity, reveals a number of jarring behaviours that have found no home within colonial literatures. These behaviours included sanctioned infanticide and abortions, brutal tests for adolescents, scalp dancing and death rites, cannibalism, mercenary wives and sadistic grandmothers. With limited means of incorporating such female characteristics into pre-existing gender categories, the women’s acts were historically treated as non-representative of regular Indian lifeways and thus dismissed. Colonial relations are therefore analysed through an alternative lens to accommodate these acts. This allows women to construct their own narrative in a volatile landscape that largely sought to exclude those voices, voices that challenged dominant ideologies on appropriate male-female relations. By constructing a new gender framework I show that violence was a vehicle by which women realised, promoted and reinforced their tribal standing.

For mainstream services to meet the necds of an increasingly diverse population, a shift from a 'one size fits all' Eurocentric treatment approach is nccessary. Inspired by the research efforts in the UK to better understand the discrepancies in service use and experience of Black and ethnic minority service users, the present study aimed to learn from Ghanaian colleagues and to give a voice to their experience and expertise. The project hoped to gain an understanding of Ghanaian mental health professionals' experiences of working in a culture where traditional or spiritual explanations for experiences that are classified as mental illness by Western psychiatric approaches are common; specifically, their knowledge of alternative health beliefs and practices, the challenges associated with working with this client group with Western approaches and the strategies they employed to minimise these challenges. In a cultural centre of traditional African beliefs, thc project aimed to explore the process of marrying two drastically different worldviews. Theoretical sampling was used to select participants that could offer rich and relevant data, and qualitative inclusion criteria made experience a priority (community psychiatric nurses, psychiatrists, psychologists and charity workers were included in the sample). The data was thematically analysed according to the procedure of Braun and Clarke (2006). Analysis revealed the Ghanaians' ability to occupy multiple worldviews and explored health beliefs relating to mental illness. The data provides an insight into the challenges and complexities associated with delivering mainstream health care in a culture underpinned by traditional beliefs, and presents data that shines a spotlight on the way Ghanaian mental health professionals work psychologically with this client group. The findings are considered in relation to the British research that documents the challenges facing the UK with regard to improving service engagement, and experience of services, for Africans living in the UK. Clinical implications are discussed.

Theorists of constitutional patriotism argue that the binding sentiment of shared national identity can be replaced with allegiance to universal principles, interpreted into particular constitutions through ongoing deliberative processes. In this thesis, I explore the implications of such an approach for the defensibility of restrictions on migration, a subject which has previously received very little attention. I argue that constitutional patriotism implies a commitment to the free movement of individuals across borders; but that freedom of movement itself creates challenges for the implementation of constitutional patriotism. This is because it may increase anti-immigrant, nationalist sentiment in the host community. I term this phenomenon the ‘post-national paradox’. I then draw on independently collected qualitative data on Eastern European migration to English rural communities to explore this post-national paradox. I analyse the argumentative strategies, as the well as the perceptions of difference, evident in justifications of anti-immigrant and nationalist sentiment in these contexts. I highlight both perceptions of cultural and economic threat, as well as a ‘banal’ sense of national loyalty, underpinning such attitudes; and suggest that discursive practice at the most local level is necessary for the bottom up construction, or growth, of an inclusive form of identity and belonging.

In Guinea-Bissau (GB) the Guinea baboon (Papio hamadryas papio) is threatened by hunting pressure. Along with local extinctions, these practices may be inducing long-term genetic changes and disrupting underlying social structure. In this study, the bushmeat trade in GB was evaluated for the first time and the effect of hunting practices on the genetic diversity and population structure was investigated. By following the bushmeat trade at urban markets, we found baboons to be the third most traded primate species. Male baboon carcasses were sold at a price 60% higher than any other primate due to their larger body mass. Semi-structured interviews conducted with hunters revealed a preference towards male baboons and recent difficulty in finding this primates species. Non-invasive DNA sampling in southern GB and two different genetic markers (fourteen microsatellite loci and a fragment of the mitochondrial control region) suggested substantial levels of genetic diversity and recent genetic contact between different populations. However, geographic distances had a weak effect on population structure and the genetic discontinuities found were not related with landscape features. A contact zone was identified. Here, gene flow seems to be unidirectional and admixed individuals were in higher proportion. Hunting pressure may have induced recent contact between genetically differentiated individuals, which now co-exist in the same social unit. Additionally, the sex-specific patterns of gene flow and the composition of social units were compared with a non-hunted Guinea baboon population, using a molecular sex determination protocol and thirteen microsatellite loci. GB displayed a lower ratio of males within social units, which are formed in some cases by unrelated individuals. The clear female-biased dispersal pattern displayed in Senegal was less intense in GB, where gene flow seems to be mediated through both sexes. The aforementioned contact zone resulted from male immigration. Male baboon dispersal in GB could be the result of flight behaviour or a consequence of an altered sex ratio induced by hunting practices. The GB baboons displayed signs of a disrupted population and its future conservation requires specific actions to reduce or eliminate this activity.

This thesis addresses the contested and poorly defined subject area of cultural iconicity. Careful consideration of three specific uses of the term - in the popular media, as a new way of articulating national identity, and in academic publications - reveals the extent to which the term is currently poorly comprehended and misapplied. The research proposes the introduction of tighter defining parameters to cultural iconography and presents an original definition against existing work in the field. The main aim, therefore, is straightforward; to attempt to answer the general question, what are cultural icons? To meet this end a definition of iconicity will be proposed consisting of four inter-connected conditions comprising, a) distinctness of image, b) durability of image, c) reproducibility of image and d) the tragic-dramatic narrative inherent in the image. The decision to implement such a definition is supported by a range of theoretical influences, from the ideas on perception developed by the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, to recent work on the dramatic impact of tele-visual images. The philosophical influence applies the idea that human perception is strongly drawn towards tragic-dramatic forms - the tragic-dramatic narrative of cultural icons being an essential component of the definition - while new research into how images impact on common memory supports this application. The method adopted attacks the central question in three ways. Firstly, by applying throughout the work an original and practical working definition of cultural iconicity. Secondly, by differentiating the properties of primary cultural icons from other important cultural symbols (as in, for example, comparing cultural icons to photographic iconography and non-image based cultural myths). Third, a series of in-depth case studies applying the definition to real examples, which will be the crux of the project and, if successful, may prove not only an original contribution to knowledge in this new and exciting area of research, but should also appeal to a wider, non-academic readership.

This study set out to take a definitive look at African Caribbean entrepreneurship by delineating the broad spectrum of historical and contemporary theories of ethnic entrepreneurship. It also looked in particular on the phenomenon of African Caribbean entrepreneurship through the lens of Pentecostalism, which is the most popular religious expression of African Caribbean peoples in the UK. The extent to which the socio‐cultural and psycho‐religious underpinnings of the African Caribbean person are amenable to entrepreneurial engagement was also subjected to analysis. This analysis focused on themes and perspectives, which are general to African Caribbean experience – individual, family and community. They were presented as age, gender or sex, education, family structure, motivation, and funding of entrepreneurial ventures. Also in connection with these were a number of factors, which operate at the nexus of African Caribbean Pentecostalism and entrepreneurship. These include historical antecedents, socioeconomic situations up to the 1950s, the ambiguity of Scriptures towards wealth as well as the impact of the psychology of time on the African Caribbean mind. All these provide a framework in which the existential and transcendental interact in the community of faith.

Ten experiments examined the way that automatic processing of the visual perspectives and eye gaze of others affects adults‘ perception and encoding of the social world. I investigated the amount of flexibility that automatic visual perspective computation accommodates. Experiments 1, 2, and 3 demonstrate that automatic visual perspective-computation shows some flexibility for enumerating and representing perspective contents. Experiments 4 and 5 further indicate that automatic visual perspective-taking allows selection of relevant perspective information. I also examined whether observing others‘ eye gaze affects adults‘ visual working memory encoding. Experiments 6, 7, and 8 indicate that agents‘ object-oriented gaze does not lead to more efficient encoding of agent and object information. Experiments 9 and 10 demonstrate that observing others‘ participant-oriented gaze disrupts visual working memory encoding. I argue that although adults have minimal conscious control over the activation of visual perspective-computation and processing of participantoriented gaze, the efficient mindreading system shows some flexibility.

This thesis explores the use of discourse markers (DMs) in the speech of Chinese non-native speakers (NNSs) of English and native speakers (NSs), using corpus methodologies, the 'Linear Unit Grammar' analysis (Sinclair and Mauranen 2006) and text-based analyses. It reports that the DMs for analysis, 'like', 'oh', 'well', 'you know', 'I mean', 'you see', 'I think' and 'now', occur more frequently in the dialogic genres than in the monologic genres extracted from the three corpora, SECCL, MICASE and ICE-GB. The co-occurrence of DMs is taken as evidence to determine the categories for discussion with the suggested functions being secondary interpretations. Surprisingly, there are similarities in the use of DMs between Chinese NNSs and NSs. For the differences, some require NSs to become more tolerant and inclusive of the versions of English and some require pedagogical interventions for the Chinese NNSs. This thesis demonstrates that the use of DMs correlates with the genre, context, type of activity and identity of the speaker. All such factors affect the speakers' choice of a DM to use when giving priority to discourse organisation, fluency, the engagement of the listeners, the construction of the speaker‟s persona and the creation of solidarity.

The purpose of my thesis is to study the lament in ancient Greek culture, and to show how its ritual meaning is interpreted by literature. The terms goos, oimoge, threnos and linos not only indicate the presence of different ritual attitudes to death but also the existence of different interpretations for each of them. The goos and the oimoge mirror an archaic religiosity and consist of sinister utterances aimed at summoning ghosts, requesting for divine revenge, etc. Aeschylus introduces them as aischrologic acts as he implies the presence of a god or a daimon. Sophocles and Euripides use them as dysphemic elements and censure an approach to death which implies that gods are vindictive, deceitful and unjust. However, they also introduce an euphemic goos consisting in an expression of feelings. The threnos only appears in funerary contexts in Homer while is often introduced as dysphemic in drama. The linos-song is mentioned as a vintage-song in Homer, it appears as a lament and then as a song for some hero’s apotheosis or return to life in drama. The poetic use of these terms serves to understand how the social and political meaning of the ritual was understood and codified by literature.

This thesis examines the evolution of Russia’s internal and external security perceptions from 2000-2008. Drawing on social constructivist ontology, it argues that the Putin regime’s articulation of security priorities evolved in relation to its reconceptualisation of Russian state identity from a ‘weak’ to a ‘strong’ state. To trace this evolutionary relationship between state identity and security perceptions, official discourse on Chechnya is examined. In this way, Russian narrative constructions of the process of securitisation and desecuritisation of Chechnya, and the role that this discourse played within the articulation of state identity and security priorities are investigated. The thesis suggests that the initial securitisation and subsequent desecuritisation of Chechnya are best understood within the Putin regime’s discursive construction of state building and changing security priorities, rather than as a reflection of shifting material conditions. The thesis concludes that analysis of individual security policies should take into account that the narrative construction of these policies shape, and are shaped by, the multifaceted and evolutionary meta-narratives of Russian state and security identity. Moreover, it is argued that Russian security policy should be studied as a subject in its own right, investigating both internal and external security issues, rather than being subsumed within a broader foreign policy analysis.

The central focus of this thesis is the storytelling of place and the place of storytelling. These elements comprise the geoliterary terrains of narrative, the cultural matrix in which texts are sited, produced and received, including the lifeworld of the author. The texts under scrutiny in this research have been written by women during the interwar years of the 20th Century in Britain and Australia. One of the primary aims of the thesis is to explore the geoliterary terrains (including the space known as the middlebrow) of these texts in light of their relative neglect by contemporary critics in comparison with the prominence given to works written by men during this period. Analysis of the texts through the lens of locational feminism (Friedman, 1998, p.5) provides the framework for an interdisciplinary inquiry that draws on geography, feminist literary criticism and new historicism. The examination of the first of the texts, Hostages to Fortune (1933), is centred on the politics of the domestic space and the main character, Catherine’s experiences of domestic life. The chapter dealing with the second novel, A Charmed Circle (1929), while still engaging with the politics of domesticity and the everyday, also pursues the more psychological space of individual and family life as well as locating the interior spaces of the author’s lifeworld. The inquiry broadens out into spiritual and regional landscapes in the probing of The Nine Tailors (1934) which is set in the Fens of East Anglia. Expanding still further into empire, nation and identity, the fourth of the novels, The Invaluable Mystery, set in Australia, is explored in terms of the politics of place. More discussion of these sub-themes ensues as the therapeutic landscape of High Rising (1933) located in an imagined setting, is investigated and the links between the author and the writing of the novel are under scrutiny. The substantive themes of domesticity, home and nation are found to be embedded in these works and in the lifeworlds of their authors. The critical neglect of the texts is located within a set of cultural and material practices that marginalised women writers during this period. This marginalisation is in turn located within a longer historical practice of attempting to silence women’s narratives. Operating beside/against these practices are the imperative of storytelling and women’s ‘will to be known’ through narrative.

The objective of any regulation is to realise the goal(s) that justified its intervention. One means of demonstrating this is to determine the extent of regulatory compliance. This study intended to determine the extent of regulatory compliance with the Civic Government (Scotland) Act 1982 (Licensing of skin piercing and tattooing) Order 2006 in Scotland's tattooing and cosmetic body piercing industry. Implemented in Scotland in 2006, its aim was to minimise risk to health from skin piercing and tattooing. Philosophically underpinned by pragmatism, a concurrent mixed methods study was undertaken. All 220 practitioners and 78 enforcers engaging with this regulation across Scotland were invited to participate. Through analysis and interpretation of data from semi-structured questionnaires (n=107, 36%), qualitative focused interviews (n=35) and non-participant observations (n=8), users' experiences of regulatory implementation were explored and explained, to more fully understand regulatory compliance. Integrative analysis and interpretation of this study's mixed methods data determined neither substantive compliance (compliance with the collective goals of regulation) nor rule compliance (compliance with the regulatory standards) had been achieved following implementation of this new regulation. The existence of a significant level of shared activity between practitioners and enforcers during regulatory implementation was however established, where partnership working had derived from the ‘specialist' nature of industry practice. Consequently, it was deduced that ‘compliance' (defined in this context as ‘doing what was asked to conform to the law') poorly reflected the events of regulatory implementation. Instead, ‘concordance' has been discerned as the primary activity. The concept of concordance as ‘working towards agreement' more accurately depicted the experiences of practitioners and enforcers during the process of regulatory implementation. Subsequently, the extent of ‘concordance' was determined: The divergent attitudes/ experiences on the consistency of regulatory implementation and its ability to achieve its aim, coupled with the ambiguous understanding of ‘risk to health' and converse working perspectives of practitioners and enforcers led to the conclusion that goal concordance (agreement on the collective goal(s) of the regulation) had not been achieved. On the other hand, despite evidence of apparent inadequacies and omissions in industry practices, practitioner and enforcer confidence in industry infection control practices led to the conclusion that rule concordance (agreement on the regulatory standards to be met) had been achieved. From these collective findings, a ‘Specialist Industry Concordance-Compliance Model' was developed to explain the achievements of practitioners and enforcers as a result of implementing new regulation/ meeting regulatory requirements within a specialist industry. Complementing rather than conflicting with existing literature, this study offers ‘concordance' as an alternative and/or intermediate output of regulatory implementation, explaining the process by which practitioners and enforcers implement new regulation/meet regulatory requirements within a specialist industry. Moreover, the study findings provide a framework to support better understanding of the potential output from implementation, monitoring and review of regulatory interventions, frequently associated with sub-optimal compliance. In turn, through combined understanding of concordance and compliance, the design of good regulation can be promoted, thereby facilitating maximum reduction in risk/ risk to health through regulatory intervention.