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Western discourse on Soviet dissidents like Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, and Western politicians and journalists' citation of them as evidence of liberal individualism's inevitable triumph against communist totalitarianism, is interpreted by historians as having been integral to the Cold War's ideological conflict. However, this thesis demonstrates that the USSR was equally interested in depicting left-wing political figures in the West as dissidents who were evidence of capitalism's unpopularity and socialism's inevitable universal rise. This Soviet propaganda narrative primarily focused on figures from the Western New Left and trade unions. To counter the criticism Moscow received from the 1960s onwards for its abuse of Soviet dissidents' human rights, Soviet media utilised an interpretation of human rights that emphasised the centrality of labour rights. Soviet discourse depicted protesting New Leftists and striking trade unionists as dissidents who were the victims of Western anti-socialist state repression. Historians have only recently begun to study this aspect of Cold War history, and this thesis provides a new comprehensive study that reveals how the Soviet state invested significant media and diplomatic resources in building a narrative that depicted the West as the Cold War's worse abuser of human rights. By comparatively analysing Western and Soviet political discourse during 1964-91, making particular use of EastView's archives of Soviet newspapers and journals alongside other contemporary sources, this thesis presents findings that have important implications to historians' understandings of the Cold War. Particularly, they support the case increasingly made by scholars that Cold War history should be read forwards, rather than backwards from the vantage points of 1989 or 1991, to fully appreciate the complex development of the conflict by highlighting how human rights were a contested concept despite the eventual dominance of the Western interpretation post-1991 while also highlighting overlooked debate among Soviet elites and oppositionists over Western dissent.

The dispersal of asylum seekers to locations outside of the South East of England was an outcome of the 1999 Immigration and Asylum Act. This thesis examines the barriers and opportunities for refugee and asylum seeker children aged 6- 10 years and their families to achieve social, cultural, and economic inclusion into a North East town. The starting point of this thesis was to focus upon children, but this was expanded to include the experiences and perceptions of their parents who influence and can shape how children experience of settlement into the locality. There is a volume of research on refugees and asylum seekers 'integration' into the UK, however, these tend to be in located in multicultural spaces. This study presents an original contribution to research as it focuses upon children's and their family's experiences of 'settlement' in a socially disadvantaged and predominantly white working-class town within the North of England. This research coincided with an emerging political and policy landscape of an anti-immigration and hostile environment that was reflected in the results of the EU referendum. This research captures some of these tensions that impact upon recent patterns of forms of interactions. However, this study deconstructs the vague concept of 'integration' from the experiences of the refugees and asylum seekers in this study and offers an alternative notion of 'settlement' as a process of 'home making' and the beginning of new life in a new country. The processes of settlement are interrogated through use of the theoretical tools of Bourdieu's habitus, fields, and capitals, together with Putnam's notions of social capital and Goffman's 'presentation of self'. The fieldwork was carried out between 2015 and 2018. This included semi structured interviews with children using the medium of their own drawings to prompt discussion. Parents were also interviewed separately or alongside their children. Data was also gathered through the researcher's observer/participant role at a Refugee and Asylum Seeker Drop-In Service. A reflexive approach to research was applied so to be responsive to the ethical challenges of research with children, and their families. This was needed to negotiate the complex cultural and family practices that shaped opportunities and barriers to forms of a sense of belonging and settlement. The study found that refugee and asylum seeker families have educational values and aspirations that are reflective of other British middle-class families. This was explored in the biographical aspects of cultural capital that they brought from their country of origin. For examples interviewees adopted a long-term, strategic approach to their children's education despite their temporal status as non-UK citizens. Refugee and Asylum seeker children developed relationships exclusively with local working-class children through school settings. Whilst parents were more likely to develop friendships and contacts with middle class volunteers of mostly Christian denomination. This study found that refugee and asylum seeker adult's contact and interactions with working class adult neighbours was complex including examples of individual acts of support and care, but also examples of racially motivated symbolic and physical violence. The work concludes that despite the traumatic experiences of forced migration the refugee and asylum seeker families maintained high aspirations and optimism for their children's future in the UK. Furthermore, the study found that children are adaptable and perform and develop multiple identities to gain acceptance from their peers. The middle class orientated cultural capital and optimism of refugees and asylum seekers families should be of interest to policy makers, however, the hostile anti-immigration policy environment, both within the locality and wider society, remains a stubborn barrier to social, cultural, and economic forms of belonging and settlement.

This commentary presents publications relating to personality disorder services based within UK high security prisons. The Westgate Unit was evolving when this work was conducted and continues to do so. This offered unique and valuable opportunities to conduct high quality applied research and produce publications relating to a unique, high profile service. Limited publications had been produced in personality disorder services within the Prison Service compared to health settings, leading to the requirement to address this limitation. The publications' aims were to: (i) promote and communicate aspects of the service to internal and external professionals; (ii) inform stakeholder decision-making; (iii) inform practice and policy development, and; (iv) contribute to the literature-base. Varying methods are included within these submissions including a book chapter, descriptive publications, alongside qualitative and quantitative research studies. These publications were responsive to the limited available sample by the methods employed, particularly as large-scale research would not be feasible for a considerable time. The Westgate Unit's research strategy was being developed during the time these publications were being completed, resulting in these works either generating ideas within the strategy or exploring areas identified within the strategy. The main take-home messages from the presented publications relate to: the complexity of the population and their treatment needs; the requirement for responsivity-informed treatment and management; and the importance of multi-disciplinary input within personality disorder services. More specifically, findings from the research presented within these publications included: a high level of co-morbidity between personality disorder and clinical disorder diagnoses; narcissistic personality disorder being predictive of treatment dropout; and prisoners located on a new progression service hoping to achieve both progression and becoming part of a community. The communication publications included shared: clinical and clinically-informed practices employed by the Westgate Unit (highlighting the importance of an eclectic model of treatment for personality disorder); clinical responses to change in national policy in substance use intervention; and how approaches initiated by the Westgate Unit have been transferred and applied to both small, discrete units and main location settings within the high security prison estate. Resultant from the work within these publications, the Westgate Unit expanded treatment-supportive services for this complex client group. Knowledge regarding the hopes and expectations of a new progression service informed the training and supervision of multidisciplinary staff and policy development. An (unanticipated) additional benefit from these works becoming published included networking opportunities both within and outside of the Prison Service and subsequent working relationships. Connections to local universities opened up mutually beneficial opportunities for the university and the prison. These publications made headway in terms of addressing gaps in the literature-base for prison-based personality disorder services and sparked further research.

This study explores an area of systemic family-therapy practice in a public addiction service in Ireland with experts by experience whose family lives have been affected by addiction issues relating to alcohol. As a systemic family therapist working in an alcohol service, I noticed a change in the pattern of affected family members (AFMs) who were accessing our alcohol treatment service. Parents of adult drinkers who had returned home to live with them or who had never moved out of their family home were seeking services for themselves and their family members. I felt that this was not an isolated issue but a significant systemic change in the pattern of family members attending alcohol-addiction services that was not evident in the literature on addiction to date. Within this research, I set out to address this gap by creating a polyphonic, layered account of this issue from many positions in the system: the AFMs' position and the professional therapists' and organisational and commissioning position. This study involved the recruitment of experts by experience in two areas: AFMs and professional counsellor-therapists. Six participants were recruited for the study, and treatment demand indicator data from 11 countries was obtained. Research was conducted using three processes: (1) in-depth interviews using a teller-based interview methodology were conducted with the research participants; (2) the data generated through this process was transcribed and analysed using thematic and narrative analysis; and (3) quantitative treatment demand indicator (TDI) data from addiction services nationally and internationally was analysed using statistical package for social sciences (SPSS) to identify and profile the population of persons in an addictive relationship with alcohol (PARs) who live with parents or other family members within the TDI data. Narrative portraits, constructed in a collaborative process with the AFMs, brought forth the themes identified in thematic and narrative analysis of the interview data. This research uses a postmodern, qualitative, theoretical lens that facilitates inquiry into professional clinical practice. It contributes thereby to the movement towards practice-based research with vulnerable populations in health-care settings.

Maternal imprisonment is an often-overlooked area of prison research due to the smaller number of individuals it concerns. However, the impact of sending a mother to prison can be wide-ranging and go far beyond the individual mother. This research took a qualitative narrative approach to examine the wider traumatic impact of maternal imprisonment. Using a socio-ecological framework, informed by trauma theory, the research conceptualizes maternal imprisonment as causing intergenerational trauma, using a definition of trauma that encompasses individual, family, community, and societal factors. 10 interviews were carried out with staff working with mothers in the community and 19 interviews with mothers who had experienced a period of imprisonment in the North East of England. The research found that the majority of mothers had experienced prior trauma in their lives, and that the experience of prison was traumatic for both themselves and their families. The loss of the mothering role due to separation from children had enduring impacts beyond the period of imprisonment, coupled with the stigma of being a mother with a criminal record. Women recounted how prison had changed their sense of self, destroyed their relationships with their children, and those caring for them. They also experienced problems with housing, benefits, and employment. This study shows the breadth and depth of the impact of maternal imprisonment by understanding trauma as something experienced at different levels, including individually, within the family and the wider community and society. It shows how trauma is both experienced directly by children and kinship carers in addition to mothers and passed on vicariously through damage to relationships and family living arrangements. The study uses intergenerational trauma as a way of describing these harms across the generations, showing the enormous impact of maternal imprisonment that generally outweighs the punishment for what are usually minimal non-violent offences.

Policies, ideas and models related to sex work move between places. Yet there has been little academic attention paid to such mobilities. This thesis attends to this gap by drawing on and extending a policy mobilities approach - incorporating the concepts of mobilities, mutation, assemblages, learning, educating, showcasing, immobilities and gender - to uncover the processes through which sex work policies become mobile models. It focuses on the example of the Swedish and Dutch models of sex work regulation and their reception in the UK (including England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland). Methodologically, it uses a qualitative approach drawing on documentary analysis and semi-structured interviews which were undertaken with key stakeholders including, state officials, consultants, academics, activists, and NGOs. Empirically, the thesis demonstrates that both models have been widely discussed in policy, NGO and academic circles in the UK, with much learning and educating done about both models. The models have been accompanied by a range of 'study aids' - including conferences and fact-finding trips - as well as advocates and critics. Despite its flaws, the Swedish model has gained significantly more traction in the UK than its Dutch model 'rival'. Conversely, while there is some evidence of local-to-local learning between the UK and the Netherlands, the Dutch model has been positioned by many as a lesson in 'worst practice', effectively immobilising its movement to the UK. The thesis has shown that the issue of gender runs behind the two models and their messages, messengers and the mediums through which they are advocated or critiqued. The thesis demonstrates that while a policy mobilities approach is important to the study of policies on the move, it must take seriously the issue of gender.

This thesis explores how older men use metaphors to express what it is like to live through extreme periods of long-term unemployment. These metaphors are viewed from a phenomenological, embodied perspective, based on the theories of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, as an appeal to recognise lived experience that is not reflected in the dominant discourse which blames unemployed people for their own situation. This lived experience is evoked through a rich depth of experiential material drawn from one year's ethnographic research with unemployed men undertaking supervised job search in a deprived area of Newcastle, England. Within this context, the central metaphor of death is understood to originate in disciplinary practices, which are interpreted via the theories of Michel Foucault as attempts to homogenise the long-term unemployed as deviant and thereby in need of control. The men's stories of being treated as animals, meat, corpses and scum add to existing analyses of death as a metaphor for unemployment. Interpreting these metaphors by drawing upon the concept of social death provides an understanding of how the long-term unemployed are framed as being at the bottom of, or outside, the social order. Contrary to existing conceptions of social death as applying to only the most extreme circumstances, this thesis supports the men's expressions as indicating social death as they are not recognised as worthy of reciprocal recognition from employers and Jobcentre workers. The men resist the negative character finalisation inherent in these practices through 'fun', which is understood via Mikhail Bakhtin's theory of carnivalesque as allowing them to temporarily tear down the social hierarchy by ridiculing the official perspective on unemployment. The significance of this study is that it addresses a recognised gap in research regarding jobseeker resistance.

The UK's counterterrorism policy CONTEST has generated controversy. The preventative arm of the policy, Prevent, has been the focus of much of this. Prevent has gone through four different iterations so far, in 2006, 2009, 2011 and 2018. The periods governed by the policies of 2006 and 2009 targeted the Muslim community and looked to change the milieu of this community to increase resilience to extremist ideologies. The periods governed by the 2011 and 2018 policies look to individual interventions and have expanded targeting to the "whole of society" including the far-right. The work of Prevent between 2006 and 2011 was criticised because the policy cast suspicion on British Muslims, was accused of spying, and was Islamophobic. Post-2011, these criticisms have continued. After the introduction of the "Prevent Duty" in 2015, which put a statutory duty on all public institutions to pay due regard to Prevent, many have also been concerned that the policy securitizes these institutions and expands security surveillance throughout society. The thesis argues that women are primarily seen as peaceful, and thus useful to Prevent as pacifying agents. The study is analytically original, as it analyses how women have been included in the policy over time and space. So far, the few studies that have looked at women have been confined to single case studies or interview work. This study uses mixed sources, including a review of policy documentation from 2006-2018, case studies of two national Prevent projects and one local area, interviews with practitioners and with Muslim and BME, and right-wing women. This includes original primary documentation. It argues that Prevent largely sees women as mothers and as interlocutors with community members, providing the policy with access to and influence in these spheres. Original data from interviews with practitioners further unpack this. These interviews highlight that shifts in Prevent are largely reactionary. After many women migrated to Islamic State-held territory in 2014, Prevent was challenged in its conception of the "pacific female". Thus, it modified its understanding, and policy changed so that young women could be thought of as a risk. However, women were still largely seen as peaceful. Women who left for Islamic State were framed as "brainwashed", and thus not really violating their femininity. Women were still key to the policy as mothers, were enlisted to help stop daughters from migrating to Syria. Women interviewed viewed Prevent as a burden, and one which is especially heavy for women of colour from a migration background. They also argued that the "brainwashing" narrative is infantilizing, and that Prevent mainly exists to whitewash political dissent at the expense of women. Some women also highlight how Prevent allies itself with religious actors, marginalizing secular women and secular women's services. As such this thesis challenges the field include gendered analysis of counterterrorism policy. It introduces feminist analysis to the field, arguing that while Prevent impacts women beyond Islamophobia and narratives of suspicion. It also reinforces sexist tropes about women's place in the home, and their maternal nature.

This thesis aimed to analyse and investigate holiday food provision for children with a focus on short and long term nutritional outcomes. A mixed-methods approach was utilised and programmes within one local authority in England were explored. Data obtained through participant observations, interviews, and an interactive visual method was analysed and interpreted through a theoretical framework based on Bourdieu's (2010) concepts of habitus and taste. In addition, the menus offered to participants were analysed to understand the impact of the provision on nutritional intake. Data interpretation was also facilitated by the findings from the field of behavioural nutrition (Gallo, 2018; Reilly, 2018) and sociological theories of Bataille (1988) and Mauss (1969). It was concluded that although these programmes have the potential to improve short and long term nutritional outcomes of participating families, this impact was not straightforward. The families gained access to free and safe food, however, the menus did not always provide sufficient amounts of food that was in line with the current government dietary guidelines (Public Health England, 2016). The data suggested that participants' reactions to the menus were influenced by their habitus and that unfamiliar foods were rejected. Consequently, the provision of such foods appeared to have a negative effect on the short term nutritional outcomes. Simultaneously, offering unfamiliar foods could have a positive impact on long term dietary habits due to social facilitation and exposure. The provision of the programme and the staff members were also influenced by the same socio-economic factors that affected the lives of participating families. Their ability to provide meals was determined by time, financial, space, and equipment constraints. Furthermore, the food donations from a food redistribution charity frequently prevented the programme from achieving its goals of improving participants' nutritional intakes and cooking skills. This thesis provided a significant contribution to knowledge about the importance of delivering food programmes in line with the habitus of participants. It also offered an original discussion about potential implications of these findings for practice and public policy, particularly in regard to the varying approaches to delivery and the impact of programme logistics on nutritional outcomes.

This thesis studies rapport: a harmonious relationship between people. More specifically, it focuses on the creation and maintenance of such a relationship through a process known as rapport management. My analysis looks at specific ways in which people use language to manage their relationships in ViMELF, the corpus of Video-Mediated English as a Lingua Franca Conversations. My research addresses various gaps in rapport research by analysing rapport management in a corpus as an applied example. There is a disconnect between the study of a macro-linguistic concept like rapport (social and interactional strategies) and the micro-linguistic features that help manage rapport. There is also a disconnect between qualitative and quantitative research on rapport. This thesis bridges these gaps by combining qualitative and quantitative approaches and focussing on three linguistic features that affect a specific rapport strategy, that of stance or conversational positioning. Rather than trying to capture rapport in its entirety, this thesis constitutes a new approach to the analysis of rapport strategies and features and their extraction from larger datasets. To achieve that, I ask three research questions: (1) Which linguistic strategies and features are used when managing rapport, (2) How is the rapport management strategy influenced by the medium, the speakers' backgrounds and idiosyncrasies, and (3) How can corpus linguistic methods be appropriated to analyse a rapport strategy and its realisations in the form of linguistic features? The knowledge generated with this research is theoretical as well as practical in nature. My thesis contributes to academic knowledge about how the three linguistic features-pronouns, pragmatic markers and laughter-influence how unacquainted speakers positions themselves in conversation and thereby effectively manage rapport. I explore the features' ambiguity, the different meanings that they take on depending on the context. Speakers either commit to a stance or, because of the ambiguity of the features, avoid doing so-depending on which function is necessary in a particular situation. This makes the features the perfect toolkit for navigating the fragile relationship speakers build with their conversation partner. My research also contributes practical knowledge about how corpus linguistic methods can be appropriated to advance rapport research, which results in a practical output in form of a software tool developed for this purpose. As an essential step in combining quantitative and qualitative methods, the thesis adopts the concept of co-occurrences and applies these to the linguistic features in the spoken corpus data, which has great potential for further research with other features, as it reveals their patterns of use in new ways.

The ongoing development and ubiquitous spread of technology has brought with it new threats and opportunities for online victimisation. Although human factors cyber-security research continues to try to mitigate these threats through the application of behavioural science, some users, such as older adults, remain at particular risk of cyber-attacks, and yet remain heavily under-represented in the extant literature base. This thesis outlines a mixed methods approach to understanding older adult cyber-security vulnerability. The thesis began by identifying a range of technological changes that take place during the transition into retirement. Each of these changes offered avenues for subsequent cyber-security vulnerability. Through conducting a large-scale online survey in retired older adults, these retirement related factors were shown to be associated with engagement in risky online cyber-security behaviours. It was identified that the strongest predictor of these was an individual’s computer self-doubt. A second qualitative study found that older adults see cyber-security as a stressful subject and demonstrated both: the factors that influenced their confidence in relation to engaging in cyber-security behaviours, as well as their reasons for disengaging from cyber-security behaviours. A scale was developed to further understand older adult’s security related stress, which was applied to understand their coping behaviours when faced with a cyber-security challenge. This was effective at predicting older adults’ engagement in dysfunctional coping, highlighting how security stress might promote cyber-security vulnerability. Finally, the research applied the transactional theory of stress and coping to older adults’ cyber-security, demonstrating its effectiveness in predicting both dysfunctional and problem focussed coping strategies. The thesis provides new knowledge as to the factors which promote cyber-security vulnerability in older adults and outlines specific avenues as to how this vulnerability might manifest. Throughout this thesis, recommendations for policy makers, developers and future research are made and discussed in the context of existing literature.

This study provides a distinctive insight into the educational experiences of recent care leavers in one Local Authority. Policies and practices that enable or constrain the capacity of children in care to fulfil their educational aspirations are examined. This study demonstrates the importance and complexity of trusting peers and key adults, the value of education, the challenges imposed by the prospect of premature independence and the significance of clothing, food and terminology associated with the care system. Findings from this study contribute to the developing body of research that highlights the importance of everyday experiences for young people in care (Mannay et al, 2019; 2017; Rees, 2019; Rees and Munro, 2019; Narey and Owers, 2017; Rogers, 2017 and Selwyn and Briheim-Crookall, 2017). This study foregrounds the voices of care experienced young people. Insights have been gained from semi-structured interviews with twenty-one young people aged between eighteen and twenty-seven years of age and three key members of Children’s Services in one Local Authority. Participants discussed the importance of relationships with key adults and peers, the complexity of disclosing their care status, their commitment to education and concerns regarding the terminology employed in the care system. Participants clearly articulated their educational and career aspirations and modes of reflexivity (Archer, 2012; 2010; 2007; 2003; 2000). This study identifies that generalised teachers appear to offer support far beyond their statutory responsibilities. The Designated Teacher role was less well received by participants and this finding would benefit from further research. Relevant national policies since 1989 are examined with a particular focus on policies since New Labour came to office in 1997. The impact of these policies is also considered in the context of the selected Local Authority. Analysis of these policies highlighted increased levels of Local Authority accountability and a period of targets for improved social and academic outcomes during Blair’s tenure. Subsequent governments removed these targets and reduced tax relief for parents and funding for programmes such as Sure Start. Since 2010 there has been an increase in targeted programmes such as Troubled Families (Ministry of Housing, Community and Local Government, 2011), Staying Put (DfE, 2014) and higher levels of Pupil Premium funding. Literature is also considered with a clear emphasis on the challenges of social and routine aspects of a life in care. Archer’s theory of internal conversations and modes of reflexivity is utilised to understand how participants navigate their circumstances and plan in both the shorter and longer term (2012; 2010; 2007; 2003; 2000). Archer’s notion of the internal conversation illuminates the decisions, plans and priorities of care experienced young people. An adaption of Archer’s modes of reflexivity is suggested. The proposed adaption ‘reluctant autonomy’ aims to capture the sense of enforced and premature self-reliance which many participants highlighted in their interview.

Due to its workings as a global financial nexus, activists critical of capitalism have used the City of London to stage a number of large-scale direct actions since the 1983-84 Stop the City protests. By examining protest at this renowned site of intensified observation, I argue, we can learn a great deal about what surveillance processes do in practice. To develop its argument, this thesis offers a detailed examination of visual surveillance and counter surveillance practice over four protests: the J18 (1999); the G20 Meltdown (2009); Climate Camp in the City (2009); and Occupy LSX (2011). Based on empirical, qualitative research through archival work, interviews, and video documentation stored at the MayDay Rooms, this thesis demonstrates how City and Met police used visual surveillance to disrupt, re-frame and further criminalise dissent. Over the course of these four protests the police learnt new ways to suppress what they termed ‘extreme’ protest. Conversely, activists developed choreographed, embodied movements and alternative technologies to counter new public order procedures and police surveillance. Politically driven artists, performers and technologists were at the vanguard of these new protest formations, early internet livestreaming and pioneering technical innovations that challenged existing surveillant structures. Yet, as this thesis articulates, over the course of these protests many activists’ inventions were slowly subsumed into proprietary online frameworks, which embed surveillance by default. This thesis uses insights from Marx and Marxist inspired theorists to describe how this method of surveillance and subsumption took place. While police formations informed by this history are increasingly being taken up nationally and internationally, it is vital to understand how state security forces and corporate observers have dealt with ‘extreme’ protests in the City.

This thesis critically examines the practical and theoretical significance of autonomous learning spaces that have experimented with alternative forms of no-fee, higher education provision in the United Kingdom (UK). This thesis makes an original contribution to knowledge by: (i) documenting and critically examining the importance of these autonomous spaces in a way that can inspire and support others involved in similar projects now, or in the future; (ii) grounding them within an Libertarian-Marxist theoretical framework that highlights their potential to prefigure alternative models of higher education provision and self-organisation to crack or rupture capitalist social relations by functioning in, against and beyond them; (iii) highlighting their potential for people from different ideological and theoretical affiliations to work together to overcome differences by working on concrete political projects that is referred to a process of left-wing convergence; and, (iv) examining the use of participatory action research for academics involved in political projects as a form of scholar-activism that supports and encourages more overt political engagement under the concept of public sociology. The autonomous learning spaces that feature in this thesis emerged out of the student protests against increased tuition fees and proposed changes to higher education in England that were announced by the UK Coalition Conservative-Liberal Democrat Government in 2010. While these reforms were a tipping point for many involved in these protests, they are part of a much longer ideological and political project that began in the late 1970s to impose a neoliberal model of higher education on the sector. The culmination of these reforms has had a detrimental impact on higher education, including a shift towards less democratic models of university governance, the creation of an unsustainable funding model of higher education, increasingly precarious and intensified working conditions for staff and growing levels of anxiety and debt for students creating a crisis over the nature and purpose of higher education. These changes have not gone unopposed and, in 2010, they triggered a wave of protests, trade union strike action and the occupation of university property by students opposed to these reforms. While these protests failed to prevent the Coalition’s reforms to higher education being implemented, they created a new form of student activism and politics that were part of an attempt to prefigure alternative forms of education and self-organisation. One example of this was the emergence of autonomous learning spaces that experimented with no-fee, alternative models of higher education. This thesis focuses on these experimental spaces and examines what, if anything, can be learned from them to create an alternative model of higher education institution contra to the neoliberal model that has been imposed by successive governments since the 1970s. The research focuses on seven autonomous learning spaces based in the UK, including one, the Social Science Centre (Lincoln, UK), which I was an active member of between 2012 and 2014. Indeed, the research stems from an attempt to document and reflect on my own, and others, experience of being involved in creating and running an autonomous learning space through a participatory action research project. The data was gathered using a mixture of participant observation, 28 semi-structured interviews and web based analysis of minutes of meetings, blog posts and websites. The research found that while these autonomous learning spaces tended to be embryonic, ephemeral and contested spaces, they functioned as places wherein people not only resisted the neoliberlisation of higher education but also experimented with forms of critical pedagogy as well as models of self-organisation that were underpinned by non-hierarchical and democratic principles. The research found that these autonomous learning spaces were characterised by a diversity of different theoretical, political and cultural perspectives and while this caused friction within groups it highlights the potential for people to work together on concrete political projects in a way that show left-wing convergence is possible. The research found that these autonomous learning spaces also had an important affective, non-intellectual dimension. This was supported by bonds of friendship and trust that developed between people working on these projects. The practical and theoretical significance of these autonomous learning spaces, then, is that they have the potential to inform the creation of new higher education institutions or the transformation of old ones along more egalitarian, collectively owned and participatory democratic lines as a response to the neoliberalisation of higher education. Moreover, these autonomous learning spaces provide a fissure of hope and inspiration that alternative ways of being exist that have the potential to challenge, question, rupture and crack the contradictory and exploitative nature of capitalist social relations and create spaces wherein it is possible to prefigure the idea of the university for a post-capitalist society.

There is a growing body of literature on digital inequalities with an interest in mending inequalities in a world that increasingly relies on the digital by identifying and isolating the factors that predict digital opportunities. However, there is little which addresses differences in Internet access where infrastructural access in terms of availability and affordability is not an issue. In addition, artificially limiting Internet access is becoming normalised, with limitations used liberally as means for control, neglecting the potential implications of such measures. The inspiration for this research came from the small body of knowledge available on the effect of artificial Internet limitations on digital inequalities and the consequences of Internet controls on how people make use of the Internet. This research highlights these potential consequences, whether deliberate or not, and link them to outcomes of Internet use, while shedding light on the effectiveness of such limitations. The research was motivated by a belief in the potential the Internet allows as an open platform for a universe with equal access and opportunities for the people. The first part of the research studied artificial Internet limitations in three communities, Bahrain, Estonia, and Singapore, as a factor in determining digital inequalities through two studies aimed at assessing change in opportunities, measured as differences in tangible outcomes of Internet use, as a function of artificial Internet limitations. The findings showed that artificial Internet limitations do indeed affect digital opportunities, producing lower satisfaction, with achievement opportunities attained when the individual is able to circumvent the controls. The second part of the research is a practical implementation of the model developed in the first part to predict digital opportunities in one of the projects to reach new Internet users, commonly referred to as Next Billion(s). Facebook's Free Basics platform was chosen as an example. The platform provides access to a set of services without incurring data charges in a form of zero-rating. The innate limitations of the platform were proven to limit the potential for individual to access any content not within the walled garden of the platform with near-zero circumvention potential, leaving opportunities provided by the platform to wither in front of the limitations set. People with access only to that platform remain passive consumers and part of disconnected and excluded communities, as the platform limits the potential for meaningful participation in the network society.

In recent years sporting embodiment has attracted an increasing level of academic attention, including a burgeoning sociological corpus that draws influence from the existential phenomenology of Maurice Merleau-Ponty. This combination of phenomenology and sociology provides a powerful framework from which to examine sporting embodiment, and challenges many taken-for granted assumptions and presuppositions regarding the often underexplored, undertheorized ‘mundane’ elements of our sporting experience. Swimming is one physical culture where embodied experiences have been shown to be core elements of recreational or leisure swimming. Studies that examine the embodied experiences of competitive swimming, however, remain sparse, and tend to be limited to critical sociological examinations of gendered relationships or training regimes, which often overlook the intense embodied experiences of training and competing. Utilising ethnographic methods of participant observation, conducted across three, five-week immersions, and 19 individual and three group interviews with senior performance swimmers, this study develops a richer and deeper understanding of the competitive swimming lifeworld and how a swimmer’s embodied experiences contribute fundamentally to the construction of this lifeworld. The study aims were achieved by addressing five key themes generated from the data. The first, ‘Becoming and Remaining’, focuses on the swimmers’ motivations for entering and remaining within the aquatic lifeworld. The second, ‘Doing Competitive Swimming’, presents the different ways in which the swimming body is central to the ‘doing’ of competitive swimming. The third, ‘The Shifted Swimming Sensorium’ describes the variety of sensory experiences that make up the swimmers’ sensory stock of knowledge. The fourth, ‘Discomfort, Pain and Enduring’ examines the various painful experiences within the swimming lifeworld and how swimmers come to understand and endure these. The fifth and final theme, ‘The Intersubjective and Intercorporeal Competitive Swimming Lifeworld’, challenges the notion of swimming as an individual sport highlighting the shared and intercorporeal moments that emphasis the social nature of competitive swimming.

This PhD thesis critically examines how Walt Disney Animation Studios (WDAS) has depicted – and sometimes failed to depict – different forms of harming and objectifying animals (1937–2016). This is an interdisciplinary project that contributes new research into Disney studies and critical animal studies. As such, this project will utilize past research in critical animal studies, particularly speciesism, throughout. Each chapter of this thesis focusses on a different form of harm or objectification that animals can experience: Chapter 1: Animal Food Farming, Chapter 2: Hunting and Fishing, Chapter 3: Clothing, Chapter 4: Pets and Working Animals, and Chapter 5: Entertainment. Each chapter begins by outlining the history, relevant scholarly literature, and other relevant cultural depictions of that form of harm. Then, each chapter presents the data that demonstrates how many times these types of harm or objectification have been depicted in WDAS films. Next, each chapter offers a broad exploration of how the chapter’s topic(s) has been depicted in WDAS films and (where appropriate) across the wider Disney brand. Finally, each chapter includes case studies relevant to that chapter’s topic. For example, Chapter 1: Animal Food Farming includes a close-reading of Home on the Range (2004), a WDAS film set on a dairy farm. As well as studying WDAS films, this project will also explore other elements of the Disney brand such as the theme parks and merchandise in order to understand Disney’s depictions of animals and animal harm more broadly. The thesis concludes by arguing that since 1937 WDAS representations of animals and animal harm have been shaped by speciesist attitudes. Throughout WDAS’s history, higher-order, heavily-anthropomorphised, neotenized, pro-social, and individualized animal characters have been depicted as un-deserving of the harm or objectification that their species commonly experience. In contrast, lower-order, non-anthropomorphised species have been depicted as little more than objects. Additionally, it is evident that WDAS has only challenged animal harm that has become socially unacceptable, such as the production of fur. Animal harm that is socially-acceptable or involves lower-order species (such as the production of leather) has been minimized, attenuated, or depicted romantically. Additionally, some forms of animal harm that are very common in reality, such as medical testing, have never been depicted, or even acknowledged, in WDAS films.

Background: Around 1.2 billion people, or 1 in 6 of the world's population, are adolescents aged 10 to 19. Evidence has shown that in most countries of the world children are attaining puberty and biological maturity at an earlier age. This trend may perhaps be due to improved nutrition though other factors may also be at play. In every population, adolescents are amongst the most sexually active of groups and may become involved in regular unhealthy and risky sexual practices that further threaten future reproductive health. STIs (including HIV) and unintended pregnancy among adolescents remain both a risk and public health burden, in spite of long-term efforts at prevention. Aim: This study aims to critically investigate the understanding and experience of sexual development of a school-aged sample of adolescents in Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria by means of a longitudinal mixed-methods approach. Methods: An adapted version of the WHO 'Asking young people about sexual and reproductive behaviours' survey was administered at baseline and 6 months (n=121). Hierarchical Cluster Analysis of baseline results was used in order to determine a sampling matrix for the qualitative phase of this study. The emergent clusters differed on the basis of whether participants were home or peer oriented in their outlook. Semistructured interviews (n=10) were undertaken with a mixture of peer-oriented and home-oriented young people. Result/findings: Statistically significant differences were determined between baseline and 6 months in terms of whether members of the sample had 'ever had a boy/girlfriend' (χ² = 20.407, P ≤ 0.000), 'ever had sex before' (χ² = 5.493, P ≤ 0.019), as well as changes in attitudinal orientations towards sex before marriage (U = 2268.00, P≤0.017). Thematic analysis of qualitative data revealed a complex interplay of factors mediating adolescent sexual choices including informational, family, peer, cultural and social structural factors. Conclusion: This study provides some evidence in support of the role of social structures in determining adolescent sexual choices: adolescent development is a reality, but not one that can be understood solely in terms of agency or culture. It can, therefore, be argued that society and government have a role to play in supporting young people in 4 | P a g e making responsible sexual choices. Improving adolescent sexual and reproductive health remains a public health priority both locally, nationally and internationally.

This thesis is concerned with gender and legitimacy in political representation. This work contributes to the field of politics and gender, through an in-depth examination of political representation at the local level which is under-researched. The study focuses on elected and unelected local representatives, in a study site where elected women have achieved 'gender balance', as in equal numerical representation (50% of the seats) at council level. It analyses their experiences and perspectives, and those of their peers (elected men, and unelected women) in order to identify gender dimensions and explore the concept of legitimacy. It is based on original qualitative data collected using semi-structured interviews with elected and unelected representatives, at the local level. Secondary data collection has been used to supplement the interview data. The research finds that the legitimacy of unelected and elected women in representative positions at the local level is contested; that gender is a factor in the relationships between the representatives and the represented; and that there are gender dimensions which affect the representational work of both elected and unelected women. It also finds that there are dynamic inter-connections between elected and unelected women which enable the representatives to better navigate the complex 'geometry of representation' at the local level. The research is important because it contributes to current debates regarding the legitimacy of women as both elected and non-elected representatives, and because it sheds light on gendered dimensions of local level political representation, at a time when 'gender balance' and the legitimacy of women in public life, are of contemporary interest.

The purpose of this thesis is to examine the impact of the current legal framework in England and Wales governing public sexual practices upon the risk-taking behaviours of men who have sex with men (MSM) in public sex environments in Newcastle upon Tyne. Adopting a feminist methodological approach and drawing upon queer theory and edgework, this thesis critically examines the narratives of sixteen self-identified MSM as they discuss the ways in which they construct, negotiate and manage the socio-legal and physical risks associated with their public sexual activities. In doing so, this thesis makes an original contribution to knowledge by furthering queer understandings of the socio-legal landscape with emphasis placed upon identity, risk, and environment. Geographically bound within the post-industrial city of Newcastle upon Tyne, this thesis qualitatively explores how the conceptions of risk held by the participants of this study as they contemplate and engage in public sexual practices can be fluid and can change in response to a variety of social relations. Drawing upon Lyng's (1990) concept of edgework which emphasises the lived experiences of risk, this thesis takes a view of risk-taking as not always a pre-cursor to a negative event or experience, but rather as a means for exploring the liminal margins of everyday urban life. The positioning of MSM within these liminal urban spaces poses significant challenges to law enforcement agencies and local and national service providers alike. As a demographic they are often considered hard to reach by traditional methods of service provision and as such are categorised as 'high-risk'. It is anticipated that the data contained within this thesis could be utilised by local and national service providers as well as law enforcement agents to provide information and inform strategy regarding the service provision and harm reduction needs of MSM in their communities.

The inevitable need to develop new delivery practices in last-mile delivery arises from the enormously growing business to consumer (B2C) e-commerce and the associated challenges for logistics service providers. Autonomous delivery vehicles (ADVs) will potentially revolutionise last-mile delivery with regard to efficiency, sustainability and customer orientation. However, if not widely accepted by end-consumers, the introduction of ADVs as a delivery option can be a substantial waste of resources. At present, the research on consumers' receptivity of innovations in last-mile delivery, such as ADVs, is limited. This study is the first that investigates user acceptance of ADVs in Germany by utilising a theoretically extended and modified version of the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT2) in the specific context of last-mile delivery. Quantitative data was collected through an online survey approach (n = 501) and structural equation modelling was undertaken. The results indicate that overall trust in technology is the strongest predictor of behavioural intention (i.e., user acceptance), followed by price sensitivity, performance expectancy, innovativeness, hedonic motivation, social influence and overall perceived risk; whereas no effect could be found for effort expectancy and facilitating conditions. Additionally, street performance and parcel drop-off performance significantly influence overall trust in technology. The same is true for the effect of perceived performance risk during parcel drop-off and perceived safety risk when driving autonomously on overall perceived risk. Moreover, it has been found that overall trust in technology negatively influences overall perceived risk. Collectively, the Autonomous Delivery Vehicle Acceptance Model was able to explain 80 percent of the variance in behavioural intention to use ADVs. These findings have not only important theoretical contributions but also managerial implications in the areas of technology acceptance and last-mile delivery innovations, which will support the long-term success of ADVs as a last-mile delivery option in Germany.

Recently, the political landscape in Europe has been dominated by the growth of populism and the proliferation of smaller political parties, including those of the far right. Pressures are exacerbated by difficulties in discernment of truth amid the prolific dissemination of 'fake news'; alongside exploitation by politicians of technology induced changes in pace and volume of information. At no other time in the history of politics has there been greater need for rapid learning, particularly for established political parties, in order for them to be able to adapt, keep up and remain relevant on today's political stage. This research, utilising interpretivist methodology, aimed to critically explore and analyse informal communication activities within a centre-left political party in a country of the European Union (EU). The research used a qualitative case study approach to investigate how informal communication influences learning in a political party. An in-depth contextual approach was taken, which involved exploring, through interviews, the perceptions of five participants, identified by using purposive sampling. These were firstly about relevant organisational contexts and secondly, two weeks later, about specific examples of 'informal conversation'; the latter term being the participants' agreed working definition of informal communication. Nine conversation cases emerged from the participants' examples for more focused exploration. The research design was developed through integrating information behaviour and organisational learning perspectives. Template analysis was applied to the findings. Two existing information behaviour models by Wilson (1999) were modified into new models, incorporating elements of organisational theory. The new working model of human information communication in conversation was applied to the findings to enrich and enhance their interpretation, surfacing additional information such as motivation for knowledge sharing as well as for information seeking in conversation. Findings showed boundaries between the formal and informal can be blurred. Many of the revealed aspects of informal communication reflected the nature of the organisation. The participants identified that a key contextual challenge for learning was the party having to rediscover its identity and place, in today's climate, without compromising its integrity. Self-efficacy regarding influence in the party through informal communication was only expressed by very active participants. The likelihood of follow-up activity from informal communication depended on the issues discussed. The research design has potential for expansion to comparative studies as well as application in other types of organisations.

In the wake of war and disaster families wanted to mourn their dead. Public memorials to those who died in the First World War were influenced by governmental, local, and elite agents. The families of the dead participated in wider Remembrance Day initiatives, but they found memorial agency in the construction of grief on a private, familial, level. While historians of the First World War have acknowledged the importance of family memorial practices, none have yet tackled the subject in a sustained study. This split between public and private, between individuals and the nation state, is where this doctoral study of family memorialisation lies. After the First World War, families did not have access to a body, had little authority over how their loved one's grave looked, and were not allowed to shape memorial services on Remembrance Sunday. So too, the families of those who lost a loved one in a mining disaster were given limited autonomy over burial practices. Therefore, the experiences of those who lost a loved one in the war are compared to those who had been bereaved through a mining disaster in order to contextualise wartime loss. Behind closed doors and in liminal spaces, families enacted memorial agency over the dead and attempted to provide points of memory to remember them by. This thesis focuses on the small, the ephemeral, and the physical to access this hidden world of family mourning in the first four decades of the twentieth century.

The past two decades has seen an increased interest in, and awareness of, the ways in which cancer and concomitant treatments effects individuals and couples in terms of their expressions of sexuality and sexual health (incorporating psychosexual health) (Sadovsky & Bassoon et al, 2010, Greenwald &McCorkle, 2008, De Vocht, 2011). However, the research studies found focused on the impact on heterosexual individual's and couples, with a dearth of literature pertaining to the impact on lesbian and bisexual women affected by cancer. Although, the health care needs of individuals from sexual minority groups has begun to be recognised and addressed by practitioners (Stonewall, 2010, Davey, 2012), the lack of available literature to help guide practice in this area means that they often fail to recognise the needs of the lesbian women in their care. The aims of this study were therefore twofold, firstly to explore the sexuality, sexual health (incorporating psychosexual health) and relationship experiences of lesbian and bisexual women who have been diagnosed and received treatment for cancer. Secondly to use the outputs from the first aim, to develop a conceptual framework and model for practitioners working with lesbian and bisexual women in the fields of cancer care in regards to these areas. This study was designed with a research design which enabled the 'voices' of both the lesbian and bisexual women, and the cancer practitioners to be heard. The overarching research methodology was descriptive phenomenology, however, it became evident that the traditional approach taken in descriptive phenomenological studies (Giorgi, 1985, 2009, Rutherford & McIntyre et al, 2012) would not yield the breadth and depth of data needed to develop the conceptual framework. Therefore, as suggested by Mayoh & Onwegbuzie (2013) the concept of applying the steps that underpin action research throughout the phenomenologically inspired journey were used. As a starting point for the study, and to assess the readiness and preparation of practitioners in cancer care the views and experiences of both an expert panel and focus groups of specialist practitioners were sought on four occasions. The face to face interactions were supplemented with paper and online questionnaires. A documentary analysis of the United Kingdom (UK) government and healthcare professional organisations documents pertaining to the place of sexuality and sexual health within practice and education was undertaken to explore the actual practice situation. This was followed by review of undergraduate nursing and medical curriculum with a focus on the holistic assessment and management of sexuality and sexual health needs. In addition, the UK governmental and professional body Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) specific directives for good patient care practice, together with the LGBT specific content within undergraduate nursing and medical curriculum were systematically analysed. The voices of lesbian and bisexual women affected by cancer - both survivors and partners provided a wealth of in-depth information through the individual interviews and online qualitative questionnaires. This gave new insights into and increased understanding of the issues faced by participants. It highlighted similarities and differences with and from the findings from the heterosexual studies, and provided the baseline from which the conceptual framework and model were developed. It was seen as essential that these had a theoretical basis that practitioners could accept and utilise and that it was incremental to recognise the longevity of the support and guidance sought by participants. When shared with practitioners the conceptual framework and model were well received and only minor refinements were needed. It does enable cancer care practitioners to offer more tailored care to the lesbian and bisexual women in their care. Especially in regards to the women's sexuality, sexual health (incorporating psychosexual health) and relationships, and has led to links and work with both Macmillan Cancer Support and Relate the UK's largest provider of relationship support.

This thesis explores the construction and practice of postindustrial identities of people working in cultural and creative industries in the cities of Newcastle, UK and Hamburg, Germany. Cultural and creative industries have become an important area of research in recent years, and are regarded by many commentators as archetypes of emerging patterns of work in the new postindustrial economy. In seeking to appeal to people who work in cultural and creative industries, cities have experienced, and continue to experience, significant cultural and spatial transformations in order to 'rebrand' themselves as 'cultural' or 'creative' cities with the right material, economic, and cultural landscapes to attract cultural and creative workers. Although it is argued people working in cultural and creative industries are drawn to particular urban environments because of the importance of place for practices of identity construction, very little research concerned with the cultural and creative industries has paid attention to issues of identity. Drawing on mixed-methods qualitative research comprising ethnographic work, narrative interviews, and a method of urban encounter inspired by Walter Benjamin, this thesis makes a case for understanding these 'artistic identities' as constructed through negotiations in relation to a social, cultural, and spatial landscape influenced by the dialectical relationship between art and economy, and the romantic image of the autonomous, independent artist. This thesis suggests that the artistic identities of people working in the cultural and creative industries are contradictory, ambivalent, and heterogeneous, and significantly influenced by material, social and cultural conditions of work related to the postindustrial economy and the transformations of urban space.

The aim of the current thesis was to investigate the potential benefits, uses, and impact of holiday club provision with food on disadvantaged children's nutritional intake, educational attainment and the social well-being of attendees and their parents and carers. A sequential mixed methods research design was adopted for this thesis. An initial qualitative study informed the development of hypothesis and variables to be used in two subsequent quantitative phases of data collection. Study 1 was a qualitative investigation of the views of key stakeholders regarding holiday club provision, the findings of which are described and interpreted using the socio-ecological model of health. Study 1 found that organisations were motivated by concerns that children may be at risk of holiday hunger due to changes in UK Government policy relating to welfare and benefit reform. However, Study 1 found that the benefits of holiday club provision extended beyond just providing access to food. Benefits were demonstrated at an organisational, community, interpersonal and individual level in multiple ways. It was considered that the UK Government needed to be made aware of the issue of holiday hunger, the need for holiday clubs to address this need but that lack of appropriate funding hindered provision. Study 2 provides a detailed analysis of the effect of holiday club attendance on children's nutritional intake. Data on the nutritional intake of N = 21 children aged 3-11 years was recorded in a retrospective food diary, covering a 26 hour period, including lunch the day before they attended holiday club, up to and including lunch on the day they attended holiday club. The results showed that holiday clubs may have a positive effect on the type of food children eat for lunch. Overall however, there was no effect of attendance on the amount of energy or macronutrient content of the lunches children ate and the majority of children did not eat enough food at lunch time on a day they did not attend and a day they attended holiday club. This suggests that clubs need advice and guidance on food to be provided in holiday club settings. Furthermore, on a day children did not attend holiday club, the majority children did not meet recommended intake 5 levels for fruit, vegetables, water or sugar sweetened beverages but what they did eat and drink reflected UK children's intake as reported in the UK National Diet and Nutrition Survey (NDNS). Studies 3a, 3b, 3c and 3d provide a quantitative investigation of the effect of a six or seven week summer holiday on children's educational achievements in spelling, word reading and maths computation and the effect of holiday club attendance on children's performance in these domains. Participants were aged 5-11 years of age and lived and attended primary schools in areas of high deprivation in Scotland and the North East of England. Results suggested that a stagnation in learning occurred across the summer holiday in each of the domains investigated and that attendance at holiday club had no effect on educational achievement. The studies presented in this thesis are timely and offer useful insight for practitioners and policy makers involved in the development and delivery of holiday clubs. However, they also highlight key areas for consideration in future research on holiday club provision for disadvantaged children.

This thesis provides the first attempt to empirically apply the moral panic framework to study British newspaper reporting on climate change by drawing upon a unique dataset of 958 news articles over three decades (1988-2016). It is original in the sense that it illuminates the "missing link" between media reporting on climate change and think tanks' denial strategies. By adopting mixed approaches, this work explores both news articles and think tanks' documents and shows how moral panics can help explore rival discourses, and the strategies adopted by powerful actors to "defend" their interests by inflaming confusion. The main implications can be identified in the use of moral panics as a valuable tool for exploring conflicts in which powerful interests are involved, and in better understanding how the "denial machine" works. I argue that in the British context, the politicisation of newspapers' narratives around climate change causes a fracture between two groups characterised by specific dominant traits, which in turn correspond to moral panic attributes. However, even in the context of "conflicted moral panics", one direction prevails, which in this case is the more conservative narrative. This can only be understood by simultaneously observing the processes of construction of each single narrative and their comparison. Therefore, simultaneously considering the two narratives, the overall "confusing image" resulting from both conflicted panics ("centre-left vs centre-right"), and the multidimensionality within the same politicised narrative, might favour a "status quo instance", which reflects the economic, political and social status quo. The interconnections between conservative think tanks and the oil industry, and in turn their influence on dictating the sceptical "story line", suggest that the media "voluntarily" reflect elite power conflicts. These results inform on those elements that inflame hostility and resistance to climate change acceptance. Policy-making that aims to promote "intervention-oriented" approaches should take into account these results, especially in relation to the dialectics between the forces at play.

Travellers are a marginalised, under-researched group in Irish society. This thesis seeks to add an insider voice to their lived experience. It reappraises a complex and intersectional subset of Traveller identity - that of disabled Irish Traveller. The focus of the thesis is the extent and effect that racism and ableism have on disabled Traveller identity. The data used to develop and support this thesis was drawn from first-hand testimonial material gathered in one-to-one interviews and focus groups with disabled Travellers, disabled settled people and non-disabled Travellers, regarding their perceptions of impairment, racism and identity. It utilises this material and the insights gained from the literature to theorise on the position of disabled Travellers within the Travelling community and the relationship of Travellers with the settled population. It argues that the relationship between Travellers and Irish society is fraught with problems. It further argues that racism and ableism impact pervasively and negatively on the experience of being an Irish Traveller with an impairment. Shame has been mobilised as a means of conditioning Traveller identity and experience. Pride is key in offering a means of resisting the shame and stigma imposed from outside.

Radicalization research explores the socialization process prior to becoming an extremist and/or engaging in terrorism. The problem is, these are the only outcomes radicalization research investigates; a selection bias. Using normative group equivalence and constructivist grounded theory, six British Muslim aid workers were selected who matched Western Jihadists on four characteristics: socio-demographics, a desire to act against injustice, previous criminality and previous mobilization to Daesh-controlled territory between 2015 and 2018. Upon returning to the U.K. the research participants were interviewed under Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act and categorized as false positives. This confirmed the credibility of the match. What distinguished both cohorts were the behaviors engaged in when mobilized; one outside of social norms and the democratic consensus (Jihadism) and the other within them, but taken to the extreme (humanitarianism in extremis). How did a matched group engage in morally opposed behaviors under similar circumstances at home and abroad? The original contribution to knowledge is that radicalization is a vector; one can radicalize malevolently or benevolently. The latter are positive deviants whose pro-social and victim-centric prognoses compete with the anti-social and perpetrator-centric prognoses of Jihadists because both recruit from the same sentiment pool. Therefore, benevolently radicalized groups embody an attractive alternative for those who wish to positively impact upon the suffering of others; a "do this instead" narrative uniquely aligned to a relevant offline behavior. Bolstering their numbers is posited to stymy Jihadist recruitment, empower European Muslim youth and engender a perceptive shift away from their suspect community status using the same term which securitized them.

This thesis examines themes of male control and female resistance in commercially recorded American roots music of the interwar period, focusing primarily on recordings made in the years 1920-1940. It argues that much of the roots music recorded during this period communicated powerful messages about gendered and racial hierarchies to consumers. Rooted in close textual analysis of song lyrics and visual marketing materials for a plethora of commercially available roots music, the thesis deploys methodologies drawn from history, literary, cultural studies, and musicology. It questions why scholars have understudied themes of gendered power contestations and social control in commercially recorded roots music and the accompanying marketing materials during the interwar period. Although scholars have acknowledged intersections of race, class, gender, and the construction of segregated roots music markets during the nascent stages of a rapidly-developing fledgling industry, this thesis contends that lyrical content and marketing materials also intersected with white supremacist and eugenic ideologies, reflecting ideas about social control of women during the interwar period. It advances extant scholarship on black and white female roots music artists active during the interwar period, underscoring and illuminating themes of female resistance to male control, inside and outside of the worlds created on commercial recordings.

The role of non-governmental organisations in development practice is reaching a critical juncture whereby increased bureaucracy arising from demands for greater professional and technical skills is being challenged by questions on their legitimacy in representing the interests of those in most need. The concept of value for money, which involves a value-based assessment of how well resources are used in delivering outcomes, could represent a tipping point. The introduction of donors' demands for non-governmental development organisations to demonstrate value for money could either entrench such concerns, or it could offer the opportunity for transformative change by empowering local communities to voice their value-based assessment of performance. This thesis explores how large, UK based transnational non-governmental development organisations, termed TNGDOs, are negotiating the challenges in implementing the concept of value for money. In doing so, it explains why it is proving difficult for TNGDOs to resolve the inherent complications in applying what is an essentially contested concept. Furthermore, it conceptualises that TNGDOs have proven reluctant to seize the transformative potential that the value for money agenda offers by closing down the opportunities for development workers to experiment with its application. As a former practitioner of value for money audits, the researcher uses a case study methodology to explore how TNGDOs are responding to the concept. Through a combination of critical reflective analysis, the principles of actor-oriented research and discourse analysis, it establishes the difficulties in applying a subjective concept to existing programme management practices. In doing so, it shows the broader struggles facing TNGDOs in marrying the demands of donors and other stakeholders, such as local communities, and in maintaining the individuality of each TNGDO when the concept's requirement for comparative analysis is likely to lead to a standardisation of approach and greater competition on cost.

This thesis examines how hate is experienced, navigated, and negotiated within community, voluntary, and criminal justice services. It details the findings of a qualitatively driven, mixed methods research project including a survey of queer people (n=242) and 33 semi-structured qualitative interviews. The research found that LGBT+ people favour social justice pathways over criminal justice pathways to report, share, and reconcile their hate experiences. Thus I examine the role of criminal and social justice pertaining to hate experiences. I adopt a radical queer perspective, by arguing that the aetiology of hate stems from structural power imbalances and oppression of queer people. Drawing upon historical, sociological, victimological, and criminological perspectives I focus on identity as the conduit for hate victimisation and explore how identities, in particular age, gender, and sexuality, shape how hate is experienced, negotiated, and navigated. The research highlights that age is a major influencing factor as the spaces and places hate crime is perpetrated and experienced is usually correlated with age. Participants experienced more everyday background hate in the form of micro-aggressions, othering, and marginalisation than they did hate ‘crime’. Criminal justice workers advocated the need to protect LGBT+ people from hate crime, departing from the long history of the criminal justice system, previously, persecuting LGBT+ people. ‘Hate’ is both an adult-centric and binary concept, where only adults can experience hate ‘incidents’ or ‘crimes’. By exploring student groups, youth and community groups, and criminal justice workers this research has highlighted that community networks are key for LGBT+ people to organise their sociality and find support for their hate experiences. This research, with the exception of a survey, solely focuses on communities and individuals in the North East of England. It promotes the need for community layered hate crime research that is intersectional, in order to readily understand the social location of participants. This research provides examples of how experiences of hate can differ depending on age, gender, and sexuality.

What is expertise? In cultural work, the idea of expertise is commonly associated with a specialised knowledge of cultural forms and products, often possessed by art critics, dealers and cultural intermediaries. In the majority of literature on cultural work, the status of these 'experts' is mostly treated as normative and accepted as legitimate, with little attention paid to the expertise of the primary producers of the cultural forms which are judged. This thesis argues that expertise as a concept is taken for granted in cultural work scholarship, and thus requires further interrogation. The particular focus here is on the social media use of cultural workers to promote themselves, their aesthetic output and availability for work. As argued here, the status of their expertise is problematised in an ostensibly accessible and democratised space where 'anyone' can engage in cultural production. In this context, how do cultural workers signal their aesthetic expertise online? Signalling involves conveying information about one's credentials. This concept is utilised in a framework to analyse the social media output of a group of UK cultural workers, who were also interviewed, in order to gain insight into their aesthetic expertise and how they manage signalling expertise online as part of cultural labour. The research reveals the expertise of cultural producers to be of a dynamic and fluid quality, worked on over the course of a cultural work career, where opportunities to build expertise can be constrained or enabled depending on access to resources. As these cases suggest, aesthetic expertise can be staged on social media by revealing creative skills and methods - the 'back stage' of production, then potentially enhanced through audience interaction, which can also put expertise signals at risk. The analysis also reveals gendered strategies for signalling expertise undertaken by the women cultural workers, to facilitate a potential collective raising of visibility online, but also raising questions about the exclusivity of such collective activity. The research concludes by suggesting ways in which cultural policy could widen access to creative skills and training, so that anyone who wishes to develop their own aesthetic expertise can do so.

This thesis considers the effects the private exercise of coercive violence on the modern nation-state through an examination of the increasing prevalence of Private Military and Security Contractors. It studies the practical implications of the privatisation of violence for Domestic and International Law and seeks to propose an original typological framework for the classification and regulation of PMSCs. This thesis begins by examining the historical relationship between coercive violence and maintenance of power/authority from the perspective of the Westphalian Sovereignty and the resulting state-centric international legal regime. It considers how the 'violence-power' relationship has historically been conceptualised through social contract and 'force of law' theories and the limitations these suffer in relation to PMSCs. Specific focus is given to the manner in which existing theories have tended towards viewing violence either as an instrument of power or, as a public good and the corresponding implications of the commodification and globalisation of violence. The study, therefore, seeks to develop an original conceptual framework on the nature of coercive violence. This conceptual framework draws upon a body of work built around the theoretical critiques of violence undertaken by Walter Benjamin and Hannah Arendt, allowing the study a unique perspective to analyse the relationship between private violence and governmental power/authority Utilising this conceptual underpinning, this thesis investigates the political and economic factors instrumental in the growth of PMSC activity, considering the expansion of globalisation and neo-liberalism and the corresponding weakening of the nation-state. To highlight the increasing diversity of private actors, the research presents three case studies into the globalisation of coercive violence within national security assemblages namely; Peru, Nigeria and Afghanistan. These case studies first examine the social and political climate in which the growth of private coercive violence developed and identify key security concerns which have affected these areas. Each case studies identifies the legal regulation of PMSCs in the State to understand both how States have sought to limit the proliferation of private violence and understand the difficulties these States have encountered in applying or enforcing these regulations. Drawing upon these case studies, the thesis critically analyses the current attempts to regulate and establish accountability for PMSCs through either domestic or state-centric international Law noting the inherent difficulties within these. It considers how effectively the Montreux Document and the International Code of Conduct for Private Security Contractors are able to regulate the activities of PMSCs before analysing the effectiveness of the international legal regime in regulating PMSCs with a focus on the doctrine of State Responsibility. This notes the inherent difficulties in establishing effective regulatory frameworks and particularly the arbitrary distinctions drawn within these regulations Finally, considering both the practical and theoretical issues identified throughout the research the thesis looks to create an original typological approach to identifying and classifying PMSCs. This approach examines stakeholder relationships and power structures to produce a framework for the classification of PMSC activity and extrapolates trends and features with emphasis on democratic accountability and human rights. The thesis proposes the suitability of this system as a framework for legal regulation in a manner capable of addressing the intricacies and difficulties posed by PMSCs.

In 2014, the NHS Five Year Forward View (FYFV) set out new models of care and care strategies. Amongst them was the introduction of the role of Assistant Practitioner (AP). The AP role was positioned at Band 4 (of 9) on the NHS Careers Framework, gained through the successful completion of a foundation degree (fd). Those already in employment accessed the fd through day release to university and work-place clinical skills development. A qualified AP would work under the supervision of a registered nurse. This thesis examines and centralises the experiences of ten Black British and Black Caribbean women's experiences of the fd programme and its impact on their personal and professional identities. It (re)tells, (re)captures and (re)presents their accounts of getting in, moving on and getting through Higher Education. This study disrupts the silence of Black women in the NHS. Black Feminist Methodological Stance is put to work to centre and privilege Black women who transitioned through the research process unearthing, examining and unapologetically speaking their 'truths'. The analysis is intentionally theoretically provocative, it uses performative autoethnograpy to present the voices of the women through characters in fictional settings. The characters use the works of predominantly Black philosophers to critically reflect on their experiences of education. Their exposures to philosophies and their sharing of life leads them to Black feminist epistemologies. This study demands engagement, it challenges all who access it, to come and reside in our spaces ... to feel the discomforts ... to rethink the stereotypes... to speak of the biases... then to co-align with us ... it questions ... challenges... and seeks honest approaches to fairness in nursing education and professions; two areas, where for seven decades Black women have been professionally subordinated and exploited. This thesis demonstrates the courage of the author to engage in research which breaks the silence of Black women in NHS and makes the theorised assertion of our 'right to write' as Black women about Black women. The presentation of the data as performance autoethnography, renders this work accessible to the contributors, as well as significant and important for academic scholarship. This study strives for engagement, it resists recommendations which, historically are ineffective liberatory tools of the master's house, in that they fail to make a difference to the Black women's assigned subordinated space. Finally, this work challenges Black women in the NHS to become active agents of their professional emancipation. New Knowledge Contribution: This thesis contributes the following new knowledge: The production of a literature review which resists the normative approach to the production of a thesis, it utilises oral accounts which work to both contradict as well as illuminate accounts presented in written text. It retells the stories of ten Black female Health Care Assistants (HCAs). Because of their low professional status, HCAs are generally invisible and voiceless in research studies. This study centralises their experiences, making them visible, therefore providing a partial illumination of their educational experiences. The literature provides Black nurses of the 21st Century with an example of how Black nurses in the past coalesced to redress the inequitable nursing education provision they experienced during colonial times. Black nurses of the Caribbean broke the nursing profession's class ceiling securing positions previously solely reserved for Caucasians. The unearthing and presentation of Black Caribbean women's nursing education history provides Black nurses with a positive self-liberatory learning example from Caribbean nurses of the past. This study demonstrates the courage of the author to present the data analysis as performance autoethnography, in so doing, it renders this work accessible to the contributors, the academic as well as ordinary members of the Black community. This thesis strives for engagement and discussion asking questions of institutions rather than being prescriptive and autocratic (making recommendations). It also challenges Black women in the NHS to become active conduits of their own professional emancipation rather than awaiting 'redemption from those using the tick box tools of the 'master's house'.

Whilst there has been research that has examined the experiences of disabled students in higher education, to date none has examined the experience of being visually impaired -and- being a visually impaired student. By utilising a Critical Disability Studies (CDS) approach I consider how visually impaired students experience non-normative and ableist discourses within their life as a student as well as in their day to day lives beyond university. In doing so I show that for visually impaired students, higher education is a complex arena where there are allusions to participation and transformation, yet the sector often reinforces oppressive and disabling notions. The disabling attitudes and actions, regarding visual impairment, these students experience are culturally and historically rooted in concepts heavily loaded with tragedy, pity and fear. Using a critical Grounded Theory approach (Charmaz, 2014) I examine the experiences of a sample of participants drawn from an informal network and as told within loose semi structured interviews in which participants talked about their experiences as a student and their experiences as a visually impaired person, more generally, contextualising their university experience within it. Participants' accounts highlight the complex systems within education that they are required to negotiate as a disabled student and, critically, they emphasise the many and complex interactions experienced in their daily lives. At the intersections of these two sets of experiences are often ableist assertions about visual impairment and visually impaired people, and the interviews show the importance of questioning normative discourses about visual impairment. I argue that despite many attempts to challenge disabling discourses these remain prevalent in contemporary HE and that taking an intersectional, CDS approach can reconceptualise being a visually impaired student as an autonomous and non-tragic identity, which in turn promotes a participatory and transformative higher education experience.

While traditionally described as the 'wobbly pillar' of welfare states, housing has long been considered the 'saving grace' of welfare in the UK. However, decades of neoliberalism and more recently, economic crisis, austerity and welfare reform, have undermined the statutory and voluntary sector support available to those unable to access and sustain decent accommodation for themselves. As such, the modern private rented sector (PRS) is playing an increasing role in meeting the housing needs of single homeless and other vulnerable households. However, there has been relatively little research focusing on the entry of these households into the sector and their experiences within it. In this context, this study provides a purposive and rigorous investigation of the 'lived experiences' of individuals residing in private hostels in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. Employing an interpretivist and qualitative research approach, data was principally collected through in-depth, semi-structured - and partly, life history - interviews with 13 private hostel residents and 23 local stakeholders. The concept of 'homelessness pathways' and the Capability Approach were the key analytical tools used. The study identifies that the residents interviewed were 'single' or 'hidden' homeless individuals. Their pathways into homelessness were typically underpinned by one dominant factor (financial crisis, family breakdown, substance misuse, poor mental health or childhood trauma); these pathways were characterised by different levels of complexity. Critically, it was found that living in the properties had diverse impacts on the residents' wellbeing (and specifically, their exercise of central functions), despite the hostels having similar objective conditions. Broadly speaking, those who experienced the least complex pathways into homelessness seemed to lead reasonably 'well-lived' lives within the properties, while those who experienced the most complex pathways did not. The pathways lens proved to have limited explanatory value on its own. However, it was much more helpful when considered alongside other factors such as the nature of the residents' social networks, their relationship with substances and the degree of 'fit' between their needs and wants from the hostels and the hostel attributes. The overarching original and significant contributions of the study are firstly, an understanding of the factors affecting the diversity of private hostel residents' experiences of wellbeing and secondly, the development of a robust, person-centred and flexible model for the holistic evaluation of 'lived experiences' within specific housing contexts. The research also has several homelessness policy and practice implications.

In the Western entertainment industry, supernatural television dramas are created to provide a form of entertainment that can be read as postmodern pastiche without explicit religious ideology or any emphasis on communicating social values to the audience. Thai supernatural television dramas, in contrast, are employed as an effective resource for promoting Thai Theravada Buddhism. This study examines the role of Buddhist teachings in the television dramas Ngao (2014) and Nang Cha Da (2015) which were the most-watched television programmes in Thailand in those respective years. This research examines the processes of production and consumption of certain television tropes to provide an understanding of the ways in which Buddhist teachings are constructed, represented, and perceived through television dramas. It analyses the textual features of the shows by comparing the content of the dramas with Buddhist scripture, examines the attitudes of the text producers, and analyses the viewer's perceptions of Buddhist material in the shows. This study adopts qualitative research methods, including textual analysis, in-depth interviews with the text producers, and focus groups with the audiences. The contribution of this study is to demonstrate that Thai supernatural television dramas, functioning as a Buddhist classroom, are utilised by Thai ruling class as a tool in promoting Theravada Buddhism within modern Thai society and culture. Buddhist teachings presented in the dramas are in line with the strongly held beliefs of the producers and with Thai government policies. The results of this study demonstrate that Buddhist teachings embodied in the dramas are intended to encourage audiences to think and behave as good Buddhists and to establish a unified moral community. I argue Thai supernatural television dramas are intimately connected with the promotion of Buddhist teachings.

The climate change counter movement (CCCM) has been the focus of social scientists and environmental activists for several years (e.g. Greenpeace). The movement is made up of an organised group of actors that have campaigned, distorted and minimised the impacts of climate change, and criticised domestic and international level policy to remedy climate change. The purpose of this study is to add to this area of investigation having located 465 CCCM organisations across the globe. To examine the CCCM I adopt a two-part theoretical framework synthesising a perspective from the political economic and sociology of crime and deviance literatures. First, I propose that the operation of CCCM organisations can be explained through a Gramscian lens of Hegemony. Second, I propose the messages adopted by CCCM organisation can be understood through a crime and deviance lens. Specifically, I propose these messages can be rebranded as CCCM neutralisation techniques. I conducted a content analysis of 805 documents taken from these organisations to see if CCCM organisations adopted messages that could be rebranded as techniques of neutralisation. I then conducted a cross-national analysis to (1) predict the number of organisations, and (2) predict the use of neutralisation techniques across countries. A series of negative binomial regression and ordinary least squared regression equations to test whether political, economic, and ecological factors can explain the number of CCCM organisations across countries and the messages they adopt. These results reveal strong support for the notion that CCCM organisations operate and use CCCM neutralisation techniques to protect fossil fuel hegemony against climate action. Several techniques of neutralisation are used to justify the continued use of fossil fuels and rationalise the ecological consequences to help sustain support for the hegemonic global capitalist economy. Moreover, CCCM organisations operate to challenge the rise of environmentalism.

This thesis is concerned with notions of ‘choice and control’ in the Housing First model, and how these contribute to successful outcomes for multiply excluded homeless (MEH) adults. Housing First aims to overcome homelessness and prevent further exclusion by offering immediate, independent accommodation in the community. In doing so, the model seeks to provide a foundation for client centred support, guided by client choice, which enables recovery from the ‘multiple and complex’ needs most MEH adults face. The majority of Housing First literature has focused on the model’s very positive housing related outcomes. However, longer-term outcomes related to recovery and desistance have been less clear. The thesis centres on a qualitative, longitudinal evaluation of a Housing First service in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. Housing First is relatively new in England, and there has been only limited evaluation of the model’s effectiveness in this context. This study contributed to this gap in knowledge by following 18 MEH adults over 16 months in their Housing First tenancy. A mixed methods design was employed to explore participants’ ability to utilise the ‘choice and control’ offered in Housing First to achieve outcomes related to recovery and desistance. The methodology was informed by a situational approach that places the participant at the centre of analysis and explores both the personal and environmental factors that influence their choices, and resulting actions. Findings demonstrated the importance of participants’ biographies in determining their ‘starting point’ in Housing First, and their ability to make choices towards recovery and desistance. A key output of the study was a typology based on participants’ life histories that was predictive of their trajectories towards recovery and desistance. In general terms, those with less complex life histories were more able to take advantage of the foundation provided by Housing First.

Over the last decade, the Central Jail of Nicosia (CJN) - the only correctional institution in the Republic of Cyprus – saw a significant rise in its prison population. Today, the CJN is facing a number of challenges to its legitimacy which are evident in recent episodes of prison unrest, and the rise in self-harm, suicides and rapes. This research aims to provide a critical exploration of the reasons behind the increase in the prison population, and the challenges this brings. The review of current evidence, while limited, suggests a number of possibilities which might account for the rise including political patronage, racism and corruption. In order to consider issues that concern the rise and challenges of the prison population, this study focuses on the connection between imprisonment and micro elements of the Cypriot society/culture such as crime rates and trends, levels of social expenditure, public opinion and punitiveness, and institutional trust and legitimacy. Exploration of the increase in the prison population was carried out within a critical realist framework. Data was collected using twenty seven semi-structured interviews with Criminal Justice System ‘elites’, (including politicians, judges, public prosecutors, prison staff, prison administrators, senior counsels of the Republic of Cyprus, officers from the Ombudsman Office, and the Ombudsman herself). Thematic analysis of this qualitative data aimed to uncover the deep and often unobservable structures and mechanisms that influence the prison population in Cyprus. The findings of this study suggest that the reasons behind the increase in the prison population and its challenges display significant correlation with political patronage, racism, and corruption, and explain the unprecedented levels of immigrants within the Central Jail of Nicosia. The study also revealed that foreign immigrants are at greater risk of rape and suicide, and the impacts of corruption by those in authority. Finally the study, suggests that the rise and the challenges of the rise in the prison population have significant social, economic and political axioms.

Postfeminism is not an ideological position or coherent theoretical framework that can be applied externally to the analysis of texts. Indeed popular postfeminism – as distinguished in this thesis from academic postfeminism – is knowable only through its workings in culture, specifically in the representation of gender in “postfeminist” media texts. Therefore, this thesis does not adopt a postfeminist position or approach to analyse the source texts, but rather seeks to identify and deconstruct a postfeminist sensibility within them. This sensibility became apparent in 1990s depictions of characters such as Bridget Jones (Renée Zellweger) and Ally McBeal (Calista Flockhart); however, it prevails in texts created in the current moment and inflects their representation of women. This thesis seeks to identify the themes and characteristics of this sensibility at the site of their creation – media texts representing women – expose the reasons why they are problematic, and show that the same traits exist in the texts considered here. In so doing it seeks to demonstrate that postfeminist ideals are still informing representations of women in the media. Furthermore, it seeks to demonstrate that this postfeminist sensibility, despite being a product of 1990s postfeminism and the current post/post-post-feminist moment, inflects representations of women from different time-periods, specifically from the Second World War and immediate post-war period. Because of the media’s (and specifically television’s) central role in the formation of cultural memory, this creates a lens through which women’s history and women’s historical identities are viewed in the present day. This postfeminist lens, or sensibility (Gill 2007), is thereby dehistoricised as an aspect of essential femininity. In this way the politics of the present are cast onto the past. Through this process, the events of the past are drained of any independent meaning and repurposed/redeployed to meet the needs of the present. The centrality and ubiquity of such postfeminist visions of the past is such that postfeminist discourse has become a central component of what this thesis terms, the Historical Sensibility which informs and structures historical drama on television.

This thesis interrogates the various constructions of the gendered body within the rebooted Doctor Who (1963- ). To do this, this thesis contends that Doctor Who occupies something of a contradictory position with regard to gender and the body, seemingly acknowledging the need for equality and feminism as ‘common sense’ whilst simultaneously denying true realisation of these aims by retreat to universal (patriarchal) concepts of goodness, humanity, and benevolence. In addition to this, whilst, at present, our definitions of the gendered body appear to be becoming ever more fluid and abstract, something that is aided by the increasing encroachment of technology in our everyday lives, there remains a limit to this bodily fluidity, a limit heavily informed by recourse to the ‘natural’ and, therefore, the ‘acceptable’. Science fiction’s interest in the body is clear and well documented; science fiction landscapes are frequently populated by bodies that have been mutated, enhanced and cloned. Hence, there is scope for a mutually beneficial discourse between theoretical constructions of the body, evolving technology and science fiction narratives, a discourse that this thesis will ground within the narrative of Doctor Who. In doing this, this thesis will intervene within these debates by deconstructing representations of the gendered body within the rebooted Doctor Who, constructing a continuum of ‘acceptable’ bodily expressions that will offer insight into the limits of our apparent gendered bodily fluidity. Using a methodological approach that involves textual analysis informed by social, cultural, and technological theory, this thesis begins by foregrounding the mutual areas of interest between the various theoretical concepts. From this, the thesis contains three broad thematic chapters discussing the topics of reproduction, monstrosity and technology with the selection of these topics being attributable to them representing convergence points of interest for the given theoretical areas. These themes are then grounded and discussed within Doctor Who, with the programme’s popularity, longevity, long form narrative structure, and political reflexivity all making it an appropriate lens for analysis. This thesis argues that these debates are ones Doctor Who both acknowledges and embodies, yet Who appears to remain hamstrung by a resort to tradition that prevents true radicalism and subversion. By using Doctor Who as an accessible point of reference for these potentially abstract and emotive debates, this thesis aims to question the extent to which we are now, or may ever consider ourselves, truly ‘postgender’; whether our ‘choices’ are as freely made as they appear, or whether we remain constricted by residual patriarchal mores.

In recent years, the topic of threesomes has become more and more visible within the mainstream media. Threesomes now feature in a plethora of media pieces, television shows, films, and there are even mobile applications specifically catering for those looking to have threesomes. Despite this increased interest, however, academic research has somewhat neglected this area. Accordingly, this thesis presents the first qualitative study on both men and women’s threesomes for more than 25 years. The research focuses on developing an in-depth understanding of threesomes within a contemporary context, investigating people’s motivations for, experiences of, and attitudes to threesomes, from the perspective of those with actual experience. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 28 individuals (16 women, 12 men) who had ever engaged in a multi-sex threesome. Those having only engaged in all same-sex threesomes were excluded in order to provide a narrower focus for the study. Those heavily involved with sexual minority support groups, as well as swinging, were also excluded in an attempt to limit the particular biases that respondents from these groups can create. The target population were drawn from personal connections as well as via snowball sampling. The sample were mainly white, middle-class, and roughly half of them identified as heterosexual. The findings suggest that threesomes are multi-faceted experiences with multiple purposes, meanings, and motivations. It is suggested that more inclusive attitudes towards those from sexual minorities, enhanced sexual freedoms for men and women, as well as societal expectations to explore new forms of sex, have diminished many of the stigmas around threesomes, thus enabling more people to be interested in them. It is also suggested that threesomes may simultaneously represent both a bolstering of, and a challenge to, the institution of monogamy.

The traumatic adverse life experiences of men and women in prison have not featured within the critical victimological research agenda. Yet, these experiences have long-term and pervasive behavioural impacts. Therefore, this research examines the ways in which trauma manifests within the challenging behaviours of both men and women in prison, through a critical victimological lens. The thesis reports the findings of in-depth qualitative interviews conducted with former prisoners (N=17), Prison Staff (N=24) and Third Sector Staff (N=12). First, the findings indicate that the complex manifestations of trauma can be associated with some of the complex and escalating issues prevalent within the UK adult prisoner populations. Second, the findings recognise the way in which the prison environment can further exacerbate prior experiences of trauma and as such, trauma survivors will feel the pains of imprisonment (Crewe, 2015) much more substantially. There has been a significant reduction in safety across the UK prison estate (Ministry of Justice 2016c). As a response to the lack of safety and the growing multiple and complex needs across the prisoner population, the findings of this research advocate for a trauma-informed penal approach. The findings of this research shed light onto an under-researched area within victimology. This furthers our understanding of the complex and long-lasting experiences of trauma. In addition, the findings demonstrate that the emotional needs of prison staff are not yet being considered a prison service priority, despite the likelihood of staff experiencing vicarious trauma at work. The experiences and contributions of former prisoners, prison staff, and third sector staff collectively advocate for a greater recognition of trauma and the need for a trauma-informed penal approach.

Relationships between Libya and Italy, both during and post Colonel Gaddafi’s rule, have witnessed many developments and changes, with the Italian colonialism of Libya from 1911 to 1942/1943 playing an important role in shaping those relationships. Thus, this thesis seeks to examine the roles of Public Relations (PR) and Public Diplomacy (PD) in building the Libyan-Italian relations. In order to explore those roles, the Grunig and Hunt’s (1984) Four PR Models, and the two International Models, have been applied. Furthermore, Relationship Management has been applied as a general theory of PR. For the purpose of this study, twenty Libyan and Italian diplomats, including Prime Ministers, Foreign Ministers and Ambassadors, were interviewed. Significant attention has been paid to the process of selecting the sample, where the method of purposive sampling has been selected as the most appropriate qualitative method for this study. Moreover, the thematic analysis technique has been applied in order to identify patterns and meaningful themes about the phenomenon under investigation. The results of this study reveal that PR and PD, as important communication tools, have played a significant role in building the Libyan-Italian relations. Furthermore, it has been made clear that the Libyan and Italian diplomats, had been aware of practising the original four models and the two international models. This study has also found evidence suggesting that these models could be applied to the field of PD. Furthermore, the two-way symmetrical model, the cultural interpreter model and the personal influence model are the most suitable models in building relationships between governments as they are considered to be the bridges that connect PR with PD in terms of theory and practice. Findings of this research have also shown that there are convergences between both fields, especially concerning their roles in building relationships; however, a difference between the fields does also exist.

The Coalition government’s (2010-2015) programme of public sector reform and austerity resulted in fundamental changes to the orientation of community development in England. This thesis investigates what happened to community development in England during this five-year period and its implications for professionals, volunteers and local people involved in community development processes. A post-structuralist discourse analysis methodology was operationalised and the empirical work consisted of 20 interviews with key social actors involved in community development processes in a case study local authority in the north east of England. Using post-structuralist discourse analysis, the transcripts were analysed alongside 54 key texts including: discourse by political and policy leaders, national and local policies, and academic debate. This thesis makes an original contribution to knowledge by demonstrating how the Coalition programme silenced community development as a distinct and legitimate practice, and re-shaped it as social enterprise, volunteering and community organising. The empirical findings establish four available discourses of community development. Yet, the hegemonic Enterprise discourse totalised the policy landscape and ‘othered’ community development as a bureaucratic, top-down, inefficient and ineffective relic of the previous New Labour government. In conjunction with the public sector cuts, this resulted in the decline of the community development worker subject position in England; with community development professionals increasingly nudged to adopt the subject positons of social entrepreneurs, professional volunteers and, to a lesser extent, community organisers. Local people were similarly nudged to volunteer in community development, social enterprise and community organising processes; and more skilled volunteers encouraged to take on professional responsibilities unsalaried. These findings suggest that the silencing and re-shaping of community development as social enterprise, volunteering and community organising is a ‘new’ permutation of neoliberal hegemony to roll-out citizen responsibilisation where local people provide community services rather than ‘relying’ on state intervention and resources. This thesis concludes that the Coalition programme exploited the ambiguity of community development and, in doing so, exposed four historical problems in the community development field. To protect community development from future attacks, this thesis proposes a genealogical post-doctoral study to unearth these problematic roots to then cultivate a community development free of such underpinnings.

In different countries participation in the arts has become a significant theme of government policies which foster the instrumentalisation of culture; Yúdice (2003), Belfiore and Bennett (2010), Eagleton (2014). Increasingly it is claimed that the arts have positive effects on social, political and economic well-being. The emphasis on people changing the arts ― common in the political discourses of 1970s ― has been substituted by arguments about the power of the arts to transform people’s lives. This study tests these claims comparatively. The main questions asked are: what are the differences between instrumentalism from above or below in the political order; and how do the world of the arts and letters and the world of politics speak to each other today? Through extended interviews, life stories and discourse analysis, based on fieldwork in Britain and Venezuela, the study demonstrates the complex moral interdependency between European notions of aesthetic virtue and political or civic virtues. The political structuring of these virtuous relations is shown to be morally tenuous. It is argued they express the institutionalised but inadequate compensations associated with the ‘good-faith economy’ (Bourdieu 1977). Politically these relations are problematic; among other things they discursively separate the mind from the body which means that time and other basic needs tend to be neglected. It is argued that this complex relationship between aesthetic and political virtue is a significant factor in Statecraft, and in unmaking the militant role of the organised working class. It is suggested that these dynamics are a contributory factor in the ascendancy of the political far-right internationally. To counter the influence of the good-faith economy this study proposes greater public participation in the funding processes which support the arts.

The development of journalism studies has generated increasing interest in researching for a more advanced journalistic role in local and global contexts, where the theory of Human Rights Journalism (HRJ) rises in response in a timely fashion. This PhD study contributes to the development of the theory of HRJ in the following three ways. First, it expands the theory of human rights journalism beyond universal human rights with a focus on individual rights (Western countries) to group rights with a focus on the community (China); According to the findings from the content analysis, interviews and survey, the 5 core elements of the HRJ model (diagnostic reporting, interventionist, proactive, peace journalism, and empathy/critical frame), informed by the universal human rights ethics, need to be adapted to the Chinese political, economic, social and cultural contexts informed by group rights to ensure its smooth practice in China. Unlike the human rights journalists in the Western context, this extended HRJ model argues that the Chinese and foreign human rights journalists must handle the power of negotiations carefully with the state, market and society in China. Second, the Chinese media landscape is too restrictive to allow for the smooth practice of HRJ. HRJ was developed for the global context. However, according to findings mostly drawn from the interviews with Chinese and foreign journalists, there are obstacles such as press censorship, the focus on the ideology of social order over liberalism, and the lack of public interest in the liberal interpretation of human rights that stand in the way of HRJ practise in China. This Chinese context was not captured in earlier studies on HRJ by Shaw (2012) and on Krumbein (2014)’s study on human rights in China, and is therefore seen as a major contribution of this thesis to the knowledge of human rights reporting in the world. Finally, according the survey and interview findings, the Chinese public and elite have a negative perception of the topic of human rights because they only see it in the Western lens of individual rights, and not their own preferred lens of group rights. Due to such negative perception, the unwillingness to talk and discuss ‘human rights’ is strong. This causes obstacle not only for both the Chinese and the foreign journalists to access the views on human rights from the Chinese public, but also deepen the cultural miscommunication on human rights between the Chinese public and elites on one hand, and the Western journalists on the other. This findings further extends Shaw’s (2012b) study on the nexus between cultural miscommunication and human wrongs journalism from a Muslim and Islamic context into the Chinese cultural context. Different from the stereotypical issue that is closely related to culture and civilisation in Shaw’s study, this PhD shows that the clash of cultures could also be encountered when the perception of human rights is negative. Eventually, this causes constraint on the practice of HRJ in the context of China. Overall, this study is a unique contribution, both theoretically and empirically, to the understanding of HRJ globally, and in the context of China, in particular with the consideration of social-political constraints, as well as a mounting challenge on the implementation of the practice.

This thesis examines the Women’s International League (WIL) to explore the wider themes of feminism, pacifism and transnational activism during the Great War and the interwar years. WIL was formed in October 1915 as the British national section of what came to be known as the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF). The thesis interrogates the concept of feminist pacifism by analysing WIL’s campaigns for peace, disarmament and international law alongside its pursuit of women’s rights. The thesis also demonstrates the interplay between activism on the local, national and international stages. In chronological terms, the focus is on the first twenty years of WIL’s activism: from the circumstances that led to its foundation in 1915 to the challenges faced in 1935 – a time when the political consensus within WILPF came under threat and when hopes that internationalism would secure peace began to fade. The study comprises five chapters. The first explores the foundations of WIL and examines the methods it used to link its opposition to war to its feminist demands. The remaining chapters are thematic and cover the organisation’s work during the interwar years. Chapter Two analyses WIL’s campaigns for women’s rights, including the nationality of married women and the debate over protective legislation. Chapter Three highlights the organisation’s gendered approach to peace, including its campaigns for disarmament. Chapter Four investigates WIL’s commitment to internationalism through an analysis of its organisational structure and its work at the transnational level. The final chapter examines how the organisation built and maintained a network of activists, exploring the shared interests between WIL and a range of other voluntary associations, including those working for peace, humanitarian relief, liberal internationalism and socialism. This study firmly places WIL within British and international movements for peace and women’s rights. Work by Leila Rupp, Marie Sandell and Karen Offen demonstrates the wealth of activism by and for women at the international level during the twentieth century. However, previous scholarship has not focussed on WIL in any depth. By offering a detailed analysis of this organisation, the thesis sheds light on a range of issues: the campaign for female citizenship and political participation; the connections between feminism and pacifism; the development of international organisations during the interwar years; and the nature of transnational women’s activism.