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Across the world traditional forms of urban management are affected by economic restructuring and neoliberalization processes. These processes alter the government role in the provision of social services, give rise to multi-sector partnerships for social service provision by public, private and non-profit actors, and stimulate the creation of alternative approaches to social service provision. In this dissertation I discuss the impact of these changes on social housing provision in Ribeirão Preto, Brazil. I provide a historically-grounded account of political-economic restructuring in Brazil that has emerged through neoliberalization, document how these policy shifts affect social service responsibilities and the fiscal capacities of local and state governments, and show how these transformations increased social housing needs but at the same time decreased overall capacity to deliver housing to the very poor. I also discuss the new proposals that attempt to replace the state’s withdrawal from several types of social service provision. Specifically I study partnerships among the public sector, private sector, and civil society, describe the emergence, structure, and functions of these partnerships in Brazil, and implicitly compare how these partnership approaches are used in northern nations such as the United States and United Kingdom. Finally, I look inside social housing organizations to examine alternative housing strategies that have emerged, and highlight the problems with these alternative strategies and suggest reasons for their failings. The arguments of this dissertation are developed from ethnographic research conducted in the Ribeirão Preto region of Brazil.

Most everybody is ambitious about their own careers. Most of us aspire to be promoted to positions with greater responsibilities and benefits and have a clear sense of what we mean by a "successful career." Politicians are no different, and there is no apparent reason why they should be. However, unlike what happens in other occupations, politicians are forced periodically---i.e., at the end of each term they serve---to make a decision about what to do with their careers. This decision is made under the uncertainty about their ability to continue their careers according to their plans. The possibility of electoral defeat spares no one in spite of all that politicians do to avoid being voted out of office. Thus, at the end of each term, politicians must ponder what they want to do with their careers or where they want to go next. Politicians inform their decisions with their beliefs about their performance in office---or their performance as challengers---and their assessments of the difficulty of winning office in the following election. This raises the question about why some politicians decide to stay in office. Concretely, why do some politicians decide to get reelected while others seek election in "higher" or even "lower" offices? And also, why are some politicians more successful in having lasting careers? I focus on the career decisions that politicians make routinely and in the duration of their careers by considering individual and district factors that explain why politicians decide to run for particular offices and the length of their tenures.

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In this thesis I investigate social processes that motivate the contemporary reproduction and public dissemination of older Central Coast Salish spindle whorls. In a case study, I develop a cultural biography of spindle whorls to examine how material culture produced by past generations informs contemporary activity. Visual materials, first- and third-person accounts and writings in three areas—material culture, the social nature of art and colonialism—are drawn together to demonstrate that spindle whorl production and circulation is grounded in social and historical contingencies specific to Central Coast Salish First Nations. I propose that in using spindle whorls, Central Coast Salish people are drawing on the past to strengthen their position within current circumstances.

This thesis explores the subjects of professionalism and ethics as they relate to archivists and seeks to assess the appropriateness and effectiveness of the ethical codes adopted by two national archival associations in North America. The archival profession in North America is in its infancy compared to its status in Europe. Having been identified with serving scholarship and other "non-essential" pursuits, archivists have begun to involve themselves in more vital records management tasks involving access to information and privacy issues. As the archival profession strives to achieve greater public recognition and trust to better carry out these and other sensitive tasks, the need for a code of ethics has become more acute. Both the Society of American Archivists and the Association of Canadian Archivists have developed codes in the last few years in an attempt to set standards of conduct in the face of rising responsibilities. However, many of the elements have been borrowed from other codes and with the need to ensure that such codes will be observed by members and enforceable by sanction, it seems timely that some means be established for analyzing their effectiveness. This thesis attempts to establish the tools for analysis of archival codes of ethics. To this end, it examines professionalism and ethics and the relationship between them. It draws upon the literature on emergent professions, establishing some of the characteristics of recognized professions. It also draws upon the literature on professional ethics to determine how one might look at existing codes from an ethical perspective. It examines the nature of archives and archival work to identify ethical principles regarding archival material and its treatment. Ultimately, the elements of these foregoing discussions form the basis for analyzing archival codes of ethics. The thesis generally concludes that ethical codes must be placed in an ethical infrastructure which reinforces the values and principles embodied in a code of ethics. Moreover, a better understanding and consensus about the purpose or goals of the profession needs to be achieved and stated in the codes themselves. Greater attention needs to be paid to formulating basic principles which can be applied in unpredictable situations. Greater use of logical relationships between code components is also needed. Finally, to become truly useful, the North American codes need to be made more comprehensive and to this end, it is suggested that professional archival groups abandon their attempt to provide ethical guidance solely in encapsulated form.

Western feminists have viewed women's magazines as socializing agencies which shape women's perspectives of being female. It has been argued that the ideologically biased and limited content of women's magazines are obstacles for the achievement for gender equality and that more positive images of women are needed. Others argue that women's magazines serve to teach women how to be successful in male-oriented society. This thesis examines the visual and written messages regarding femininity found in women's magazines for young single working women in both Japan and North America. By using both quantitative and qualitative content analyses, the socio-cultural context of the role of women's magazines were compared. Results showed that women in both cultures are given limited positions in the world of women's magazines, although significant cultural differences were also observed. In advertisements, North American women's magazines tend to show both traditionally feminine (sexy and elegant) women and "new" and "active" women. The presence of predominantly macho-type male figures suggested the persisting subordination of women to men. Japanese women's images are narrowly defined, leaving only a few characteristics, such as pretty and cute, for women to choose. An examination of Caucasian female models in Japanese advertisements revealed that their presence could serve to establish Japanese cultural boundaries of femininity. Through the magazine's article content, North American women's magazines tend to have a variety of articles which encourage women to have it all or to become "superwomen." Japanese women's magazines clearly differentiated their content by the career orientedness of their targeted readership and most of the articles in the mainstream magazines are marriage-related. The overall findings suggest that North American women's magazines serve as "survival guides" for women to succeed in male-oriented society by learning both masculinity and femininity. In contrast, the main purpose of Japanese women's magazines apparently is to provide a cultural text for readers to gain femininity as a cultural resource to be successful as women in their society.

Increasingly, nationalist ideals are being applied by large numbers of politically unrecognized or unsatisfied ethnic communities. The appearance of movements demanding ethnic autonomy in a number of different states worldwide has helped to renew scholarly interest in nationalism. Even in Canada, there was a sharp rise in the political acumen and influence of Aboriginal groups. The resurgence of ethnic nationalism has, indeed, become one of the most striking political developments in recent decades. As a result of these events, questions are being raised about how the relationships between Aboriginal peoples and Canadian governments and society should be structured. At issue are the challenges that ethnicity and nationalism pose. Yet in spite of a genuine willingness amongst a majority of Canadians to reevaluate their place in Canadian society, Aboriginal nationalist assertions have remained largely understudied by students of nationalism. A new understanding of the roots, goals, and internal particularities of these unique ethnic movements is needed. From a survey of the scholarly literature of nationalism and Aboriginal peoples in , Canada, new conceptualizations of ethnic nationalism must be developed, ones which recognize that not all forms of assertion are destructive and dismembering to the larger political community. If Canadians are to find meaningful ways of accommodating these challenges, then incentives must be found and mechanisms developed to both preserve the wider unity of the state and help facilitate the autonomous development of Aboriginal nationalist communities. Recognizing that there are multiple ways of belonging to Canada and realizing Aboriginal self-government are such forms of accommodation.

While Canada is often called a pluralist state, there are no sustained studies by political scientists in which aboriginal self-government is discussed specifically in terms of the analytical tradition of pluralist thought. Aboriginal self-government is usually discussed as an issue of cultural preservation or national self-determination. Aboriginal identity is framed in terms of cultural and national traits that are unique to an aboriginal community and selfgovernment is taken to represent the aboriginal communal desire to protect and preserve those traits. Is such an understanding of what motivates aboriginal self-government accurate, or does it yield an incomplete understanding of the complex phenomenon that aboriginal selfgovernment in Canada represents? The political tradition of pluralism allows for analysis of aboriginal self-government that addresses questions left unattended by the cultural and nationalist frameworks. Pluralism is often viewed as a public arrangement in which distinct groups are given room to live side by side, characterized by mutual recognition and affirmation. At the same time, there are different faces of pluralist theory and each addresses questions about the recognition and affirmation of aboriginal self-government in different ways. Those three contemporary faces can be distinguished by the labels communitarian, individualist, and relational. The major hypothesis advanced is that aboriginal self-government is better understood if an "identification" perspective on aboriginal identity is adopted as opposed to a "cultural" or "national" one and if that perspective is linked to a relational theory of pluralism as opposed to a communitarian or individualist one. The identification approach examines aboriginal identity not in terms of cultural and political traits, but in terms of identification with, and political commitment to, an aboriginal community. Relational pluralism in turn, examines the challenge of aboriginal self-government in terms of power differences within aboriginal communities and between aboriginal and Canadian governments. Applying these approaches to aboriginal politics in Canada confirms their suitability. Contrary to what previous scholarship has assumed, aboriginal self-government should not be seen primarily as a tool to preserve cultural and national differences as goods in and of themselves. The politics of aboriginal self-government should be seen as involving demands to equalize current imbalances in power so that aboriginal communities and the individuals within them can construct aboriginal identities according to their own design.