This thesis offers a new interpretation of the life and importance of George Padmore (1903-1959). Padmore was one of the most well-known ‘black communists’ in the 1930s. He became a major nexus for anti-colonial resistance in London between 1935- 1957 and one of the foremost political thinkers behind the pan-African movement. Through an analysis of his writing and his networks this thesis argues that Padmore engaged in a permanent state of political activity, guided by a practice of ‘pragmatic anti-imperialism.’ By tracing his journalism in West African and West Indian colonies, it shows that Padmore’s influence was far more extensive than previously imagined. This study begins from the hypothesis that the pragmatism of Padmore’s politics can only be demonstrated by examining his whole life, and thus takes the form of a biography. Taking Padmore’s pragmatism as a starting point, the forms in which he was understood and labeled by others are fundamental to this study since they demonstrate the extent to which Padmore was willing to compromise and ‘play the game’ of imperial politics, and they show the boundaries of the field in which he operated. Overall, this thesis aims to contribute to a deeper understanding of race and non-violent resistance in anti-imperial politics in the first half of the twentieth century by focusing upon the role of a mobile, life-long activist from the diaspora who attacked the moral basis of late colonial rule from within.

This study is about refugee integration: how refugees become citizens, and more generally how outsiders become insiders. More specifically, it is about an appropriate conceptual framework for studying and understanding refugee integration processes. I propose that refugee integration be understood as local politics, and that, therefore, refugees and hosts negotiate their relationships with each other based on their respective interests and using a series of material and symbolic exchanges. While this conceptual approach to integration seems self- evident, this empirical, process-oriented, and spatially and temporally specific approach radically departs from the predominant normative assumptions in the policy and academic literature. The thesis sets out and develops how this simple framework, consistently applied, carries analytical correlates which stand in marked contrast to most analyses of refugee integration processes. My argument is supported empirically with a detailed case study of villages in a rural border area of South Africa where many (former) Mozambican refugees are settled since the 1980s. I spent four years (2002-2006) living and conducting field work in this area. The thesis by published (and publishable) works includes five articles covering different aspects of refugee integration as political negotiation. These include: 1) analysing the conceptual dangers and empirical fallacies of approaches to local integration which frame it as a ‘solution’ within the international refugee assistance and protection regime; 2) illustrating how common conceptual and methodological approaches to studying refugees tend to hide the presence of integrated refugees; 3) applying the political negotiation approach across time periods by comparing the integration processes of two ‘waves’ of Mozambicans fleeing conflict into South Africa in the mid-1800s and the 1980s; 4) showing how integration processes, including those related to legal status, often function according to very different logics than intended by national or international legal frameworks and policies targeting refugees; and 5) looking at processes of negotiated integration at the level of the village and how they are spatialised.

This study explores the `gendered' process of international migration in Asia. It proposes that gender is one of the principal analytical factors for theoretical conceptualisation in the study of international migration. The study examines the case of Korea, which has been transformed into one of the major labour receiving countries in Asia since the early 1990s, but which has received less attention in the English literature on migration. The aim of the study is to examine the process of international migration in the historical, social and political contexts of Korea, by way of the integration of theoretical analyses with a critical gendered lens. A theoretical framework for this study is based on the observation that theorising the multifaceted process of international migration - which takes place with various interrelated variables - requires multidisciplinary and multidimensional approaches. The study therefore analyses the social formation of the `gendered' process of international migration by looking closely at the three different migratory stages of women migrants: the migratory journey; employment; and settlement in the country of destination. The primary empirical data used in the study were collected during a six-month period of field research - between April and September 2005. Qualitative data were derived from in-depth interviews with 31 migrant women, as well as employers, government officials and NGO workers. Based on a feminist standpoint of the outsider-within, the study locates the lives of migrant women from the margin to centre of the analysis. The empirical study shows that migrant women are `outsiders' who exist `within' the very core of international migration system in which they are, nevertheless, marginalised and silenced. The study suggests that the ostensibly gender-neutral process of migration is gender specific, resulting in different migration experiences between women and men. Gendered and racialised social relationships of power are pervasive in the structure of international migration and state institutions. At the same time, the differently `sedimented' practices of women and men - who strategically draw on institutional rules and resources to facilitate migration - become institutionalised in a gendered way. This, in turn, influences the gendered process of international migration that is reproduced and transformed over time.

Since the 1960s, the inhabitants of the British Overseas Territory of Bermuda have serially considered and rejected becoming a sovereign nation. This thesis investigates the extent to which the positions taken by politicians and social commentators, who are involved in the debates concerning independence, are informed by their lived experiences and understandings of the island’s past. Grounded in an analysis of the island’s past, this thesis also investigates how Bermudians have historically defined belonging in the political sphere and public spaces according to ‘race’ and class and how this affects the way in which they interact with each other and regard their relationship with the United Kingdom. The study critically engages with postcolonial theory and asks what the existence of this 21st century colony says about the processes of colonialism and post-colonialism. It also considers how this study fits with other research concerning other remaining Overseas Territories to show the value of conducting in-depth studies of specific societies. By surveying archival documents and conducting interviews a fuller understanding of the political and social development of this island is gained, as viewed by colonial administrators, local government officials, and those who publicly challenged the norms that allowed for social and political inequality on the island. These methods are used to engage with questions of how ideas of self and nation were shaped by segregationist formal education and how this was either reinforced or challenged by what was taught around the kitchen table and in the wider society. It explores how Trade Unionist and the fledgling Progressive Labour Party (PLP) saw a move to independence as part of a wider aim to rectify social injustices. The continuity and change in the debate is then reviewed to see how and the extent to which changes both internally and externally interact with narratives of the past to inform how those involved in the debate imagine the island’s future.

In this study I argue that the recent proliferation of punitive and restrictive asylum policies indicates that the British government is prepared to tolerate levels of violence against certain human bodies, from particular countries, to a much greater degree than would be tolerated for others. Archival evidence is presented to show that hierarchical conceptions of humanity have a long history, rooted in British colonial activities, and that such ideologies continue to operate in the contemporary period. The project involves documenting three ‘critical junctures’ when ideas of human hierarchy were challenged at the political institutional level. These critical junctures are used to make the case for a historically informed reading of contemporary British asylum policy which takes seriously the epistemic legacies of colonialism. The study adapts Desmond King and Rogers Smith’s ‘racial institutional orders’ approach, originally conceived in the US context, to the British case, and incorporates a post-colonial perspective into the analysis. Through analysing the debates around these issues, it is possible to glean some insight into both the enduring power of ideas of human hierarchy, and the possibilities for transformative change.

Bacteria use quorum sensing, a cell to cell signaling mechanism mediated by small molecules that are produced by specific signal molecule synthases, to regulate gene expression in response to population density. In Vibrio anguillarum, the quorum-sensing phosphorelay channels information from three hybrid sensor kinases VanN, VanQ, CqsS that sense signal molecules produced by the synthases VanM, VanS and CqsA, onto the phosphotransferase VanU, to regulate activity of the response regulator VanO. VanO activates transcription of quorum-sensing regulatory RNAs (Qrr), which work together with the RNA chaperone Hfq to repress expression of the transcriptional regulator VanT. The work presented in this thesis characterizes quorum-sensing independent and quorum-sensing dependent mechanisms that regulate VanT expression. Moreover, an in vivo imaging system was established, as a means to study V. anguillarum infections in the rainbow trout infection model. Two quorum-sensing independent mechanisms regulating VanT expression were identified. First, the sigma factor RpoS indirectly activates VanT expression during transition into stationary growth phase by inhibiting hfq expression. Both, RpoS and VanT are crucial for stress response. Second, a type VI secretion system (T6SS) has a novel function as a signal sensing mechanism to regulate rpoS and vanT expression. Consequently, RpoS, quorum sensing and T6SS form a global network that senses stress and modulates stress response to ensure survival of the bacteria. Further analysis of the quorum-sensing dependent regulation of VanT expression by the phosphorelay system revealed that four qrr genes are expressed continuously during growth. The phosphotransferase VanU is suggested to activate two response regulators, VanO and a predicted second response regulator. Activated VanO induces expression of the Qrr sRNAs, whereas, the predicted response regulator represses expression of the Qrr sRNAs. Thus, VanU has a pivotal role in the regulation of VanT expression. The signal synthase VanM and VanT form a regulatory loop, in which VanM represses VanT by inducing expression of the Qrr sRNAs and VanT directly activates vanM expression to repress its own expression. Moreover, Hfq destabilizes vanM mRNA, repressing vanM expression. VanT forms another regulatory loop with the transcriptional regulator LuxT, in which LuxT activates vanT expression and VanT directly represses luxT expression. V. anguillarum is an opportunistic pathogen that causes vibriosis, a terminal hemorrhagic septicemia. The spatial and temporal progression of the infection was analyzed using the whole animal with an in vivo bioluminescent imaging method. Initial studies showed that colonization of the fish skin requires the siderophore, the RNA chaperone Hfq and the exopolysaccharide transport system, which protects against the innate immunity on the skin. Colonization of the fish skin is crucial for disease.

In the following study I explore the role of musical practices in the making of different sensibilities. Beginning with the founding of colonial musical institutions in the late nineteenth century in Canada and ending with a consideration of the ideals and subjectivities embodied in a 2008 concert at the Arts and Letters Club of Toronto, I take up the education of feeling as it is rehearsed into being through various musical practices and juxtapose notions of identity with actual material and social relations. Anchored as it is in particular physical locations, my project draws on spatial analysis, discourse analysis and historical contextualization. The study is a genealogy of music education in Canada with music education referring to the institutional settings in which professional musicians and music educators are taught; public school music programs; and public celebrations of national identity in which music is employed with the goal of enjoining participants in particular historical/political narratives and emotional responses. My concern is to track the production of Imperial subjects and the normalization of hierarchies of the human, for example, rationalities of race, gender and class, as they become embodied and normalized in colonial institutional structures and discourses of national identity. I am particularly concerned with the ways that the displacement of Indigenous peoples, along with narratives of white entitlement, are rationalized and rehearsed into being in musical contexts. I also take up the question of how the discipline of musical training might lead to increased identification of classically- and university-trained musicians with the ruling order, and passivity in “political terms of obedience”—a subjectivity Foucault refers to as “docile bodies.” I identify this mode of being as “terminal naivety” in order to draw attention to personal and societal effects, and costs, that result from positioning ourselves and our artistic endeavours as politically disinterested.

Understanding dispersal and gene flow in human-modified landscapes is crucial for effective conservation. Seed dispersal governs colonization, recruitment, and distribution of plant species, whereas both pollen and seed dispersal determine gene flow among populations. This PhD thesis tests the effect of rotational shepherding on seed dispersal and gene flow in fragmented calcareous grasslands. Calcareous grasslands (Gentiano-Koelerietum pyramidatae vegetation) in Central Europe are semi-natural communities traditionally used for rotational grazing that experienced a decline of plant species during the 20th century due to abandonment of shepherding. This PhD profits from a management project started in 1989 in Bavaria, Germany to reconnect previously abandoned calcareous grasslands in three non-overlapping shepherding systems. Two vegetation surveys in 1989 and 2009 revealed colonizations in previously abandoned grasslands reconnected by shepherding. First, I propose a comprehensive approach to identify determinants of community-level patch colonization rates based on 48 habitat specialist plants by testing competing models of pre-dispersal and dispersal effects and accounting for post-dispersal effects. Mean source patch species occupancy in 1989, and structural elements in focal patches related to establishment explained community-level patch colonization rates. Secondly, by adapting the community analysis to all 31 individual species of the same community with sufficient data, I corroborate the role of shepherding to support dispersal for a range of species, even if they lack seed morphological traits related to zoochory. Thirdly, for the habitat specialist Dianthus carthusianorum, I genotyped 1,613 individuals from 64 populations at eleven microsatellites to test the effect of dispersal by sheep on spatial genetic structure at the landscape scale. Genetic distances between grazed patches of the same herding system were related to distance along herding routes, whereas ungrazed patches showed isolation by geographic distance. Lastly, within individual grassland patches, shepherding significantly decreases the degree of relatedness among neighboring individuals (kinship structure) and increases genetic diversity. My thesis contributes towards understanding the effects of zoochory on spatial dynamics in plant populations across scales.

Understanding dispersal and gene flow in human-modified landscapes is crucial for effective conservation. Seed dispersal governs colonization, recruitment, and distribution of plant species, whereas both pollen and seed dispersal determine gene flow among populations. This PhD thesis tests the effect of rotational shepherding on seed dispersal and gene flow in fragmented calcareous grasslands. Calcareous grasslands (Gentiano-Koelerietum pyramidatae vegetation) in Central Europe are semi-natural communities traditionally used for rotational grazing that experienced a decline of plant species during the 20th century due to abandonment of shepherding. This PhD profits from a management project started in 1989 in Bavaria, Germany to reconnect previously abandoned calcareous grasslands in three non-overlapping shepherding systems. Two vegetation surveys in 1989 and 2009 revealed colonizations in previously abandoned grasslands reconnected by shepherding. First, I propose a comprehensive approach to identify determinants of community-level patch colonization rates based on 48 habitat specialist plants by testing competing models of pre-dispersal and dispersal effects and accounting for post-dispersal effects. Mean source patch species occupancy in 1989, and structural elements in focal patches related to establishment explained community-level patch colonization rates. Secondly, by adapting the community analysis to all 31 individual species of the same community with sufficient data, I corroborate the role of shepherding to support dispersal for a range of species, even if they lack seed morphological traits related to zoochory. Thirdly, for the habitat specialist Dianthus carthusianorum, I genotyped 1,613 individuals from 64 populations at eleven microsatellites to test the effect of dispersal by sheep on spatial genetic structure at the landscape scale. Genetic distances between grazed patches of the same herding system were related to distance along herding routes, whereas ungrazed patches showed isolation by geographic distance. Lastly, within individual grassland patches, shepherding significantly decreases the degree of relatedness among neighboring individuals (kinship structure) and increases genetic diversity. My thesis contributes towards understanding the effects of zoochory on spatial dynamics in plant populations across scales.

This dissertation is a narrative history about nearly 800 newly freed black Georgians who sought freedom beyond the borders of the Unites States by emigrating to Liberia during the years of 1866 and 1868. This work fulfills three overarching goals. First, I demonstrate that during the wake of Reconstruction, newly freed persons’ interest in returning to Africa did not die with the Civil War. Second, I identify and analyze the motivations of blacks seeking autonomy in Africa. Third, I tell the stories and challenges of those black Georgians who chose emigration as the means to civil and political freedom in the face of white opposition. In understanding the motives of black Georgians who emigrated to Liberia, I analyze correspondence from black and white Georgians and the white leaders of the American Colonization Society and letters from Liberia settlers to black friends and families in the Unites States. These letters can be found within the American Colonization Society Papers correspondence files and some letters reprinted in the ACS’s monthly periodical, the African Repository. To date, no single work has been published on the historical significance of black Georgians who emigrated to Liberia during Reconstruction. What my research uncovers is that that 31 percent of the 3,184 passengers transported to West Africa by the American Colonization Society from 1865 to 1877 were Georgians, thereby making Georgia, the leading states to produce the highest numbers of blacks to resettle in Liberia and the logical focal point for the African-American emigration movement during Reconstruction.