<p>Pat Barker’s fictional account of the Great War, The Regeneration Trilogy, completed in 1995, is considered to be her most important work to date and has captured the imagination of the reading public as well as attracting considerable scholarly attention. Although the trilogy appears to be written in the realistic style of the traditional historical novel, Barker approaches the past with certain preoccupations from 1990s Britain and rewrites the past as seen through these contemporary lenses. Consequently, the trilogy illustrates not only how the past returns to haunt the present, but also how the present reciprocally haunts perceptions of the past. The haunting quality of the trilogy is developed through an extensive, intricate pattern of intertextuality. This reciprocal haunting at times breaks the realistic framework of the narrative, giving rise to anachronisms.</p><p>This study offers a reading of trauma, class, gender and psychology as thematic areas where intertexts are activated, allowing Barker to revise and re-accentuate stories of the past. Drawing on Michel Foucault’s concept of discourse and Mikhail Bakhtin’s notion of dialogue, it focuses on the trilogy as an interactive link in an intertextual chain of communication about the Great War. Received versions of history are confirmed, expanded on and sometimes questioned. What is innovative about the trilogy is how Barker incorporates discursive formations not only from the Great War period, but from the whole twentieth century. The Great War is regenerated and transformed as it passes from one dialogic context to another. My reading shows that the trilogy presents social structures from different historical epochs through dialogism and diachronicity, making the present-day matrices of power and knowledge that continue to surround, determine and limit people’s lives highly visible. The Regeneration Trilogy regenerates the past, simultaneously confirming Barker’s claim that the historical novel can also be “a backdoor into the present”.</p>

Syftet med denna uppsats var att undersöka svenska ungdomars värderingar, samt att utreda om det fanns någon skillnad mellan pojkar och flickors värderingar. Undersökningarna har tagit avstamp i Ronald Ingleharts teori om att den västerländska människan lämnar materialistiska värderingar för att anamma något som han kallar postmaterialism. Med detta menar han att människan söker inre lycka och personlig tillfredsställelse snarare än materiell välfärd och fysisk trygghet. Metoden som använts har varit en enkätundersökning, där 51 ungdomar på en gymnasieskola i Sverige svarat på frågor om sina värderingar. Därefter har även kvalitativa intervjuer gjorts med fyra utav ungdomarna. Resultaten har sedan jämförts med liknande studier inom ämnesområdet. Undersökningen visade att informanternas värderingar, precis som Inglehart förutspått, var mer postmaterialistiska än vad de var materialistiska. Den pekade också på att ungdomarna värderade individualistiska värden högre än kollektivistiska. Undersökningen av pojkar och flickor visade att flickorna oftare värderade postmaterialistiska värden, såsom att vara trygg i sig själv och må bra, än vad pojkarna gjorde. Den pekade också på att pojkarna, i större grad än flickorna, hade individualistiska värderingar. / The aim of this study was to investigate the values of Swedish youth and explore whether there were any differences in the values of boys and girls. The study draws on the work of Ronald Ingleharts, who claims that western people are increasingly abandoning materialistic values in favour of inner satisfaction and personal freedom, also referred to as post-materialistic values. To study this idea, students from a Swedish high school were asked to complete a questionnaire (N=51) and take part in an interview (N=4), addressing their current values and beliefs. The result of the study indicated that the students had more post-materialistic values than materialistic and that they had more individualistic values than collectivistic. It also showed that girls were more post-materialistic than boys, and that boys were more individualistic than girls.

Specific machines furnish the contemporary socio-technical imaginary: ‘Robot companions’ that supposedly herald the age of robots, an age that is signified by the realization of robot technologies that are taking over labor from humans in every sphere of ‘everyday human lives’. How do we want these robot companions to work and look and how do we want to live with these machines?  This thesis explores the engineering of relating humans and machines in the specific context of contemporary robotics from a queer feminist technoscience perspective. The ways in which such engineering processes implement ‘human-likeness’ in realizing the figure of the robot companion are of special concern. At the heart of this study is one robot model: Armar, developed at the Institute for Anthropomatics and Robotics at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology. Participating in the local everyday practices of establishing the efficient robot-human interface in the kitchen laboratory, this study investigates the ways in which Armar is made domestic as a prospective care service provider and companion in the kitchen. This study applies a posthumanist frame of research to investigate the practices of making anthropomatic kitchen robots. It employs an understanding of this making in terms of ‘performing the kitchen’. This further entails querying the ways in which norms of ‘humanness’ are translated into the human-like robot as well as the idea of pre-figured embodied entities with individual properties that meet in the laboratory. Thus, this thesis maps the labors and reciprocities of learning to see and experience this specific robot model as a future human-like companion for humans by analyzing the apparatuses of bodily co-production between human and machine that are at work in the kitchen laboratory. / Avhandlingen undersöker sociotekniska processer inom samtida robotik som både upprätthåller och skapar människa – maskin relationer ur ett feministiskt teknovetenskapligt perspektiv. Speciellt undersöks hur ingenjörer skapar robot-människa gränssnitt för hushållsrobotik och implementerar människolikhet i skapandet av framtidens robotsällskap. En specifik robotmodell, Armar, och dess utveckling följs vid Institutet för Antropomatik och Robotik, Tekniska Högskola i Karlsruhe i södra Tyskland. Armar ”bor” och verkar där i ett kökslaboratorium, en simulerad vardagsyta utvecklad för forskning och offentliga demonstrationer. Men hushållsrobotar har också en speciell plats i vår kulturella föreställningsvärld. I denna studie undersöks det sociotekniska och kulturella processen att domesticera robotar och ge dem status som prospektiva hjälpredor och sällskap i köket. Som en sådan kartläggning av ömsesidigt människa-maskin skapande teoretiserar studien den kroppsproducerande apparaten (Haraway 1991) som sätts i spel i detta kökslabb och i robot-människa gränssnittet. I studien utforskas ickemänsklig agens och posthumanistisk performativitet (Barad 2003) samt gränsdragningsarbetet mellan Jaget och Andra, människa och maskin, subject och objekt. Avhandlingen gör ett bidrag till förståelsen av kroppsliga normer och socio-materiella ömsesidigheter i skapandet av förmänskligat robotsällskap. / Ob in Medienberichten oder Kinofilmen – aktuell prägen Maschinen das sozio-technische Imaginäre, die nach menschlichem Vorbild entwickelt werden, um in das ‘alltäglich-menschliche’ Leben einzutreten und dieses nachhaltig zu verändern. In ihrer Allgegenwärtigkeit künden sie das Zeitalter der Roboter an, das verspricht, den Lebensstandard, den sich der globale Norden zuschreibt, zu verbessern. Im Fokus dieser Studie steht ein spezifisches Robotermodell, Armar, das am Institut für Anthropomatik und Robotik des Instituts für Technologie in Karlsruhe (Deutschland) entwickelt wird. In der Analyse von Interviews, teilnehmender Beobachtung sowie Fotomaterial untersucht diese Studie die alltäglichen Praktiken im Robotik-Küchenlabor, durch die Armar zur Begleiter_in und Care-Arbeiter_in in der Küche wird. Die posthumanistische, queer-feministische Rahmung der Analyse erlaubt es, die Herstellung des anthropomatischen Küchenroboters als ein Performing the Kitchen zu verstehen. Die Arbeit fokussiert damit auf die Bedingungen und die Akteur_innen – sowohl menschliche als auch nichtmenschliche – und fragt nach den Normen des Menschlichen, die bei dem Arbeiten an einer ,menschenähnlichen‘ Maschine produziert, aber auch verändert werden. Dabei zeichnet sie nach, dass Entitäten mit verkörperten Eigenschaften nicht präexistieren, sondern aus komplexen Mensch-Maschine-Verhältnissen der Ko-Produktion hervorgehen.

This dissertation argues that in Renaissance discourses of the body the body is progressively evacuated of the spirit, as we move from texts of the late Medieval period to texts of the Jacobean period. Where New Historicists have suggested that the practice of “self-fashioning,” which dictates behaviour, speech and dress, takes place in the Renaissance, I argue that there was a material self-fashioning of the body occurring simultaneously. Such corporeal fashioning, motivated by desire for physical improvement, frustrates the extent to which the soul shapes the body. My Introduction lays theoretical and historical groundwork, situating the body/soul relationship in relation to Christian theology, Senecan-Stoicism, Epicureanism and philosophical materialism. Discourses of artistic creation, informed by neo-Platonism, also influence corporeal fashioning in that the most radical bodily modifications are imagined through literature, where artificers are often privileged as creators. Chapter One examines “The Miracle of the Black Leg,” a transplant, by the doctor-Saints Cosmas and Damian, of a Moor’s black leg to a white Sacristan, whose gangrenous leg is amputated. In written and pictorial representations Cosmas and Damian, initially figured as Saints, are later presented as doctors who perform a medical procedure. Alongside the doctors’ increasing agency, the black leg itself, inflected by Renaissance notions of Moors and Moorishness, troubles the soul’s immanence in the body. Chapter Two examines Elizabeth I’s practices of bodily fashioning through her wigs, dentures and cosmetics. I argue that Elizabeth’s symbolic value, which includes components of monarchical rule, as well as attitudes toward female beauty, is always already pre-empted by her body. In Book III of The Faerie Queene, moreover, Edmund Spenser writes an alternative history of England through Britomart’s body to provide an heir to Elizabeth’s otherwise heirless throne. Chapters Three and Four perform close readings of Book II of The Faerie Queene, Thomas Tomkis’s Lingua, Thomas Middleton’s The Maiden’s Tragedy and Revenger’s Tragedy, and John Webster’s The Duchess of Malfi. I argue that both the allegorical and theatrical modes demand a level of materialism that paradoxically makes the body the centre of attention, and anticipates Cartesian mechanistic dualism. / Thesis (Ph.D, English) -- Queen's University, 2008-09-25 22:59:31.67

Mémoire numérisé par la Division de la gestion de documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal

Pat Barker’s fictional account of the Great War, The Regeneration Trilogy, completed in 1995, is considered to be her most important work to date and has captured the imagination of the reading public as well as attracting considerable scholarly attention. Although the trilogy appears to be written in the realistic style of the traditional historical novel, Barker approaches the past with certain preoccupations from 1990s Britain and rewrites the past as seen through these contemporary lenses. Consequently, the trilogy illustrates not only how the past returns to haunt the present, but also how the present reciprocally haunts perceptions of the past. The haunting quality of the trilogy is developed through an extensive, intricate pattern of intertextuality. This reciprocal haunting at times breaks the realistic framework of the narrative, giving rise to anachronisms. This study offers a reading of trauma, class, gender and psychology as thematic areas where intertexts are activated, allowing Barker to revise and re-accentuate stories of the past. Drawing on Michel Foucault’s concept of discourse and Mikhail Bakhtin’s notion of dialogue, it focuses on the trilogy as an interactive link in an intertextual chain of communication about the Great War. Received versions of history are confirmed, expanded on and sometimes questioned. What is innovative about the trilogy is how Barker incorporates discursive formations not only from the Great War period, but from the whole twentieth century. The Great War is regenerated and transformed as it passes from one dialogic context to another. My reading shows that the trilogy presents social structures from different historical epochs through dialogism and diachronicity, making the present-day matrices of power and knowledge that continue to surround, determine and limit people’s lives highly visible. The Regeneration Trilogy regenerates the past, simultaneously confirming Barker’s claim that the historical novel can also be “a backdoor into the present”.

This doctoral research is linked to the line of Knowledge Research and Educational Practices, the Master\'s and Doctorate Programs in Education at the University of Uberlândia - UFU. Considering the needs presented in the Brazilian educational context, with regard to learning disabilities and scientific production of didactic, as the area responsible for the theoretical basis of educational practices at school, this research was first purpose, seizure of that scientific production. Was elected as an object of study that produced didactic knowledge, embodied in Articles prepared by teachers of the lines of research, the Graduate Program in Education located in the Midwest Region, from 2004 to 2010. This research is justified considering the contributions that a body of knowledge, inferred of the subject matter, can bring to think the educational practice, the constitution of teaching with regard to their investigative field, signal trends, objects being neglected and theoretical foundations that support these productions, which are important to the overall understanding of didactic knowledge produced in the academy and how it can support interventions in school practices. It aimed to unveil the conceptions and the knowledge produced on Teaching in Brazilian graduate, to what extent these views allow or not the teaching-learning relationship that promotes development. The specific guiding objectives were outlined to map scientific production of teaching, understand the constitution of this in teaching and research, analyze and discuss the theoretical and methodological aspects that sustain the knowledge produced, as well as highlight the contributions of the teaching thinking is guided Theory of Developmental Education. To this end, there was a state of the art using as theoretical foundation, the historical materialist method dialectical and theoretical and operational principles of developmental teaching. It was found as the most significant trends that scientific didactics production has prioritized as an object of study, training and professionalization of teachers for performance in higher education, focusing more on the teaching-learning area, the size of the grounds, to the detriment modes and conditions in which teaching is performed. The results indicate the need for education organization intends to provide the student\'s development in the context of the classroom taking into account the formation of theoretical thinking and social and cultural practices, which are embedded in the school routine. Evaluation as a teaching resource that contributes to the quality of teacher education, taking into account that, beyond the realm of academic content, you need to consider creativity, affection, subjectivity, emotional and motivations. How overlooked aspects were identified little expression studies with an interest in early childhood education, primary and secondary education, with total absence of studies on adult education, as well as the relationships that are established in the school\'s organizational structure, materials textbooks used in the special needs presented by students. With regard to the privileged location are few studies that direct their attention to the classroom, to the organization\'s context of school or various locations. / Esta pesquisa de doutoramento vincula-se à linha de pesquisa Saberes e Práticas Educativas, dos Programas de Mestrado e Doutorado em Educação da Universidade de Uberlândia UFU. Considerando as necessidades apresentadas no contexto educacional brasileiro, no que se refere às deficiências de aprendizagens e à produção científica da didática, como área responsável pelo substrato teórico das práticas educativas na escola, essa pesquisa teve como propósito primeiro, a apreensão dessa produção científica. Elegeu-se como objeto de estudo o conhecimento didático produzido, materializado nos artigos elaborados pelos professores das linhas de pesquisas, dos Programas de Pós-graduação em Educação localizados na Região Centro-Oeste, no período de 2004 a 2010. Essa pesquisa se justifica considerando as contribuições que um conjunto de conhecimentos, depreendido do objeto de estudo, pode trazer para pensar a prática educativa, a constituição da didática no que se refere ao seu campo investigativo, sinalizar tendências, objetos que estão sendo negligenciados e fundamentações teóricas que embasam essas produções, as quais são importantes para a compreensão geral do conhecimento didático produzido na academia e como este pode subsidiar as intervenções nas práticas escolares. Objetivou-se desvelar as concepções e os conhecimentos produzidos sobre Didática na pós-graduação brasileira, em que medida essas concepções possibilitam ou não a relação ensino-aprendizagem que promove o desenvolvimento. Os objetivos norteadores específicos foram delineados para mapear a produção científica da didática, compreender a constituição dessa no âmbito do ensino e da pesquisa, analisar e discutir os aspectos teórico-metodológicos que sustentam o conhecimento produzido, assim como, evidenciar as contribuições do pensamento didático pautado na Teoria do Ensino Desenvolvimental. Para tanto, realizou-se um estado da arte utilizando, como fundamento teórico, o método materialista histórico dialético e os princípios teóricos e operacionais da didática desenvolvimental. Constatou-se como tendências mais expressivas que a produção científica da didática tem priorizado, como objeto de estudos, a formação e a profissionalização de professores para atuação no ensino superior, enfocando mais a área de ensino-aprendizagem, na dimensão dos fundamentos, em detrimento dos modos e condições nos quais o ensino é realizado. Os resultados indicam a necessidade da organização do ensino tencionando proporcionar o desenvolvimento do aluno no contexto da sala de aula levando em consideração a formação do pensamento teórico e as práticas sociais e culturais, as quais estão imbricadas no cotidiano da escola. A avaliação como recurso didático que contribui para a qualidade da formação do professor, levando em conta que, além do domínio do conteúdo escolar, é preciso considerar a criatividade, a afetividade, a subjetividade, o emocional e as motivações. Como aspectos negligenciados foram identificados pouca expressividade de estudos que têm interesses na educação infantil, ensino fundamental e médio, com ausência total de estudos sobre a educação de jovens e adultos, assim como, nas relações que se estabelecem na estrutura organizacional da escola, nos materiais didáticos utilizados, nas necessidades especiais apresentadas pelos alunos. No que se refere ao local privilegiado são poucas pesquisas que direcionam suas atenções para a sala de aula, para o contexto da organização da escola ou locais diversos. / Doutor em Educação

The present thesis considers the allusive and narrative function of fate and its associated concepts of providence, free will, necessity, and natural law in Paradise Lost. It argues that the narrative function of these concepts is shaped by Milton's allusions to classical epic, and assesses their impact on the Christian theology of the poem. It identifies unnoted allusions to well-known epic models (Homer, Vergil, Lucan), and examines how Lucretius' account of natural laws and post-Vergilian representations of epic aftermath influence Milton's own depiction of transgression and its aftermath in Paradise Lost. Chapter 1 considers Satan and other fallen angels' definition of fate as a materialist alternative for the personal rule of the Father. It traces several allusions to fate in cosmological and ethical settings, in Lucretius, Vergil, Lucan, and Statius, and analyses how these allusions interact with the Hesiodic mythical material in the opening books of Milton's epic. Chapter 2 focuses on a pattern of previously unnoted allusions to Lucretius' De Rerum Natura in the narrative of the Fall, culminating in Book 9. It argues that in his temptation of Eve, Milton's Satan subverts Lucretian teachings about the boundaries governing the physical universe as he persuades Eve to transgress her natural state in Eden. Chapter 3 discusses the appearance of the Father in an allusive epic council scene in Book 3. In the dialogue between Father and Son, I suggest, Milton evokes negotiations between the Homeric and Vergilian deities, depicting his God as surpassing his pagan epic counterparts who can only delay the fate of mortals, but not change them. Chapter 4 suggests that Milton's depiction of the aftermath of the Fall is indebted to post-Vergilian epic narratives of 'aftermath'. The final Books of Paradise Lost and the portrayal of Adam and Eve's moral freedom as they leave paradise, with providence their guide, should be read, I posit, against the backdrop of scenes and imagery from Lucan's Bellum Civile and Statius' Thebaid.

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Atenciosamente, Auxiliadora Faced/Biblioteca Anísio Teixeira on 2017-05-15T14:34:14Z (GMT) / Submitted by Flávio Dantas (fdam28@gmail.com) on 2017-05-16T10:27:12Z No. of bitstreams: 1 TESE_VERSÄO FINAL.pdf: 1525915 bytes, checksum: 04b79c9aea273e73d02879c26b0dd4ad (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Maria Auxiliadora da Silva Lopes (silopes@ufba.br) on 2017-05-16T15:29:57Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 TESE_VERSÄO FINAL.pdf: 1525915 bytes, checksum: 04b79c9aea273e73d02879c26b0dd4ad (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-05-16T15:29:57Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 TESE_VERSÄO FINAL.pdf: 1525915 bytes, checksum: 04b79c9aea273e73d02879c26b0dd4ad (MD5) / A presente tese tem como objetivo expor cientificamente as contribuições teórico-metodológicas da teoria da atividade e da periodização do desenvolvimento psíquico que concorrem para a alteração da base teórico-metodológica do ensino escolar com vistas ao desenvolvimento do pensamento teórico do estudante. O nosso objeto de estudo é o trato com o conhecimento da cultura corporal nas aulas de Educação Física, com ênfase, na organização e sistematização lógica do conhecimento da cultura corporal nos ciclos de escolarização básica. O materialismo histórico-dialético é a nossa base explicativa por entendermos que o complexo categorial imanente a essa filosofia e teoria do conhecimento nos permite apreender radicalmente o nosso objeto de estudo. Nossas fontes empíricas foram as obras que tomam como referência teórico-metodológica a teoria histórico-cultural, notadamente, a teoria da atividade e a teoria da periodização histórico-cultural do desenvolvimento humano. Tendo em vista uma lacuna sentida na obra Metodologia do Ensino da Educação Física (Coletivo de Autores), no que diz respeito à proposta dos ciclos de escolarização básica que não aponta de forma clara o movimento dialético entre as linhas centrais e as linhas acessórias do desenvolvimento psíquico do estudante, ou seja, os ciclos de escolarização não explicitam os nexos e relações entre a lógica interna do desenvolvimento psíquico do estudante e o trato com o conhecimento. Portanto, foi necessário atualizar a obra inserindo novos elementos na forma de organização e sistematização lógica do conhecimento da cultura corporal nos ciclos de escolarização básica. Através da análise das fontes empíricas, mediada pelo instrumental filosófico-científico presente nas obras que se apoiam na teoria histórico-cultural, confirmamos nossa hipótese a qual explicita que os fundamentos teórico-metodológicos da concepção Histórico-Cultural da teoria da atividade e da periodização do desenvolvimento psíquico oferecem os instrumentos conceituais e metodológicos necessários para a superação das concepções idealista, naturalista e biologizante do ensino da Educação Física porque apresentam elementos teóricos que permitem avanços nas formulações da abordagem critico-superadora da Educação Física, no que diz respeito a favorecer a compreensão dos princípios da lógica dialética materialista histórica no currículo escolar, no trato com o conhecimento clássico, nuclear sobre a cultura corporal, fazendo-o a partir dos fundamentos da teoria da atividade e da periodização do desenvolvimento humano, o que nos ajuda a superar o trato com o conhecimento escolar da Educação Física estruturado a partir de princípios ontológicos, pedagógicos e psicológicos idealistas impermeáveis às determinações sócio-históricas do ser social. Esta tese tem como horizonte teleológico o projeto histórico socialista e um projeto de escolarização da classe trabalhadora que permite a esta classe social o máximo desenvolvimento de suas funções psíquicas superiores e de sua personalidade para-si. / ABSTRACT This thesis aims at scientifically exposing the theoretical and methodological contributions of the activity theory and the periodization of the psychic development that compete for the alteration of the theoretical-methodological basis of school teaching in view of the development of the theoretical thinking of the student. Our study-object is the treat with the knowledge of the body culture at Physical Education classes, with emphasis on the logical organization and systematization of the body culture knowledge at the basic education cycles. The historical-dialectic materialism is our explanatory basis as we understand that the immanent categorical complex of this philosophy and the theory of knowledge allows us to radically seize our object of study. Our empirical sources were the works that take as their theoretical-methodological reference the historical-cultural theory, notably the theory of activity and the historical-cultural theory of periodization of the human development. By observing a gap in the work Methodology of Physical Education Teaching (several authors) as far as its proposition of the cycles of basic education, as it does not point out clearly the dialectic movement among both central and accessory lines of the psychic development of the student, i.e., the education cycles do not make explicit the relations and senses between the internal logic of the psychic development of the student and the treat with knowledge. Therefore, it was necessary to update the referred work by inserting new elements in the way of logically organizing and systematizing the body culture knowledge in the basic education cycles. Through analysis of empirical sources, mediated by the philosophical-scientific instrumental present in the works which are supported upon the historical-cultural theory, we confirm our hypothesis which turns explicit that the theoretical-methodological fundaments of the historical-cultural conception of the theory of activity and periodization of the psychic development do offer the conceptual and methodological instruments necessary for the overcoming of the idealist, naturalist and biologizing conceptions of the teaching of Physical Education because they present theoretical elements that allow for the advance in the formulations of the critical-surpassing approach of Physical Education, as far as favoring the comprehension of the principles of the historical, materialist and dialectic logic in the education curriculum, in the treat with classical knowledge, and also nucleate upon body culture, and, in order to do so, departing from the fundaments of the theory of activity as well as periodization of the human development, which, in turn, help us to overcome the treat with the school-based knowledge of Physical Education structured from both idealist ontological, pedagogical and psychological principles, impermeable to the social-historical determinations of the social being. This thesis has as its teleological horizon the historical-socialist project and an education project for the working class that allows this social class access to the maximum development of the superior psychic functions and the self-personality of its individuals.

Made available in DSpace on 2010-04-20T20:48:42Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 3 142172.pdf.jpg: 20180 bytes, checksum: 6f6801d1120856be510fdfafa5800423 (MD5) 142172.pdf: 1753912 bytes, checksum: 73259a34c6a05733c5e0cc3ffcec54bb (MD5) 142172.pdf.txt: 257193 bytes, checksum: 7d5ff99cc15d06d8551c0b3cbd14a75c (MD5) Previous issue date: 2006-09-29T00:00:00Z / This research is in the domains of materialism, consumer vulnerability and consumption indebtedness, concepts frequently approached in the literature on consumer behavior, macro-marketing and economic psychology. The influence of materialism on consumer indebtedness is investigated within a context that is characterized by poverty and by factors that cause vulnerability, such as high interest rates, limited access to credit and to quality affordable goods. The objectives of this research are: to produce a materialism scale that is well adapted to its environment, characterizing materialism adequately for the population studied; to compare results obtained with results of other studies; and to measure the relationship between materialism, socio-demographic variables, attitude to debt and consumption indebtedness. The primary data used in the analyses were collected from field research carried out in August, 2005 that relied on a probabilistic household sample of 450 low income individuals who live in poor regions of the city of Sao Paulo. The materialism scale, adapted and translated into Portuguese from Richins (2004), proved to be very successful and encourages new work in the area. It was noted that younger adults tend to be more materialistic than older ones; that illiterate adults tend to be less materialistic than those who did literacy courses when they were already adults; and that gender, income and race are not associated with the materialism construct. Among the other results, a logistic regression model was developed in order to distinguish those individuals who have an installment plan payment booklet from those who do not, based on materialism, socio-demographic variables and purchasing and consumer habits. The proposed model confirms materialism as a behavioral variable useful for forecasting the probability of an individual getting into debt in order to consume, in some cases almost doubling the chance of occurrence of this event. Findings confirm the thesis that it is not only adverse economic factors that lead people to get into debt; and that the study of demand for credit for consumption purposes must, of necessity, include variables of a psychological nature. It is suggested that the low income materialistic consumer experiences feelings of powerlessness and exclusion because of the gap that exists between their possessions and their desires. Lines of conduct to combat this marginalization from the consumer society are drawn targeting marketing professionals, public policy makers and vulnerability researchers. Finally, the possibility of new studies involving the materialism construct, which is central to literature on consumer behavior, albeit little used in empirical studies in Brazil, are discussed. / Este trabalho posiciona-se entre os domínios de materialismo, vulnerabilidade de consumo e endividamento de consumo, conceitos abordados com freqüência pela literatura de comportamento do consumidor, macro marketing e psicologia econômica. Busca-se verificar a influência do materialismo no endividamento de consumo, em um contexto caracterizado por pobreza e por fatores que induzem a vulnerabilidade, tais como altas taxas de juros, escasso acesso a crédito e pequena disponibilidade de bens de boa qualidade e preços baixos. Os objetivos são: adaptar uma escala de materialismo ao ambiente da pesquisa, de forma a caracterizá-lo adequadamente à população estudada; efetuar comparações com outros estudos; e aferir as relações entre materialismo, variáveis sócio-demográficas, atitude ao endividamento e endividamento de consumo. Os dados primários utilizados nas análises foram coletados em pesquisa de campo conduzida em agosto de 2005, por meio de amostra domiciliar probabilística de 450 indivíduos de baixa renda, moradores em regiões pobres do município de São Paulo. A escala de materialismo, adaptada e traduzida para o Português a partir de Richins (2004), mostrou-se bem sucedida e incita novos trabalhos na área. Verificou-se que os indivíduos mais jovens tendem a ser mais materialistas que os mais velhos; que adultos analfabetos tendem a ser menos materialistas que adultos tardiamente alfabetizados; e que gênero, renda e raça não se associam com materialismo. Entre as demais análises, elaborou-se um modelo de regressão logística para distinguir indivíduos possuidores de carnê de crediário dos não possuidores, com base no materialismo, em variáveis sócio-demográficas, em hábitos de compra e em hábitos de consumo. O modelo proposto confirma o materialismo como variável comportamental útil na previsão da probabilidade de um indivíduo endividar-se para consumir, em alguns casos fazendo quase dobrar a chance de ocorrência deste evento. Os achados confirmam a tese de que não apenas fatores econômicos adversos levam as pessoas a se endividarem; e que o estudo da demanda por crédito para consumo necessariamente deve passar por variáveis de natureza psicológica. Sugere-se que o consumidor materialista de baixa renda vivencia sentimentos de impotência e de exclusão em função do desnível entre suas posses e seus desejos. Linhas de conduta para combater tal marginalização da sociedade de consumo são recomendadas, tendo como alvo profissionais de marketing, formadores de políticas públicas e pesquisadores de vulnerabilidade. São levantadas, por fim, possibilidades de novos estudos envolvendo o construto de materialismo, central à literatura de comportamento do consumidor, porém pouco empregado em estudos empíricos no Brasil.