No / This article critically explores the working lives and views of disabled senior staff working in UK organisations. The qualitative research at the core of the article establishes that some disabled people are confounding established notions of disabled people only working in peripheral employment roles by exploring the working lives and perceptions of disabled managers. The findings do, however, point to continued barriers to what disabled staff in senior positions can be seen to do and be organisationally. Here both practical and ontological risk inheres in organisationally induced change, openness about impairment and risky identities. Such ideas, it is argued, present limits to further promotion and workplace inclusion for some disabled managers.

The concept of ontological security has grown extensively in the International Relationsliterature, owing to the new explanations it generates for states’ security- and identity-relatedbehavior. In the process, however, the concept has become sprawling, vague and incoherent,due to the multitude of different understandings of the concept. To improve the concept’sadequacy, counter the risk of conceptual stretching, and provide the foundation for a commonresearch agenda, this essay constructs a typology to divide and classify the ontological securityliterature in IR. The typology’s main contribution is the dimension of ontological insecuritymechanisms, understood as the different ways that the ontological security of an agent can bethreatened, and the different types of existential anxieties that follow. To test and illustrate thistypology, the essay conducts an empirical case study of Russia’s engagement in the conflict inSyria since 2015. The results strongly indicate the presence of all ontological insecuritymechanisms, thus clearly implying that Russian behavior in Syria is driven by ontologicalsecurity concerns. The findings also demonstrate the typology’s usefulness and fruitfulness inmore closely specifying the nature of the ontological insecurity in particular cases.

This thesis examines the effects of de-industrialisation on the lives of adult learners attending adult education programmes in the former coal mining and steel working communities of County Durham. It presents the outcomes of a qualitative study of life history stories which are 'person centred'. Focusing on the subjective experiences of learners, both past and present, was an appropriate way in which the learner voice could be heard as well as helping to understand their experiences and views on the effects that de- industrialisation has had on their lives, and if lifelong learning was improving their life chances. The importance of social class and gender in configuring and understanding adult learner experiences are critical factors whilst, at the same time, the collective resources of these working class communities have been systematically undermined. Furthermore, the provision of publically funded adult education has declined dramatically since the 1980s. Through the prism of learners' lives the study explores experiences of employability skills programmes and community adult education programmes on shaping the position, disposition and identity of learners who have experienced a major trauma to their communities, their families and themselves. Ontological insecurity, a product of de-industrialisation, has a critical impact on the lives of these adults. The thesis adopts Hirschman's (1970) framework of 'Exit, Loyalty and Voice', originally used to frame the responses of workers confronting the possibility of job losses in a firm, as a way of understanding the reactions of adult learners to the impact of de-industrialisation on communities. In Hirschman's framework the relationship between exit, loyalty and voice followed a distinctive pattern. Loyalty, for example, was the opposite of voice, as people in a firm stayed silent in order to be saved from job loss. In this study, loyalty to the community has enabled individuals to benefit from support and community provision, which has given them a lifeline for survival and a step on the way to finding a voice. Exit, in the original framework, involved proactive workers getting 'ahead of the curve' by finding alternative employment before others. In this study, employability skills training - as a resource for exit - does not deliver. Instead, it systematically demoralises individuals and undermines their capacity to act. It involves churning learners between welfare and more training programmes and, where and when available, into short-term work. The overall impact has resulted in the social exclusion of these learners from the labour market and from the community - the opposite of agency. It is argued that this is a paradox given that social and economic inclusion was an aim of lifelong learning policies. The thesis challenges the claim of neoliberal ideology that purports to promote the freedom of individuals to determine their own fate. Those attending employability skills programmes are expected to find solutions to structural problems, and are subjected to coercive methods through psychological interventions that are expected to bring about attitudinal behaviour changes to achieve employability. It is argued that this is a paradox given deficient labour market conditions which are beyond the control of the learner. Attention is given to public sector community adult education that once offered liberating models of adult education, but have now been subjected to the logic of neoliberal governmentality. This is creating new 'subjectivities' for educators, who are being coerced to deliver learning for the economy rather than social purpose education. What has emerged is a new role of the employability trainer.

This study critically explores the numerous strains of “madness” that Zimbabwean authors represent in their postcolonial literature. My focus is on their reflection of “madness” as either an individual state of being, or as symptomatic of the socio-political and economic condition in the country. I have adopted insights from an existential psychoanalytic framework in my literary analysis in order to bring in an innovative dimension to this investigation of the phenomenon. I consider this an appropriate stance for this study as it has enriched my reading of the literary texts under study, as well as played a crucial role in providing me with effective conceptual tools for understanding the manifestations of “madness” in the texts. The literary works that I critique are Shimmer Chinodya’s Chairman of Fools (2009), Mashingaidze Gomo’s A Fine Madness (2010), Brian Chikwava’s Harare North, Petina Gappah’s An Elegy for Easterly (2009), Tsitsi Dangarembga’s The Book of Not (2006) and Yvonne Vera’s Without a Name (1994) and Butterfly Burning (1998). These selected texts offer me an opportunity to analyse the gender dynamics and discourses of “madness”, which I do from a peculiarly indigenous and feminist perspective. My study reveals that these authors’ representations are located in and shaped by very specific temporal and spatial contexts, which, in turn, shed light on the characters’ existential reality, revealing aspects of their relationship with the world around them. It demonstrates that their notions of “madness” denote different markers of identity, such as race, class, gender, and religion, amongst others. Significantly, my literary analysis illustrates the varied permutations of “madness” by exposing how these authors characterise the phenomenon as trauma, as alienation, as depression, as insanity, as subversion, as freedom, and even as a sign of the state of affairs in Zimbabwe. This investigation also reveals that because “madness” in these authors’ fiction is intricately linked to the question of identity, it manifests in situations where the characters’ sense of ontological security is compromised in some way. What emerges is that “madness” can either signify a grapple with identity, a loss of it, or a struggle for its redefinition / English Studies / D.Litt. et Phil. (English)

[pt] O governo Lula da Silva (2003-2010) tem sido tratado na Análise da Política Externa Brasileira (APEB) principalmente sob uma abordagem de mudança versus continuidade. Contudo, a forma como a área avalia mudança e continuidade pode precisar ser reestruturada e, se mudança ou continuidade forem encontradas, podem ser de um tipo diferente do que a literatura estabeleceu até agora. Resultado ilustrativo disso é a redução da capacidade do campo de entender a recente guinada à extrema direita no Brasil e como a forte polarização e as disputas de memória sobre os governos Lula e Dilma poderiam se relacionar com a política externa, por exemplo. Esses movimentos recentes parecem desafiar as análises tradicionais de custo-benefício, bem como considerar a profunda influência entre os discursos domésticos de identidade e a Política Externa oficial. Portanto, proponho olhar para abordagens pós-estruturalistas e construtivistas de política externa, identidade e biografias nacionais, os quais analisam os discursos da política externa no contexto de uma ontologia lacaniana de falta e ansiedade, levando à busca contínua por uma (impossível) estabilidade e segurança ontológica. Compreendendo a política externa como práticas discursivas que traçam fronteiras entre o doméstico e o internacional e as narrativas biográficas do passado, do presente e do futuro desejado, a literatura sugere um papel central para os significantes mestres e os investimentos libidinais sobre eles. A partir daí, a principal contribuição desta tese é apresentar a (re)construção das narrativas biográficas brasileiras sob a ótica dos analistas da APEB, que inclui políticos e acadêmicos, com o objetivo de mapear os significantes mestres em torno dos quais circulam suas narrativas hegemônicas. De acordo com o campo, os significantes mestres encontrados como norteadores das narrativas biográficas hegemônicas do Brasil foram miscigenação/democracia racial, legalismo/pacifismo, desenvolvimento e autonomia. Em torno deles, muitos outros relevantes circulam. Posteriormente, esses significantes mestres e suas cadeias de significação foram contrastados com os discursos oficiais do PEB durante o período Lula, tentando entender se e em que medida os discursos da Política Externa de Lula poderiam ter deslocado significados sobre as narrativas da identidade brasileira. Esta tese dá atenção especial aos discursos raciais e sua relação com um sentimento de insegurança ontológica do self brasileiro. Não objetivando apresentar respostas definitivas ao assunto e encontrando muitos elementos de complexidade e ambiguidade discursiva durante o período Lula, levando também em consideração a natureza deslizante/cambiante dos significantes, um dos principais objetivos deste trabalho é mostrar o papel construtivo da academia da APEB na compreensão brasileira de suas narrativas biográficas. Outro objetivo é explorar como os discursos domésticos de identidade, parte da política externa, ativamente informam e/ou limitam a Política Externa oficial e como esta influencia as compreensões internas de eu e outro (política externa) no Brasil. Tal abordagem rompe com a ideia tradicional de Política Externa como uma ponte entre o doméstico e o internacional. Diferentemente, entende-a como uma construção discursiva enraizada em narrativas libidinais e imaginárias, ancorada por significantes mestres (e deslizantes), de seu eu ou ego, bem como do ideal do ego e dos outros. / [en] Lula da Silva s government (2003-2010) has been approached in Brazilian Foreign Policy Analysis (BFPA) mainly under a framework of change versus continuity. Nonetheless, the way the area assesses change and continuity might need to be framed differently and, if either change or continuity are found, it might be of a different kind than the literature has established so far. An illustrative result of this is a reduced capacity of the field to understand the recent turn towards the far-right in Brazil and how the strong polarization and memory disputes over the Lula and Dilma governments could relate to foreign policy, for example. Those recent movements seem to defy the regular cost-benefit calculus, as well as to consider the deep influence between domestic discourses of identity and official Foreign Policy. Therefore, I propose to look at post-structuralist and constructivist approaches to foreign policy and identity and national biographies that analyze foreign policy discourses in the context of a Lacanian ontology of lack and anxiety, which leads to the country s continuous search for (impossible) stability and ontological (in)security. Understanding foreign policy as discursive practices drawing frontiers between the domestic and the international and the biographical narratives of past, present, and desired future, the literature suggests a central role to master signifiers and the libidinal investments over them. Henceforth, the main contribution of this thesis is presenting the (re)construction of Brazilian biographical narratives under the lenses of the analysts of BFPA, which includes both politicians and academicians, aiming to map the master signifiers around which their hegemonic narratives circulate. According to the field, the master signifiers found guiding Brazil s hegemonic biographical narratives were miscegenation/racial democracy, legalism/pacifism, development, and autonomy. Around those, many other relevant ones circulate. Later on, those master signifiers and their chains of significance were contrasted to the official BFP discourses during Lula, trying to understand if and to what extent Lula s Foreign Policy discourses could have dislocated meaning over Brazilian identity narratives. This thesis pays special attention to racial discourses and their relation to a sense of ontological insecurity of the Brazilian self. Not aiming to present definitive answers to the matter and finding many elements of complexity and discursive ambiguity during Lula, also taking into consideration the sliding/shifting nature of signifiers, one of the main objectives of this work is to show the constructive role of the BFPA academia in Brazil’s understandings of its biographical narratives. Another central goal is to explore how the realm of domestic identity discourses, part of foreign policy, actively inform and/or limit official Foreign Policy and how this one influences back Brazil s domestic understandings of self and other (foreign policy). Such an approach disrupts the traditional idea of Foreign Policy as a bridge between the domestic and the international. Differently, takes it as a discursive construction entrenched to libidinal and imaginary narratives, anchored by master (and sliding) signifiers, of its self or ego, as well as the ideal of the ego and the others.