<p> This dissertation examines indigenous Arab Bedouin legal struggles for land ownership in the Negev area in Israel. Since the establishment of the State of Israel, the question of land ownership has been central to relations between Negev Bedouins and the state. The courts have rejected Bedouin claims for land ownership, declaring Negev lands as belonging to the state. </p><p> This study examined the historical Bedouin connection to land in the Negev, with emphasis on the evolution of customary practices of land ownership from the second half of the 19th century until the second half of the 20th century. The validity of Bedouin law in present Bedouin society is considered, as well as the meanings of land for Bedouin land claimants. In addition, clashes between Negev Bedouin law and Israeli law are considered in defining land ownership rights in the Israeli court. </p><p> Located in the discipline of anthropology, the theoretical frames for this study are indigenous people studies and postcolonial theories. The methodologies are participatory research and ethnography. Data sources included interviews with 15 Bedouin land claimants and 3 former Israeli officials, 9 visits to Bedouin villages, observations of 5 academic events regarding the land dispute, and primary documents from various state archives. In addition, a case study was conducted of one litigated land dispute between Bedouin land claimants and Israeli authorities. </p><p> In contrast to the traditional representations of the Bedouins as "rootless nomads," the results of this study indicate a strong connection of Bedouin participants to land in the Negev. The findings suggest that Bedouin society in the Negev includes practices of land ownership, and that their customary land ownership is valid in present Bedouin society. The legal conflict reflects clashes between Israeli legal practices and Bedouin indigenous oral practices, and has also been shaped by the national conflict between Israel as a Jewish state and the Bedouins as part of the Arab Palestinian minority. </p>

<p> The human rights industry today generates and organizes knowledge about the Islamic Republic of Iran and Iranians. The cultural archive it produces has been used to advance the global North's geopolitical interests and the accumulation of capital and power that leads to human rights abuses in the first place. Use of the human rights framework as a political strategy among Iranian&ndash;Americans and other allies acting from across geographic, political, economic, religious and other boundaries is therefore risky. The dangers it introduces should be examined alongside its tactical uses.</p><p> This dissertation presents a close analysis of certain observables that make visible "human rights" discourse or activity related to the Islamic Republic of Iran today. It presents an examination of a series of texts that give "human rights" its shape: from academic and journalistic accounts to online data aggregators, film, social media, and related policies. It traces its use by competing actors: from activists and politicians to business leaders and academics. In so doing, the dissertation reveals important political, emotional, intellectual, and socio-economic contestations that arise through use of the human rights framework.</p><p> The dissertation sheds light on the motivations and methods of entities that take up the human rights framework as a political strategy. It narrates the relations between observables, revealing the architecture of a human rights "industry" that consumes and produces knowledge about Iranians and the Islamic Republic of Iran. In so doing, this dissertation reveals the vulnerability of the human rights discourse and activities to other projects and finds that the human rights industry motors a form of (neo)Orientalism that should be interrupted if the network of actors around the world that are set up to address violations of "human rights" are to be effective at helping to maintain or uphold the dignity and freedom of Iranians in a sustainable way.</p>

Class-making from a Bourdieusian perspective is an ongoing process based on cultural consumption connected with a specific class. Despite significant research on cultural consumption, little attention has been paid to the internal processes that can influence class-making. Previous research showed that the emerging cultural middle class is more prone than other classes to expect others to “look down on” their media practices. Based on various media and sociological theories, this thesis explored the relationships between the emerging cultural middle class, their media consumption and internal processes of stigma. Consequently, twenty qualitative in-depth interviews with the emerging cultural middle class were conducted that explored three research questions: how does the emerging cultural middle class describe their media practices, how they think about their media practices and what they believe others think of their practices and what are the imagined social origins of the stigmatization of their media practices. Results showed that the sample was digital cultural omnivores – consuming a range of media practices. Simultaneously, they were characterized by a self-reflexivity and self-criticism, implementing the self-stigma in the form of negative beliefs and thoughts about their media practices. The anticipated stigma was connected with practices that were “unproductive” (e.g. wasting time on social media), practices that the sample was not doing (e.g. not consuming the news) and taste-related practices (e.g. listening to jazz). Furthermore, three social origins of anticipated stigma were identified – based on generational distinctions, upper positions in the social space and other lifestyles. Summarizing, this study not only explored the media consumption of the emerging cultural middle class but also the presence of internal processes that influence cultural consumption and thus the process of class-making. By being anxious and self-reflexive regarding their media practices, they “maintained rank” and adapted to the logic of the “cultural” fields they aspired to enter.

This study identifies the components of an instructional programme for information literacy that is culturally relevant to Kuwaiti students. It discusses culturally relevant education, instruction for information literacy, the provision of library and information skills instruction in Kuwait, and its characteristics as an independent nation, and as a Gulf, Arab, Islamic, and developing country. The study further tests the effect of cultural relevance on instruction for information literacy for Kuwaiti students with an experiment of comparative instruction. The control group received Western-oriented instruction for information literacy and the experimental group received instruction that substituted Kuwaiti cultural referents for some of the Western-oriented referents. The aims of instruction for both groups were basic levels of proficiency as described in Information Literacy Standards for Student Learning, and the main vehicle of instruction was the Big SixTM information problem solving strategy. The only difference in instruction between groups were the images in the Big SixTM transparencies used for overhead projection, the examples used in class to discuss various information problems and the corresponding images that represented the examples. The study measured the information problem solving achievement of 126 fourth- and eighth grade students with a pre- post-test, the recall of the Big Six strategy with a post-test, and student attitudes with a questionnaire. The analyses revealed that, overall, there is a significant difference in the mean achievement scores in information problem solving and the recall of the Big Six strategy between students who received culturally relevant instruction and those who received instruction that was not culturally relevant. Examined separately, males' scores were significantly higher in the group that received culturally relevant instruction, while females responded equally well to both types of instruction. In addition, the study found a strong correlation between the attitudes of students in the control and experimental groups, and between males and females within groups.