At the heart of this thesis is an investigation of the reciprocal relationship between the city of Luanda and one of its central informal neighbourhoods, Chicala. The study situates Chicala among conflicts that have arisen in the urban densification process and their socio-political management, and in the context of a long history of natural formation. The particular geographical location of Chicala, along with its integrity and specific development, made the neighbourhood vulnerable to colonial invasions, and more recently to aggressive urbanism and large-scale masterplans. In the context of Luanda’s current neoliberal trajectory of urban regeneration following a protracted civil war (1975-2002), Chicala is undergoing a process of demolition and replacement by high-standard real estate developments. The research began shortly before plans for the complete erasure of the neighbourhood were implemented and local authorities and private investors forcefully displaced its inhabitants to remote settlements with unsuitable living conditions. The thesis aims to write Luanda’s urban history afresh by forging a place for the neighbourhood of Chicala and its wider context in the city’s urban order. Documentation of the characteristics of a neighbourhood on the brink of disappearing required a collaborative methodological approach, and a reflection of how architects can operate in such complex urban settings. The thesis aims to go beyond a mere exploration of informal architectural order; rather, it is a contribution to understanding Luanda, and to understanding postcolonial cities in general in their depth. Analysis of a set of relationships between the neighbourhood and the city is presented in a chronology of six chapters. Each chapter emphasises the ‘hybrid’ nature of Chicala as part of a larger context, both in urban terms (autoconstruction, monuments and neoliberal form-fantasies are addressed as part of an urban continuum) and historically (precolonial, colonial and postcolonial periods are presented as part of an interconnected process). The thesis concludes with remarks on the collaborative dimension of the research and the practices of ‘blurring’ it enabled. It is complemented by four Appendices, presenting a portfolio which complements the methodological approach: fieldwork reports, institutional documents based on the collaboration with Agostinho Neto University, and an extensive visual archive produced over the course of the research.

The disengagement of young people from community participation is a debate that pervades the literature and is a concern for UK policing whose strategic aim is to secure the efficient and effective engagement of young people in an operational landscape that is shaped by austerity. Digital and Social Media is seen as offering immense potential to deliver enhanced participation at a fraction of the cost of traditional engagement, but there is a distinct lack of empirical research associated with the police use of digital and social media to engage young people. The aim of this research is to allow young people to shape the way Nottinghamshire Police engage with them via digital and social media. To this end, a 40-point engagement framework based on the principles of ‘Quid Pro Quo’ reciprocal engagement is offered as the product of this youthful insight. The theoretical positioning of the research is within the Interpretivist paradigm and social control theory and procedural justice theory justify why engaging young people is so important to the survival of the British style of policing. A qualitative methodology frames the research design, which includes the use of the semi-structured interview and four focus groups involving young people. The thesis suggests that young people are not disinterested, lackadaisical or apathetic when it comes to police engagement, they are simply disconnected from the police engagement framework, which appears to have failed historically to understand how and why young people wish to participate in policing. Whilst participants felt that Nottinghamshire Police’s digital offer is suitable for young people, it is concluded that digital and social media is not the ‘Holy Grail’ or indeed the panacea for police engagement and therefore young people may not yet be ready to accept such technology and swap physical visibility and accessibility for their virtual counterparts.

To date nothing is known about the attitudes of South Asian men in the UK toward women and domestic violence. Issues related to South Asian men and communities have remained largely under the surface due to religious and cultural sensitivity. The aim of the research is to examine the attitudes of South Asian men in London and the South East of England toward women and their understanding and justification of domestic violence. More specifically, the research explores a range of cultural and religious actions and behaviours in relation to women and domestic violence that have specific reference and are pertinent to South Asian communities. This includes a focus on: educational and employment attainment; domestic labour/household duties; type of and freedom to choose clothes worn; living away from home; relationships before marriage; marriage; divorce; and domestic violence. The research applies an intersectional gender perspective as the key analytical concept to undertake the first dedicated multi-methodological study to explore South Asian men’s attitudes across a range of cultural and religious issues. It provides a baseline for understanding South Asian men’s perspectives, enabling policy and practice to tailor interventions to better assist South Asian women and engage in prevention. The first stage of the research consisted of piloting and constructing a new survey instrument; the South Asian Attitudes Toward Women and Domestic Violence Scale (SAATWDVS). South Asian men were approached in a range of locations to obtain diversity across socio-demographics such as age, ethnicity, religious affiliation, and country of birth or migration, and asked to complete the SAATWDVS survey instrument. The sample is 190 South Asian men. The second stage comprised nine in-depth face-to-face interviews with South Asian men to explore the issues in more depth. Concepts such as masculinity, tradition, culture, religion, and honour were explored. The findings show that whilst the majority of men held liberal attitudes, they were still setting the parameters of appropriate female behaviour. There appeared to be a difference, albeit small, between the public and private sphere. Where behaviour was deemed to be unacceptable this was often framed within concerns for the protection and well-being of women. Gender and gender relations are not static but evolving and becoming more progressive within the UK’s South Asian community. Men’s attitudes are understood as located in a complex interplay of factors: gender socialisation; religion; ethnic origin and country of birth; traditions; cultures; family/upbringing; the role of female family members; education; and interactions with female peers.

The submission consists of twenty-three outputs, spanning over three decades. These range from books and chapters to reports, journal articles and edited publications. The accompanying commentary aims to set the submitted work in context, demonstrate that it constitutes a coherent whole, and that it makes an independent and original contribution to knowledge and the advancement of the academic field of community media within the discipline of media studies. A number of overlapping contexts are summarised: the socio-historical setting in which the practice of electronic community media first emerged; the ‘personal/professional’ context in which reflection on practical experience led to developments in theory and policy analysis; the academic context of the development of British media studies where at first radio was marginalised and there was no discursive space for the notion of community media, then a later stage where a wider range of theoretical contexts brought community and alternative media into the academic frame. Three main sections discuss, respectively, the candidate’s contribution to the identification and categorisation of community media, the application to it of theoretical perspectives, and the development of policy analysis. All three areas, it is argued, were part of a wider strategy aimed at bringing recognition to the field and which involved activities outside the scope of the submission (advocacy, interventions in mainstream media) but which are part of the context of the submitted work. For that reason an appendix (B) lists all the candidate’s publications on the subject, while others list conference presentations and other relevant activities. In addition, the documentation includes a brief career summary and statements by co-authors.

As women’s roles in society have changed and they have had more freedom to pursue other life-goals, decisions about having children are frequently delayed. Consequently, some women find themselves in their late thirties and undecided about motherhood in the face of the relentless ticking of the biological clock. This research explores women’s experiences of being undecided about motherhood between the ages of 35 and 40 when fertility levels begin to decline sharply. Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) was used to analyse semi-structured interviews with five participants. Three major findings were identified. The first was that being at an age where fertility is decreasing and finding oneself undecided about the pursuit of motherhood resulted in feelings of panic and fears regarding the future for some participants. This was influenced by the second major finding – that of societal discourses impacting on the participant’s experience. The third finding was the changing sense of identity and emotional impact experienced by participants in the face of their uncertainty. This suggests a multi-faceted experience which encompasses the intertwining of biological, social and psychological factors. These findings are discussed alongside existing literature in the field to suggest how Counselling Psychologists may support and empower women who are experiencing this stage of their lives as a challenging time.

Background/Aims: According to the United Kingdom (UK) census statistics (ONS, 2011), Islam represents the second largest religion after Christianity, and the largest group of Muslims in the UK has a Pakistani heritage. Analysis of the existing research suggests that Pakistani Muslim men with psychological difficulties under-utilise mental health services in the UK. Several studies (mainly quantitative in nature) have reported that CBT can be an appropriate treatment for Pakistani Muslims, but some authors argue that there are fundamental philosophical conflicts between Islam and CBT. However, there has been no research to date on how CBT is actually experienced by Pakistani Muslim men, and the needs of this under-represented group remain unexplored. In response to this dearth of research, particularly in Counselling Psychology, this study investigated the experiences of Pakistani men who had completed CBT treatment within the last 18 months. Design/Method: Verbatim accounts of semi-structured interviews were analysed employing Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis. The participants were six Second-Generation Pakistani Muslim men (SGPMM) aged between 20 and 43 who had received individual CBT. Findings: In the process of analysis three superordinate themes were generated: ‘Pre-CBT difficulties’ (which refers to the thoughts, feelings and challenges that the participants had encountered prior to CBT), ‘the process of CBT for Muslim men’ (which discusses what CBT means and how helpful and/or unhelpful the participants found CBT), ‘the interaction between CBT and Islam (which explores the significance of religion, and how CBT and Islam complement and/or clash with each other). Conclusions: The participants emphasised the difficulties and concerns that SGPMM can encounter in therapy as a result of religious and cultural pressures: namely in adhering to collectivist and individualist values, in meeting family and community expectations, and in reconciling differing aspects of Islam and CBT. It is therefore suggested that training programmes and practitioners should consider developing more targeted interventions to better address this group of clients’ religious and cultural needs.

Research in the field of HIV acknowledges the existence of social constructs, including the incongruity between HIV, motherhood and sexuality, which may add to the psychosocial burden of an HIV diagnosis (Blystad and Moland, 2009; Long, 2006; Stinon & Myer, 2012). However the research is fragmented, and addresses the concepts of motherhood and sexuality in the presence of HIV independently. There has been little consideration of how the opposing constructs may be simultaneously experienced and negotiated by positive woman. Additionally existing research focuses on pregnant women or mothers, it does not explore the impact of an HIV diagnosis before entering into motherhood. Despite adopting a philosophy of holism and valuing the creation of environments that sustain mental well-being, Counselling Psychology literature is relatively silent on women’s adaptation to HIV. This qualitative study explores how European, childless women who have been historically underrepresented in the literature experience sexuality, and feelings of motherhood following an HIV-diagnosis. Interpretative phenomenological analysis of five women’s experiences produced superordinate themes of, ‘The even worse than undateable woman’, ‘Nothing can spark my sexuality’ and ‘You have to adapt…I owe it something’. The women speak of experiencing a continued psychological impact of an HIV-diagnosis, despite the advances in medication, which precipitates multiple psychosocial crises related to sexuality, identity, femininity and concepts of motherhood. There is a dominant experience of distress, confirming previous research on HIV-trauma. However there are also experiences of resistance, successful negotiation, and personal growth. Clinical implications are discussed in light of counselling psychology’s multidisciplinary approach, including therapeutic recommendations to explore and challenge women’s definitions of sexuality, femininity and motherhood.

This thesis explores the social construction of classed, ‘raced’ and gendered identities of Bengali female learners of ESOL (English for Speakers of other languages) from a post-structuralist feminist position. My research is conducted within the post-compulsory educational context, exploring how Bengali women construct identities in relation to educational experiences of learning English as a second language, and considering how Bengali women are positioned, in turn, by contemporary popular, academic and political discourses. This study is intended to contribute to creating ‘a third space’, within which shifts in cultural meanings that occur through colonialisation and diaspora, offer possibilities for reworking and resisting notions of passivity, inactivity and docility assigned to women within popular and some white academic discourses (Hall, 1992; Khan, 1998; Gilroy, 1992; Spivak, 1999). To open up spaces for non-hegemonic readings of Bengali femininities I identified discursive strategies actively employed by Bengali women to trouble/unsettle dominant discourses that reduce Bengali women to ‘docile bodies’ (Foucault, 1979). Applying a feminist post-structuralist framework has illuminated differences and similarities between, and within, Bengali women’s accounts of ESOL education, to substantiate the view that there is no one truth and no unitary subject. I also draw upon post-colonial, black feminist perspectives to argue that the voices from the margins that have traditionally been excluded from the knowledge making processes can bring into dispute the current discourses about ’race’, class, gender, culture, religion, patriarchy and femininity. The research was undertaken at two educational sites in East and central London over five years. In total, 20 Bengali female learners of ESOL participated in life history interviews over the period of 2 years. The sample was diverse in terms of age, class, education, employment, marital and maternal status. In addition, I also conducted one-to-one interviews with two members of teaching staff per institution. I do not present my interpretations of Bengali female accounts of employment and education as ‘truth’ since post-structuralist approaches challenge the notion of singular truth for all South Asian women. Rather I present these accounts as alternative truths which expand and challenge deep-seated inequalities that position South Asian women as passive victims within existing, dominant oppressive discourses.

This document provides an elaboration of the critical, contextual and methodological rationale for a practice‐based PhD research project undertaken at London Metropolitan University 2009-2013. This four‐year project was an exploration in identity, space and location. It looks at the transitions, journeys and stories of migrant women. Specifically this exploration has been developed through the language of the cultural practices of Iban women. The Iban are an indigenous group of people from Borneo, predominantly living within the Malaysian state of Sarawak. Significantly the Iban practices have migrated from the jungle, to urban areas, and globally, and inevitably the identity of these practices has developed as the locations have changed, much like the women performing them. My father is Iban and my mother white New Zealander, and I grew up in both Sarawak and New Zealand before coming to live in the UK in my 20s. My performance training has been within a Western context, both in New Zealand and the UK. This project has been a personal exploration, which has wider consequences in developing performance practice and understanding the discourses of home, belonging, migration and identity. This has led to questions around migrating Iban performance and cultural practices to a western contemporary context. These questions have been investigated through the cultural practices of the Iban pantun (chapter three), the Iban ngajat (chapter two), Iban weaving (chapter four) and the use of space in the Iban longhouse (chapter one). This project was an interdisciplinary investigation; in each chapter I pull together performance theory from western practitioners and post‐colonial feminist literature with the Iban performance practice. This project has asked the question: "Can Iban cultural and performance practices be ‘migrated’ to a contemporary western performance context in order to explore experiences of women’s migration?" My research question was central to the practice‐based research I conducted, the methodologies developed through practice as research, and are central to all the work covered in this thesis. Within this context the practice is submitted as an outcome alongside this written narrative. Additional details can be found on the website: www.fromthejungle.co.uk.

While much of the ‘sport transitions' literature focusses on the ‘end of career', research focussing on within career transitions in sport has identified a number of challenging transitions, for example, the move from junior to senior sport. While there is some very focussed (e.g., Scandinavian context) quantitative research that has been conducted, our understanding regarding the factors that contribute to the adjustment of athletes through within career sport transitions is mainly based from qualitative methodologies. It is clear that there are a number of important transitions on the path to elite sport, which may vary depending on factors such as sport and culture (e.g. diversification to specialising; junior to senior; academy to professional; elite to super elite; continued longevity of success). Continuing to broaden and deepen our understanding in this area will help both researchers and practitioners working with athletes on this pathway. As such, the objectives of this thesis are to: 1) Understand the predictive factors of adjustment and satisfaction through important within career sport transitions; 2) Investigate the individual, environmental and experiential features that are associated with successful and unsuccessful transitions to elite level sport 3) Investigate the individual characteristics and environmental features of a highly successful world class elite development program. These three thesis objectives were achieved through four aims and associated studies. Specifically: a) Examining the junior to senior transition experiences of a cross-cultural population using the Transition Monitoring Survey, b) Examining the individual and environmental characteristics, and developmental experiences of athletes who successfully negotiated the transition to elite level through qualitative methodology, c) Examining the individual and environmental characteristics, and developmental experiences of athletes who were unsuccessful in negotiating the transition to elite level, through qualitative methodology, iii and d) Examining the mechanisms that underpin the success of an independent triathlon program in developing elite world-class level athletes, using a qualitative approach. Subtleties of the trajectory were identified and interestingly athletes who successfully progressed to elite level made a choice to commit to their sport after taking part in deliberate play activities during early steps. On the contrary, unsuccessful athletes specialized early and in some cases the sport they were involved was not a personal choice. Findings showed that a combination of individual and environmental characteristics is necessary in order to cope successfully with within-career transitions. Physical abilities, commitment, motivation, aspirations, mental skills and the ability to respond to challenges were acknowledged as facilitators of a successful trajectory towards elite level. As environmental features also play a significant role in the outcome of the within career transitions an environment focused on long-term development, with clear and coherent communication and goals promoting the athlete wellbeing while in the same time utilizing intentional challenge can facilitate the pathway to elite level. The integration of the selection process as part of the talent development and the use of role models within the team to enable individuals continuously learn from each other were additional features identified. On the other hand, social pressure, balancing a dual career, a winning focused environment and poor communication were the main barriers that may lead to dropout. Practical implications are that increasing the quality of athletes' preparation and equipping them with the skills and attributes required in order to cope with the challenges of the within career transitions during their trajectory to elite level competition would facilitate progression. As such, not only developing individual characteristics but also creating an environment that aids to this end would increase the chances of athletes reach at elite level. Research implications of this thesis are that key individual and environmental features that facilitate progression to elite level were identified. Future research is required regarding the potential connection of early experiences and long-term achievements in sport, differences between team and individual sports while also further examination of successful environments and longitudinal examination of within career transitions.