This thesis concerns the way technology was conceived in Britain during the period c.1870-1914, when the word 'technology' was not yet available. Just as historians of technology have rarely focused on the conceptual and semantic histories of the word 'technology', intellectual historians have not focused on how technology was conceived during this period. The thesis addresses this gap by focusing on 'ideas of the machine', posited as antecedent to the later concept of technology. This thesis argues that ideas about technological change more characteristic of the early nineteenth century (and known as the 'machinery question') returned in new forms during the period c.1870-1914. It claims that this new understanding of machines consisted in relating them to readings of historical change at large, and so was temporal in nature. During this period, the first historical accounts of the Industrial Revolution of c.1800 were compiled in different settings, producing visions of what is termed here the 'machine past'. As part of their growing ambition, scientists at the British Association produced histories which sought to take credit for the success of new technologies. The historians Arnold Toynbee, William Cunningham and WJ Ashley developed accounts of the Industrial Revolution which presented machines as complex agents of change. Their accounts were built upon by the economist JA Hobson, who is shown to have theorized technology extensively, an aspect of his work which has been hitherto ignored. Contemporaneous with these visions of the 'machine past' were future-oriented works which offered a critical assessment of technological trends. In a range of writings, HG Wells, GK Chesterton and others debated the shape of the 'machine future'. This thesis provides a close reading of influential, competing visions of the machine and demonstrates how projections of machinery (past and future) served as critical commentaries on the growing significance of technology for human life. It concludes that the increasing specialization of intellectual inquiry during this period became a barrier to the holistic investigation of technology, a process described here as a 'technological settlement'. 3

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This is the report of a research study of the 'founding stories' of 30 voluntary organisations, 15 in the UK and 15 in India, as told by the chief executives. , suggest that an analysis of these stories may prove fruitful in deepening our understanding of the voluntary sector and of the ways in which leadership is understood within it. The study explores three propositions; 1) that these founding stories can be regarded as analogous to creation mythology in the functions they fulfil for the organisation, 2) that chief executives make use of these stories as a heuristic in sensemaking, and 3) that the symbolic meanings latent within the stories may be revelatory of differing constructions of the meaning of society and of social change in the two cultures. I have drawn on hermeneutics for developing an interpretive methodology. Two chapters discuss the theoretical background for the study, concentrating on the themes of mythology and hermeneutics. The study includes a review of the literature on storytelling in an organisational context and of the voluntary sectors in the UK and in India and concludes with a suggestion that one meaning of the metaphor of the voluntary sector may be to provide a space for the construction of contemporary understandings of ethical behaviour.

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Urgent global problems-whether military conflicts, economic insecu rities, immigration controls or mass inca rceration-not only call for new modes of po litical action but also demand new forms of knowledge. For if knowledge frameworks both shape the horizons of social intelli gi bil ity and chart t he realms of political possibility, then epistemological interventions constitute a crucial part of social change. Social movements play a key role in th is work by engaging in dissident knowledge practices that open up space for political transformation. But what are the processes and conditions through which social movements generate new ways of knowing?'What is politically at sta~e in the various knowledge strategies that activists use to generate social change? Despite a growing lite ratu re on the role of epistemological dimensions of protest, social movement studies tend to neglect specific questions of epistemological change. Often treating knowledge as a resource or object rather than a power relation and a socia l practice, social movement scholars tend to focus on content rather than production, frames rather than practices, taxonomies rather than processes. Missing is a more dynamic account of the conditions, means and power relations through which transformative knowledge practices come to be constituted and deployed. Seeking to better understand processes of epistemological transformation, this thesis explores the relationship between social movements, knowledge production and pol itical change. Starting from an assumption that knowledge not only represents the world, but also works to constitute it, th is thesis examines the role of social movement knowledge practices in shaping the conditions of political possi bility. Drawing from the context of grassroots queer, transgender and feminist organizing around issues of prisons and border controls in North America, the project explores how activists generate new forms of knowledge and forge new spaces of political possibility. Working through a series of concepts-transformation, resistance, exp_erience, co-optation, so lidarity and analogy-this thesis explores different ways of understanding processes of epistemological change with in social movement contexts. It considers processes that facil itate or enable epistemological change and those that lim it or prohibit such change. Bringing together a range of theoretical perspect ives, includ ing femin ist, queer, crit ica l race and post-structuralist analyses, and drawing on interviews with grassroots activists, the thesis explores what is politica lly at stake in the different ways we conceptua lise, imagine and engage in processes of epistemological change.

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This thesis is a multilevel analysis of relationships between religion, intolerance towards ethnic out-groups and homophobia across 47 European countries based on European Values Study data (EVS 2010, wave 4). The analysis accounts for associations between the religiosity of individuals and their likelihood of being disinclined to accept people of a different race, immigrants and homosexuals as neighbours, or to accept homosexual behaviour as justifiable. Secondly, relationships between religious and socio-economic national contexts on the two forms of intolerance are studied. Religion is conceptualised as a three-dimensional phenomenon, thus a distinction is made between believing, belonging and religious practice. The main research question motivating the individual-level analysis is: To what extent is religion in Europe associated with intolerance towards ethnic out-groups and homosexuals? The research question of the contextual analysis is: How do the national religious, socio-economic and political contexts citizens live in matter for their tolerance towards out-groups? The key results of the analyses can be summarised as follows: religion is significantly related to both ethnic intolerance and homophobia. Believing in a Higher Power was found to be strongly negatively and fundamentalism strongly positively related to ethnic intolerance in most countries. Religious devoutness and observance, on the other hand, are positively related to ethnic intolerance only in a minority of mostly South-Eastern European countries. All of them have legacies of ethno-religious conflict, poverty and political instability. High religiosity, alongside poverty, nationalism and right-wing authoritarianism are strong predictors of ethnic prejudice in these contexts. In most of Europe, however, neither religious belonging nor religious practice is statistically significantly related to ethnic intolerance. Regarding homophobia, strong positive relationships with all three dimensions of religiosity were found. Contrary to the author’s expectation, religion matters most for the citizens’ dislike of homosexuals in Western European countries where the overall levels of homophobia are comparatively low. In large parts of post-communist Eastern Europe homophobia appears to have a secular face. The finding surprises, given the frequent utilisations of Orthodox and Catholic Christian symbolism that could be observed at public protests against eastern European gay pride parades of the last couple of years. Plausible explanations are explored alongside modernisation- and identity theory: religion has less impact on homophobic attitudes in societies where homophobia is generally more socially acceptable, while in highly modernised Western societies, where liberal values and a general acceptance of homosexuality are prevalent, religious fundamentalism appears to be strongly associated with anti-modern and traditionalistic identities that are exclusive towards out-groups.