This PhD thesis examines the different means through which Spain is revisiting its ex-colonial empire in the Philippines in the 21st Century. The turn of the century was an important time for Spanish international relations, as it marked the launch of a new set of foreign affairs policies towards Asia, which led to the implementation of three major political plans (2000, 2005 and 2009) for Spain to increase its visibility in Asia. This research analyses these plans, focusing on their cultural policies, which, in turn, leads to a discussion on the Spanish approach to cultural exchange in the Philippines, funding politics, and their consequences. In this context, focusing on 7 major exhibitions organised in the period 1998-2012, the ‘poetics’ (narratives and meanings) and ‘politics’ (institutional power) of those Spanish representations of the Philippines are examined. The main argument is that, even though Spain’s intention is to offer a fresh and updated look at the Philippines in exhibitions and cultural events, there is a tendency to refer back and recreate a colonial past. This implies the establishment of relationships based on an ambivalent view of the ‘other’ as both ‘familiar’ and ‘unknown’, characteristics that are closely connected to traditional colonial discourses. The focus on the ‘achievements’ of Spain as an ex-empire in Asia, and the non-problematised, non-conflicted representation of colonialism feeds into a political agenda in which Spain redefined its foreign affairs policies. Through revisiting the Philippines, Spain has represented itself as a nation with a long history in global politics. In this context, the Spanish processes of cultural representation can be understood as political tools, which are at the core of Spain’s intention of revisiting its old empire.

This study investigates Anglo-Saudi cultural relations from 1950 to 2010, with the aim of greater understanding the nature of those relations, analysing the factors affecting them and examining their role in enhancing cultural relations between the two countries. Furthermore, the thesis is grounded within the area of public diplomacy, using cultural exchange as a means of developing ties between the UK and Saudi Arabia, and evaluating the power of Saudi-British cultural diplomacy to improve bilateral relations. This thesis has been undertaken using an analysis methodology in order to examine the factors and events effecting Anglo-Saudi cultural relations by providing a study of political, economic, security and educational factors and their impact on such relations. It questions how and why certain events occurred, how these impacted on cultural ties, and then examines the ensuing consequences. The research is made up of seven chapters. The first chapter provides an explanation of the conceptual and theoretical development of culture, cultural relations and cultural diplomacy. In the second chapter the thesis deals with the historical background of Anglo-Saudi relations and its current development, and then examines the factors that have impacted on Saudi-British bilateral relations, specifically the Buraimi and the Suez crises during the 1950s and 1960s in chapter 3, booming oil prices in the 1970s in chapter 4, the higher education links between Saudi Arabia and Britain during the 1980s and 1990s in chapter 5, the relationship in the light of the events of 11 September 2001 in chapter 6, and finally the growth of educational co-operation and the role of the British Council in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) and the Saudi Cultural Bureau in London in chapter 7. In its examination of cultural, political and educational factors, the study has drawn on primary data from various archives in both Britain and Saudi Arabia, in addition to reports from the British Council, the Saudi Embassy, the Cultural Bureau in London and other secondary sources.

This doctoral dissertation examines the popular Bengali leisure pursuit, adda, which may be defined as a long, informal talking session among friends, interspersing intellectual discussion and debate with gossip, rumour and small talk. Taking its cue from Dipesh Chakrabarty’s acclaimed essay on the Calcutta adda, my thesis analyses how the social practice of adda functions as a cultural signifier of ‘something quintessentially Bengali’. Such a general assumption of adda’s ‘quintessential Bengaliness’, I argue, is problematised by the present geo-political identity of ‘Bengal’ as a region straddling two different nation-states, namely West Bengal in India, and Bangladesh (former East Bengal). I correspondingly deconstruct the discourse of adda’s ‘quintessential Bengaliness’ along two key theoretical axes – adda’s radical capitalism and post-Partition melancholia. Adda’s radical capitalist premise postulates the economic, sociological and political significance of adda’s leisurely work ethic as a challenging alternative to the hegemonic epistemology of a globalised Western capitalism. Adda’s post-Partition melancholia demonstrates how the overarching West Bengali Hindu representation of this ‘quintessential’ talking practice can be traced back to the 1947 Bengal Partition. Employing a range of historiographical, literary and cinematic sources in conjunction with Edward Said’s contrapuntal reading methodology, my thesis interrogates the Hindu bhadralok master-discourse of the Calcutta adda to explore the marginalised adda narratives of various ‘other’ Bengali communities – both in West Bengal and Bangladesh. For this purpose, I revaluate the West Bengali bhadralok hierarchy against the contrapuntal grain of adda’s different subaltern space-times, including those inhabited by the East Bengali refugee, the West Bengali tribal, the bangal woman, and the Bangladeshi modern. I thereby mobilise both the radical capitalist productivity and critical melancholic agency of adda’s diverse representational imaginaries – preeminent and submerged, normative and transgressive, metropolitan and peripheral, to establish their dynamic presence as the heterogeneous constituents of a post-Partition Bengali contemporaneity.

My thesis examines contemporary manifestations of extraterritoriality and the logic of extraterritorial representation by looking at a concrete study case: the Gaza Freedom Flotilla. On May 31, 2010, a convoy of six vessels carrying humanitarian aid and protesting the Israeli seige of Gaza was attacked in the international waters of the Mediteranean. The Israeli attack began with an attempt to shut down all satellite connections to and from a flotilla, and marked the beginning of a conflict of images. On board the largest vessel, the Mavi Marmara, the confrontation resulted in the death of ten activists. After taking control of the ships, the Israeli military confiscated all memory cards of cameras, mobile phones, and hard discs. The flotilla has been the subject of national and international procedures ever since, including a court case brought before the Criminal Court at Istanbul in 2012 against senior Israeli commanders, which has been taking place since in absentia. My dissertation investigates the complex logic of the event and its aftermath, focusing on the notion of extraterritoriality—geographical, legal and political, but also visual—in order to reflect on the effort to control vital visual documentation. Viewed from this perspective, extraterritoriality applies not only to people and spaces, as the concept has traditionally been understood, but also may be applied to images when the latter are excluded or exempted from one law system and subjected to another. In the flotilla case, important visual documentation has been kept at a legal distance precisely in order to keep it away from investigations in which it may potentially serve as vital evidence. My suggestion is that the concept of extraterritoriality may help us understand the way in which these images have been legally excluded from public scrutiny, especially in cases involving a conflict between competing legal systems.

This thesis contributes to anthropological discussions on the relationship between production and consumption by engaging in multi-sited ethnography that investigates the design of social robots in cutting-edge Japanese research laboratories and also explores the day-to-day lives of Japanese disabled people who are potential consumers of such devices. By drawing on these disparate groups, located in disparate sites, this thesis traces connections but also disconnections as it analyses the 'friction' between the technical problem-solving of researchers and the organized activist politics of disabled people. It investigates the rationales of robot research, messy and multiple, as well as the material and political impetus behind the 'barrier free' movement for independent living. Social robots hold a special interest in Japan because not only do many people, both inside and outside of Japan, believe that the nation has a unique cultural interest and affinity for robots, but, with an ageing population, the Japanese state has looked toward social robots as potential care-givers and as a solution to the 'demographic crisis'. Through the engagement of both science and technology studies and disability studies, this thesis focuses on the theme of problems to show how the problem-making approach of robotics researchers, which identifies problems of the body as a disability to be solved by a technical fix in the form of a robot, contrasts with the perspective from disabled people themselves, who see disability as a problem of society and the environment rather than the individual and the body.

This thesis offers a comprehensive examination of the dilemmas posed by cyberspace for contemporary social research and in how far current ethical frameworks can manage the risks that may emerge in this new research environment. The study is situated in the period of 1998 to 2010, during which the social uses of rapidly converging technological tools led to the extension of the social world into a new social sphere of social interaction called cyberspace. Social scientists have been quick to explore this sphere; however, as the dominant discourses are based on ideas of newness and difference there is uncertainty over what kind of space it is, whether we can transfer existing methods and ethics and what rules apply in the conduct of research. The thesis first investigates the extent to which the technological tools and ethical dilemmas encountered in cyberspace are in fact new or different. This then necessitates a detailed engagement with the conceptualisation of cyberspace. Thereafter it closes a gap in dominant conceptualisations of cyberspace by offering insights into its legal and regulatory foundations. Next, the thesis reflects on legislation and regulations to identify emerging risks that emerge in everyday social research practice in the online environment. These risks are then used as vignettes to test current ethical guidance’s ability to manage them. The thesis argues that disciplines within the social sciences need to be continually reflexive about their encounters with new spaces, and concludes that cyberspace demands significant engagement with the difficulties posed by the rapid pace of change of technological development and regulatory and legislator foundations in order to manage risk in online social research. Thus while online research is the focus, the potential of this thesis is to offer a historical insight into the reflexivity of the discipline in particular in how successfully it encounters new spaces of/for research.

The study of social memory has emerged as a rich field of research closely linked to cultural artefacts, communication media and institutions as carriers of a past that transcends the horizon of the individual’s lifetime. Within this domain of research, the dissertation focuses on memory institutions (libraries, archives, museums) and the shifts they are undergoing as the outcome of digitization and the diffusion of online media. Very little is currently known about the impact that digitality and computation may have on social memory institutions, specifically, and social memory, more generally – an area of study that would benefit from but, so far, has been mostly overlooked by information systems research. The dissertation finds its point of departure in the conceptualization of information as an event that occurs through the interaction between an observer and the observed – an event that cannot be stored as information but merely as data. In this context, memory is conceived as an operation that filters, thus forgets, the singular details of an information event by making it comparable to other events according to abstract classification criteria. Against this backdrop, memory institutions are institutions of forgetting as they select, order and preserve a canon of cultural heritage artefacts. Supported by evidence from a case study on the Europeana initiative (a digitization project of European libraries, archives and museums), the dissertation reveals a fundamental shift in the field of memory institutions. The case study demonstrates the disintegration of 1) the cultural heritage artefact, 2) its standard modes of description and 3) the catalogue as such into a steadily accruing assemblage of data and metadata. Dismembered into bits and bytes, cultural heritage needs to be re-membered through the emulation of recognizable cultural heritage artefacts and momentary renditions of order. In other words, memory institutions forget as binary-based data and remember through computational information.

Based on a critical ethnographic study, the present work explores understandings of resistance, power and social change among activists in the post-Occupy movement in New York City. The research asks how activists understand, experience and define resistance in relation to power and social change, and explores the meaning of resistance for those engaged in it. Here, the research focusses in particular on anarchist and anarchist-inspired resistance, or direct action politics. It analyses how the principles and tactics of direct action are defined by activists; and asks, in consideration of spatio-temporal dimensions (immediacy and future-orientation, and separation and confrontation), what constitutes direct action as 'resistance'. Furthermore, this analysis starts from the assumption that tracing down the relationship between ontology, epistemology and methodology in movement activity allows for the development of an understanding of how shared experiences and conceptions of social reality and social change influence activists' resistant practices. Here, the research asks how resistant practice and theory is shaped in the post-Occupy movement's collective processes of knowledge production and through their large variety of knowledge practices. These are characterized by the interplay between theory and practice - by 'doing resistance' in as much as reflecting, discussing, and negotiating - that aims to achieve a radical (re-)imagination of what it means to be and act political. The work situates both collective processes of knowledge production and activists' conceptualizations of resistance within the (recent) history of New York City's social movements, and within conflicts around housing and gentrification, which have been identified as core struggles of the post-Occupy movement. Here, the research shows how activists' conceptualizations of resistance, power and social change are implemented in concrete resistant practices in the city using a variety of examples, among them the work of the New York City Anti-Eviction Network (NYCAEN). Theoretically, the research utilizes an interdisciplinary approach, while focusing on a combination of anarchist philosophy and cultural criminology. Here, the research aims to contribute to current debates in cultural criminology that seek increased theoretical and analytical clarity of the concept of 'resistance'. It is argued that the analysis of the methods of resistance employed, and discussed, in the post-Occupy movement helps to understand and conceptualize resistance in cultural criminology by linking activists' own theorizing with academic theorizing. This also allows for a re-consideration of the influence of anarchist philosophy on cultural criminological understandings of resistance, which contributes to necessary theoretical clarifications while at the same time challenging the criticism that cultural criminology suffers from a general failure to consider political resistance in its theory and research.

Shetland’s geographical location has long been considered remote or isolated from a centralised Scottish perspective. However, as an island group situated between the neighbouring landmasses of Scotland and Norway, Shetland is directly situated on the maritime highway of the North Atlantic Rim. The mobilising quality of the maritime highway created a path of entry into the islands, allowing the development of locational narratives, but has also resulted in the loss of some of these narratives. This investigation addresses the dynamics of cultural interchange by formulating a theoretical model of the exchange of ‘cultural products’; with particular regard for practices of recording and displaying visual narratives. The ancient capital of Shetland, Scalloway, provides the background for a microcosmic account of Shetland’s wider history and cultural composition and forms the main focus of the thesis. Within this setting the process of cultural interchange can be seen to have been formative in the development of island identity; particularly in traditional practices, occupational forms, dialect, place-names and cultural expressions. The historical account of Scalloway provides material culture evidence for human occupation reaching back to the Bronze Age. Successive ‘layers’ in the archaeological record and officially recorded histories indicate distinct periods pertinent in the development of a local identity; Iron Age, Norse Era, Stewart Earldom and World War Two. Collectively, these periods represent a consecutive process of ‘imprinting’ characteristics upon the local population; including geographical positioning, dialect, political control and shared narrative histories with Norway during the Second World War. However, it can be seen that there is an over-determination of the Norse element of island identity, which finds a greater degree of replication in visual accounts. It is argued in this investigation that this over-determination is a deliberate cultural construct of island identity that is maintained in opposition to Scottish control.

This thesis explores how individuals in the UK come to and sustain engagement with global justice issues (such as poverty, development and human rights). It responds to a scarcity of relevant research and a stated desire for greater understanding from those involved in development education and related areas. Relevant literature is used to develop: a working definition of the UK Global Justice Movement; a new conceptual framework for understanding forms of engagement; a ‘route map’ summarising knowledge about individuals’ journeys to engagement; and an understanding of current practice and debates in development education and related fields. Using narrative research techniques, the study then presents five individuals’ life stories with respect to engagement with global justice issues. The respondents come from a range of backgrounds and utilise a number of different forms of engagement, but all act in some way as educators/multipliers of engagement. Their stories are analysed using two different ‘lenses’: together, considering themes relevant to development education, and separately, investigating how concepts related to identity (Social Identity Theory, Identity Theory and Narrative Identity) can be used to understand individuals’ engagement. This analysis includes discussion of: the places in which learning happens; debates concerning learning, criticality and visits overseas; the extent to which respondents might be understood to be development educators themselves; roles they have played; the in- (and out-) groups mentioned; and the various sources of narrative available to each of them over the course of their journeys to and within engagement. Finally, the thesis suggests implications for researchers, policy makers and practitioners. This includes: future use of the concepts developed; further exploration of the potential learning value of ‘low cost’ forms engagement; supporting individuals to engage with different organisations and issues ‘across’ the movement; and, considering possibilities for work with families and faith groups.