This thesis is concerned with the involvement of the 'socially excluded' in transport decision-making. Based upon case study research conducted consecutively in three locai authorities between 1999 and 2000, it addresses the issue of what happened when the 'socially excluded' requested changes in bus provision. In doing this, it addresses four key objectives. These were, to explain how bus provision is relevant to social exclusion; to investigate the extent to which current decision-making processes promote the involvement of the socially excluded in decision-making; to conduct case study research in three locai authorities in order to examine examples of where the socially excluded requested changes to bus provision; and to identify the key factors that infìuenced whether, and to what extent, these requested changes were met. Case study research was conducted in the three authorities, using a grounded theory approach. In each case study authority, examples were identified of where those who were 'socially excluded' had asked for changes to bus provision. Investigation was undertaken through in-depth interviews and documentary analysis into the nature of these requests, their outcomes, and the processes that led to these outcomes. Overall, it was found that the needs of the socially excluded were not adequately met, and various contributing factors were identified. The findings that emerged contribute toward the social exclusion debate in four main areas. Firstly, through illustrating the tensions between deregulated bus provision and social exclusion. Secondly, through showing the ambiguous nature of the roles of officers. Thirdly. by highlighting the diffìculties surrounding the role of councillors as advocate; and fourthly, by revealing the dynamics of the decision-making process around bus provision and social exclusion and the way in which these work against the interests of the socially excluded through a consumerist discourse stemming from a deregulated bus system.

This thesis examines the situated language practices of a group of professional craftspeople. I proceed from a crafts literature whose orthodoxy is that craft practices and language are antithetical. My contribution to knowledge is to show that in contradistinction to the orthodoxy language is shown in this thesis to be a primary tool of meaning-making in the participants’ working lives. Data, as audio recordings and subsequent transcripts were drawn from a case study; a series of talks that ran concurrently with an exhibition of the key participants’ work at a London gallery. The analysis pays close attention to the local, situated, talk-in-interaction of the exhibiting craftspeople and the other participants as they orient to a range of professional concerns. I show how, as a particular field of the visual arts, craft has been shaped by its discourses, but argue that the local situated talk of the people that practise those crafts have rarely been attended to. Grounded in narrative methods and performance, the analysis reveals how talk as social practice enables the participants to position and categorise themselves and others in the local context as part of a wider landscape of professional roles and positions. The participants make available and work with locally-resonant concepts and meanings, mobilise reflective analysis and critique, negotiate membership, and exhibit affiliation to material resources, often by symbolic means. The participants’ use of narrative in the data tends toward unrehearsed, fragmentary speech that emerges in the here-and-now as part of ongoing accounts of working lives, thus prompting an orientation to small story research. As both a method and critical position, a small stories perspective enables the revealing of under-reported and non-canonical spoken contributions. Such an approach supports an understanding of the concerns of craft practices. Meaning-making is thus seen as an emergent social practice distinct from the distant descriptions often offered by much of the canonical literature.

Particular characteristics are frequently assigned to homeless people by virtue of the fact they are labelled as 'the homeless'. There are numerous functions that such terms and definitions fulfil. In general, they serve to promote perceptions of people with particular characteristics as different, distinct and distanced from others in society. In addition they may obscure structural inequalities, maintain and reinforce the interests of dominant groups in society. These definitions do not develop in a vacuum, they are constructed throughout centuries within a social system. The aim of this research was to explore how people make sense of their experience of homelessness in the context of the constructions operating within the social realm. It was suggested that these constructions have contributed to a representation of homeless people in individualistic and pathological terms and thus had a negative impact on this population. An analysis of some of the discourses used by members of this population suggested that this was indeed the case; however, the analysis also indicated that people often refused the 'helpless and hopeless' position associated with being 'homeless'. There was evidence that they sought avenues of empowerment. Implications of this alternative discourse regarding 'homelessness' in terms of current service provision for this population were identified. In addition, it was argued that a more contextualised approach will be necessary within clinical practice and research in order to move towards developing a more meaningful and useful way of conceptualising the experiences of people who are homeless. The role of Psychology was discussed.

This thesis examines the ways in which social class has repercussions for people's quotidian interactions through the evaluations they make about themselves and others. The setting for this research is two districts in the county of Essex and differently deprived small areas within them. Rather than being a homogeneous county, as is often suggested through the employment of stereotypical representations, 1 show how class and place are mutually constitutive and integral to the boundaries drawn between these small areas of Essex by residents. Bourdieusain concepts of habitus, capital and field - especially habitus - are employed in the presentation of a theoretical framework which speaks of the classed, hierarchical evaluations we all make in our everyday lives as 'felt hierarchies of class'. This is an individualized framework that we each carry with us and use as a point of reference to guide our understandings of others; we 'class' others and place them at 'appropriate' paints in our felt hierarchy of class relative to ourselves and others, a process triggered by the meanings that particular 'class clues' hold for us. The thesis argues that individual perception, filtered by the habitus, is centra! 10 class positioning and judgement. Moreover, the class categories often imposed by academics upon people are less valuable to our understanding of how people feel about class than the positions in felt hierarchies that people allocate to themselves and others and reference in future evaluations. If we wish to understand the current relationship between people and class then we must highlight individualized meanings and place participants at the centre of research. The classing process is multifaceted and class clues are ripe with meaning which allow us to infer much about others and understand our classed selves. The thesis aims to shed light upon the complexities of everyday classing practice.

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This dissertation is an ethnographic account of Ecuadorian migrant workers in Barcelona and their aspirations for upward mobility. I take home buying practices in Ecuador and Spain as an ethnographic pivot from which to observe how these aspirations are actualized but also redefined. Through remittance-bought homes or through subprime mortgage loans, Ecuadorian migrants aspired to ‘move forward’. Years later they found themselves unemployed, overly indebted, and foreclosed. The mortgage default processes documented in this dissertation make evident that Ecuadorian migrants were all along pigeonholed into low-skilled jobs, substandard working permits, peripheral neighbourhoods, and expensive mortgage loans. This, I claim, evidences that the only form of middle class they were allowed to aspire to was a subprime middle class. Placed between the swings of two ‘financial crises’ Ecuadorian migrants are in a unique position to witness how ‘financial capitalism’ is made. How it emerges from concrete forms of livelihood in which precarious labour and predatory lending are enmeshed with a wide range of social relationships. By following people’s own understandings of upward mobility, or what they referred to as ‘moving forward’, I document how this everyday notion intertwines with transnational relations and care practices, labour and citizenship statuses, mortgage indebtedness and default. This dissertation provides a bottom-up view of the 2008 financial ‘crisis’ from a little explored vantage point, that of subprime migrant debtors. It also offers a view into new forms of social organization against indebtedness. Unemployed and foreclosed Ecuadorians turned to housing activism joining the PAH, Spain’s fastest growing housing social movement. By pooling mortgage debts and contesting over-indebtedness I claim the PAH effectively produced a bottom-up debt jubilee. It also became a space to make sense of economic hardship and default, create new knowledge about indebtedness, and make room for hope and the reconstruction of social relationships.

No description available.

No description available.

This thesis analyses the self-presentation of the Roman aristocracy during the triumviral period. Aristocratic self-fashioning has been of great interest to scholars studying both the republic and empire; this study focuses on the transitional period of the civil war and political settlement. The key features of the approach adopted in this thesis are that it focuses on the individuality of the aristocrats, rather than political groupings, and considers their self-presentation as an aspect of the creation of political culture, not merely a response to it. This thesis brings together the evidence for self-presentation in three media: building, speech, and writing. Chapter one establishes the foundation for these studies by reconstructing the careers of two aristocrats, C. Asinius Pollio and L. Munatius Plancus, and analysing the priorities they, and the rest of the triumviral aristocrats, pursued in their careers. Chapter two analyses the corpus of monumental building by the triumviral aristocrats, chiefly those who held triumphs, and demonstrates the way in which they used these structures to advertise their military achievements and their generosity to the Roman people. Chapters three and four argue that the triumviral aristocrats had more opportunities for oratory than has traditionally been alleged, and that they exploited these to pursue their political goals. The talented orators competed with their peers and predecessors in order to establish their fame within the tradition of Latin oratory. Chapter five analyses the outpouring of autobiographical writing after the civil wars, as a means by which the aristocrats sought to promote themselves and justify their careers and actions in the civil wars. The major goal of the triumviral aristocrats in their careers and their self-presentation was to establish and protect their dignitas (reputation or standing). Through the examination of the three media we see the various ways they exploited office, honours, and skill to advertise themselves as traditional republican high-achievers.

No description available.