This thesis, based on 14 months of fieldwork, examines middle-class Lahore, a milieu that is not only anxious about the growing religious violence in the country but also feels disappointed by the state and its false promises of progress. The ethnography explores how such tensions shape ideas on personal and public piety which, in turn, influence conceptions of modernity and a ‘successful life’. I examine the growing presence of a form of religiosity that emphasises the personal study of the Quran and other Islamic texts. The rising popularity of Quran schools and study circles, talks by television-based Islamic scholars, and discussions in homes are indicative of a sensibility which encourages individuals to discover the ‘real’ and ‘rational’ Islam by understanding the Quran for themselves. Although this religiosity centres around the individual and the cultivation of personal ethics, it also has a significant public aspect. Many believe that acquired Islamic ethics will not only help attain success in this life and the hereafter but also solve societal problems such as corruption, nepotism and economic disorder. Although such ideas have developed alongside a belief that the state is incompetent, they nevertheless reproduce many state-produced discourses on religion, morality and modernity. At a broader level, my thesis is concerned with how middle-class Pakistan perceives itself and its position in the world. I argue that prevailing ideas on Islam have been shaped by increased communication with the South Asian diaspora abroad and have developed in response to two struggles. First, the emerging middle-class uses this religiosity to contest the moral and economic domination of the established old-money elite. Second, anxieties about the gaze of an abstracted outsider – usually the West on the Muslim world – shape middle-class representations of self.

This thesis has examined the associational lives of the educated African elite described in the Lagos newspapers between 1880 and 1920, focusing especially on articles about memorial associations, industrial and agricultural associations, and associations relating to the ceremonies ofthe British Empire. There are two purposes underlying this research. The first is to re-examine early colonial Lagos, which has been described as a divided society. The second is to re-evaluate the roles of the early Lagos press. Based on extensive examination of the Lagos newspapers, this thesis argues that the descriptions of associational activities in Lagos newspapers were part of a conscious project of the press tore-construct Lagos society by encouraging "unity" for an "African"/"Nigerian" way of progress. In addition to the Black Atlantic influences on the development of the idea of an African way of progress, it demonstrates the impact of Japan in the intellectual history of Nigeria. This thesis seeks to contribute to an understanding of the social life of the educated African elite and of press activity in early colonial Lagos within historical context that reveals new aspects of Lagos society between 1880 and 1920.

A partir de l'objet automobile, cette thèse propose une réponse en trois temps à la problématique du rôle de la consommation matérielle dans la stratification sociale. Grâce aux caractéristiques originales du bien automobile, l'objectif poursuivi est d'interroger la question de l'homogénéisation des styles de vie dans le contexte de la France contemporaine sous trois rapports : les phénomènes de diffusion de l'automobile, la distribution sociale des caractéristiques de l'équipement, la répartition des coûts engendrés par la voiture. Comment caractériser la diffusion d'un objet symbolique de la consommation de masse et quelles sont les limites à cette diffusion ? Comment sont distribués les biens selon leurs caractéristiques dans l'espace social ? Comment varient les différents coûts de l'automobile parmi les groupes sociaux ? Nous répondons à de telles questions en recourant à une analyse secondaires de deux séries d'enquêtes réalisées par l'Institut National de la Statistique et des Études Économiques : les Enquêtes Nationales Transports réalisées en 1981, 1993 et 2007 ainsi que les enquêtes Budget de famille réalisées en 1985, 1989, 1995, 2001 et 2006. / By using the automobile as a social object, this thesis provides a threefold answer to the problem of the role of material consumption in social stratification. Thanks to the very original nature of automobile, we aim at address the question of the homogenization of lifestyles in contemporary France in three differents aspects : the phenomenons of social diffusion, the distribution of the characteristics of the automobile in social space and the repartition of the internal and external costs of the car. How can we characterize the diffusion of a good symbolic of mass consumption ? Which limits does this diffusion assume ? How are distributed the characteristics of the material goods in social space ?How do the differents costs of the automobile vary among social groups ? We adress theses questions by using secondary analysis of two series of suveys conducted by the French institute of statistics : the National Travel Surveys realized in 1981, 1993 and 2007 and the French Household Expenditure Surveys conducted in 1985, 1989, 1995, 2001 and 2006.

This thesis is about the use of the term social exclusion in contemporary Scotland and how it has given rise to the idea of 'excluded spaces' in political and academic commentaries on deprived neighbourhoods. It argues that, despite criticism, the term offers a useful way of re-assessing disadvantaged places, such that space (for example, in the guise of socio-spatial segregation) should be considered not only an outcome but also an input into processes of exclusion. This is illustrated through exploration of the reproduction of the frequently negative place-images surrounding two deprived neighbourhoods in urban Scotland. The thesis explores how such representation may stigmatise residents therein, ultimately resulting in the production of landscapes of exclusion. Use of a range of qualitative methods (though primarily biographical interviews) demonstrates how negative place-images are constructed and remain resilient to change while also revealing the concrete outcomes of such 'imagined' geographies. Overall, the thesis makes three main points. First, that the construction of 'imagined' and 'real' places are fluid and dynamic processes and differences between 'images' and 'realities' of places are neither as clear cut, nor as 'true' or 'inaccurate' as might be assumed. Second, that 'real' and 'imagined' representations of place are reproduced through practices in, and attitudes towards, place. And third, that migration processes are influenced by, and influential to, the construction of social and place identities. Construction of socio-spatial stereotypes reveals space to be both an outcome and input into processes of exclusion while also demonstrating how many of the taken-for-granted assumptions about disadvantaged neighbourhoods might be considered place-myths.

The Party-state's popular legitimacy is difficult to assess. This study aims to do so via a two- step methodology that aims to reveal the political belief sets through which the Chinese public evaluates the present regime and imagines possible alternatives. I focus upon the emerging middle class, as conceptualized by the Party-state, because the Party-state views this segment's support as a priority for its legitimation efforts. And I focus upon Beijing, because theory and evidence suggests that Beijing's emerging middle class should be especially persuaded by the Party-state's ideological work. Ideological diversity discovered in Beijing is a baseline of what one would hypothesize to exist elsewhere in China. First, I distil the main ideological traditions to which the emerging middle class is exposed - including Official Ideology, Liberalism, New Left and Political Confucianism - down into their essential convictions. Second, via Q Methodology, I present statements representing these distilled convictions to a sample of the emerging middle class and ask them, using these statements, to answer: 'What should the guiding values and principles of Chinese politics be?' From the patterns of their responses, I elucidate the variety of ways they evaluate the question - and hence, evaluate the legitimacy of the present regime. Four discourses emerge. Social Welfarism and Liberal Idealism form orthogonal boundaries between which most members of the emerging middle class situate themselves. Regression analysis suggests that the former is the default view, but a variety of factors can rotate people toward the latter. Authoritarian Reformism and Critical Realism are minority discourses that reveal more radical possibilities. My research suggests that the Party-state's efforts to contain public conceptions have had mixed success. The range of public political preferences is sufficiently constrained that a single Party can coherently claim to represent their fundamental shared interests. A corollary finding is that the 'middle class' is emerging into the role the Party-state envisages for it, as a stabilizing force. However, while its members may be 'allies of the state', only some are devotees, in the sense that they share substantially in the Official Ideological perspective. The bounded diversity of ideological discourses reveals the exquisite complexity of the Party-state's legitimation task, and many potential pitfalls and missteps. The present study reveals both the reach of the state (i.e., a bounded discourse weighted toward a Social Welfarist default) and its limits (i.e., popular drift toward problematic alternatives). More broadly, I find that popular legitimacy can be subjected to direct investigation. I show that while state-centric approaches to investigating China are compelling for their explanatory power, a balanced approach offers richer insight.

Human social status has long been of interest to evolutionary and social psychologists. The question of who gets to control resources and be a leader has garnered a lot of attention from these and other fields, and this thesis examines evidence for there being two different mechanisms of achieving high status, and their correlates. The mechanisms are 1) Dominance: being aggressive, manipulative and forcing others to follow you, and 2) Prestige: possessing qualities which make others freely follow you. Chapter 1 is an introductory chapter in which I explain selection pressures, group formation, and the need for social hierarchies; I then describe the two proposed methods of attaining social status and how facial characteristics can give clues as to an individual’s social status. In Chapter 2, my first experimental chapter, I examined how faces created to appear either high in dominance or high in prestige were judged with respect to those traits as well as personality characteristics. Taking this further, in Chapter 3, I looked at how natural variation in real faces would reflect differences in other- and self-perceived ratings of dominance and prestige. Chapter 4 served to examine whether, given a set of words related to social status, I would find differences in what words were placed into dominant or prestige categories. Findings within these chapters are consistent with dominance and prestige being separable methods of attaining high status, from differences in facial appearance (Chapter 2 and 3), to personality characteristics (Chapter 2), to word usage (Chapter 4). Once I had established that these were two distinct routes to achieving high status, I chose to focus on dominance in Chapter 5 and explored the conceptual relationships between dominance and facial expressions. I found that manipulating perceptions of dominance affected how intense expressions of anger, sadness, and fear were perceived (Chapter 5). As there has been a paucity of research in the area of women’s social status, in Chapter 6, I went on to explore what effects cosmetics use in women would have on their perceived social status. I found differences in how men and women perceived women wearing cosmetics, which again points to a distinction between dominance and prestige. My thesis then presents a broad view of the two different mechanisms for attaining high status. Using new methods not otherwise used in exploring dominance and prestige I was able to explore correlates and indicators, as well as perceptions of both strategies. These findings will allow us to determine who might be capable of attaining social status, which of the two methods they might use, as well as what implicit associations we hold about each. They will also open doors for future research into the two strategies, and even help interpret previous research, as many previous studies simply relate to high status and do not distinguish between dominance and prestige.

Au cours des années 2010, les « classes moyennes africaines » sont progressivement devenues une référence catégorielle des sphères économiques et politiques internationales. La catégorie, associée systématiquement à des corrélations positives non validées de développement économique et politique, fait l'objet de divers travaux d'identification et de typification de la part d'acteurs extérieurs (organisations internationales de développement, cabinets de conseil en investissement, etc.). Si ces derniers n'hésitent pas à affirmer l'émergence de « classes moyennes africaines », nous ne pouvons que souligner le caractère incantatoire de telles affirmations, qui relèvent plus d'un « jeu de fabricants » visant à dessiner un monde en « émergence » que de validations empiriques probantes.Ce travail de thèse se base sur un pari : user d’une affectation catégorielle particulièrement incertaine « classes moyennes africaines » afin d’élaborer une méthodologie permettant d’identifier des mutations sociales structurelles sous-jacentes en Éthiopie. Par une étude empirique de l'espace social intermédiaire d'Addis-Abeba, il s'agit de soumettre ces mutations à analyse pour en comprendre les fondements, les formes et processus de constitution et les impacts potentiels sur la société et le politique du pays / Since the year 2010, the term “African Middle Classes” has increasingly become a categorical reference in the international economic and political arena. This category, which has systematically been associated with a positive but unverified correlation of economic and political development, represents the object of diverse identification and typification projects by external actors (such as international development organizations, investment consultancy firms etc.). While the latter do not hesitate to affirm the emergence of the phenomenon of “African Middle Classes”, we cannot but underline the incantatory character of these affirmations. The emergence is more linked to a “producers’ game”, inclined to sketch out an « emerging world », than to empirical evidence.This doctoral research is based on the challenging task of using the particularly elusive and projected category of the « African Middle Classes » to develop a methodology that helps to identify the structural social changes that are shaping Ethiopia nowadays. Grounded in an empirical case study of the intermediate social space in Addis Ababa, this work aims to analyse the foundations, forms and construction processes, as well as the potential impact that these changes have on the Ethiopian society and the political system

This thesis will contend that a permanent body of military force under royal command, a ‘standing army’, arose during the first three decades of the seventeenth century in France. Such a development constituted a transformation in the nature of the monarchy’s armed forces. It was achieved by encouraging elements of the French nobility to become long-term office-holders within royal military institutions. Those members of the nobility who joined the standing army were not coerced into doing so by the crown, but joined the new body of force because it provided them with a means of achieving one of the fundamental ambitions of the French nobility: social advancement for their family. The first four chapters of this thesis thus look at how the standing army emerged via the entrenchment of a system of permanent infantry regiments within France. They look at how certain families, particularly from the lower and middling nobility, attempted to monopolise offices within the regiments due to the social benefits they conferred. Some of the consequences that arose from the army becoming an institution in which ‘careers’ could be pursued, such as promotion and venality, will be examined, as will how elements of the the nobility were vital to the expansion of the standing army beyond its initial core of units. Chapters Five and Six will investigate how the emergence of this new type of force affected the most powerful noblemen of the realm, the grands. In particular, it will focus on those grands who held the prestigious supra-regimental military offices of Constable and Colonel General of the Infantry. The thesis concludes that the emergence of the standing army helped to alter considerably the relationship between the monarchy and the nobility by the end of the period in question. A more monarchy-centred army and state had begun to emerge in France by the late 1620s; a polity which might be dubbed the early ‘absolute monarchy’. However, such a state of affairs had only arisen due to the considerable concessions that the monarchy had made to the ambitions of certain elements of the nobility.

Cette thèse se propose d'étudier, dans le cadre d'une exégèse des textes de Marx compris entre 1844 et 1867, la manière dont ce dernier a conçu la prostitution et les rapports entre les sexes. La prostitution se présente tout d'abord de façon double : elle est associé au mariage et à la propriété privée familiale et elle désigne une activité sociale proprement dite. Pour éclairer le rapport de Marx à ces questions, il est nécessaire de faire retour sur sa conception du prolétariat et des classes sociales. L'analyse suivie des textes de Marx montre que c'est à partir de 1845, lorsque Marx pose sa propre conception des classes sociale, qu'il pose d'une part, la notion de Lumpenproletariat et d'autre part, le concept de la propriété privée familiale. L'activité sociale prostitutionnelle est alors définitivement rangée dans le Lumpenproletariat et l'association entre le mariage et la prostitution n'est plus valable que pour la bourgeoisie, la famille ouvrière ayant été dissoute. L'évolution théorique de Marx le conduit à réintroduire le concept de la famille pour la classe ouvrière, concept qui lui permettra dans le livre I du Capital d'envisager les rapports entre les sexes de manière contradictoire au sein de la classe ouvrière. Les rapports entre les sexes, envisagés d'abord d'un point de vue générique et du point de vue de la propriété privée familiale, conduiront Marx à mettre en lumière le processus d'individualisation des « membres » de la famille ouvrière après l'entrée des femmes et des enfants dans le monde social du travail. Ce travail s'inscrit dans l'histoire de la philosophie, il a donc pour ambition une lecture interne de l’œuvre de Marx qui permette de mettre en lumière sa position sur la prostitution et les rapports entre les sexes mais il a aussi vocation à permettre d'ouvrir un dialogue entre les courants du marxisme et les études de genre dans une perspective interdisciplinaire. / This dissertation studies, in the framework of an exegesis of the texts of Marx between 1844 and 1867, the way in which the former conceived of prostitution and of the relations between the sexes. Prostitution is presented in two ways: it is associated with marriage and private family property and it designates a social activity, as such. To shed light on Marx's report to these questions, it is necessary to review his conception of the proletariat and social classes. An analysis of Marx's texts shows that this begins in 1845, when Marx conceived of his own conception of social class. He proposed, on the one hand, the concept of Lumpenproletariat and, on the other hand, the concept of private family property. The social activity of prostitution is thus definitely included in the Lumpenproletariat; further, the association between marriage and prostitution is only valid for the bourgeoisie, as the working class family had been dissolved. Marx's theoretical evolution led him to reintroduce the concept of the family for the working class, a concept that would enable him in Book I of Capital to envisage relations between the sexes in a contradictory manner within the working class. The relationship between the sexes, first considered from both a generic point of view and from the point of view of private family ownership, will lead Marx to highlight the process of individualization of the "members" of the working class family after the entry of women and children into the social world of work. This work is part of the history of philosophy, so the ambition of this dissertation is to read internally the work of Marx that highlights its position on prostitution and gender relations; it also aims to to open a dialogue between the currents of Marxism and gender studies in an interdisciplinary perspective.