My thesis is a detailed anthropological study of the experiences of women as a result of their changing gender roles in Inuit families, in the labour market and in Inuit society more broadly. Although McElroy reported as early as 1975 that ‘a higher percentage of the total population of women than of men are employed [in Frobisher Bay and Pangnirtung]’ (McElroy 1975:679) the effects of this have never been systematically researched. This thesis is the first to use theoretical constructs from Bourdieu’s toolkit, including the capitals (social, cultural, symbolic), the habitus and the cultural arbitrary as well as theories of empowerment, to analyse how women have constructed and negotiated meaning in their new roles as financial provider for their families. It draws on data collected during ten months of fieldwork in Iqaluit, Canada, using a mix of qualitative methods including in-depth interviews, group discussions and participant observation. My findings show that different ideologies, values, ways of life and habitus shape and are shaped by life experiences of women in contemporary Iqaluit. These differences find their basis in women’s upbringing, ranging from traditional, to transitional, to contemporary; women’s experiences with education; and their interactions with incoming institutions with different cultural origins. Social negotiations characterise the process in which women create roles and identities for themselves, combining these different influences. Women’s access to financial and cultural capital in some cases impacts on and is a consequence of women’s empowerment, and their ability to challenge the cultural arbitrary. However, whilst empowerment is generally seen as a positive development, it can upset the balance between partners or other family members, who may struggle to appropriate economic, cultural and social change to the same extent. For that reason, it is important that the people of Nunavut, both men and women, work together to create for themselves a place in their family, community and society in which they can provide a meaningful contribution.

This thesis engages with the recent innovation in British funerary rites known as ‘natural’ burial through an interview-based case study of one particular site, Barton Glebe, which offers ‘woodland’ burial. Through ethnographic description and socio-cultural analysis the values, concepts and behaviours aligned with natural burial are approached from the perspective of the bereaved, pre-registered users, site providers and those in the funeral industry. The thesis begins by providing an overview of natural burial in Britain (Chapter 1), in which historical and cultural continuities between contemporary British natural burial provision and prior disposal practices are compared (Chapter 3). Chapter 4 provides a historical account of Barton Glebe’s first ten years of burial provision. Chapter 5 shows how Barton Glebe is not only a physical landscape but also an emotional landscape, in which emotions and memory are socio-spatially articulated through ‘nature’. Chapter 6 identifies the range of values invested in Barton Glebe and argues that the policing of graves and enforcement of rules and regulations by ground staff are reactions to a conflict of values, most often between site management and the bereaved. Whilst not unique to natural burial, this conflict is particularly striking in a burial ground in which little or no memorialisation should take place. Subsequently, Chapter 7 argues that the dead are not necessarily given sovereign status, a feature that distinguishes Barton Glebe from other places of burial. It is the ‘natural’ world that becomes a feature at Barton Glebe and, I argue, can create a therapeutic landscape for the bereaved. Chapter 8 concludes by arguing that the motives to give something back and to return to nature allow those who pre-register to affirm their core values and imagine continuity of identity beyond death (by becoming a part of ‘nature’), whilst the desire to be of use grants personal salvation for some pre-registered users.

Maintaining an adequate body temperature is essential for human survival, yet infants are born with significant thermal challenges. Thermoregulation of infants is achieved through both physiological processes and through the thermal care behaviour of their caregivers. Little attention has been paid to infant thermal care beliefs and how thermal care is provided in practice. Thermal care beliefs vary across the world. Humoral beliefs that prescribe thermal balance to maintain health are extremely common globally, but less so in the UK. Methods This study primarily employed a mixed methods approach, using semi-structured and structured questions in interviews to explore ethnic differences in infant thermal care beliefs and practices of white British and South Asian mothers in the Bradford District, West Yorkshire, England. Results White British mothers were found to use significantly more bedding in winter for their infants than South Asian mothers (Man Whitney U p=<0.001). White British and South Asian infants were found to sleep in different environmental conditions. Mothers used several physical and behavioural cues to identify thermal stress in their infants and reported 24 different infant health problems caused by heat stress and 21 by cold stress. White British mothers were significantly more likely to be concerned about their infant getting too hot than too cold and South Asian mothers about both (Pearson Chi squared p=<0.001). Conclusions This thesis has demonstrated that thermoregulation of infants is achieved through internal physiological processes but also cannot be removed from the thermal care behaviour and beliefs of their caregivers. By exploring health beliefs and practices in other cultures, bias in the choice and focus of clinical research in the UK can be understood and addressed. Implications This thesis provides evidence to inform future directions for research, and policy on infant thermal care and manufacture of infant bedding in the UK.

The research approach was qualitative, heuristic (Moustakas, 1990) and ethnographic. I emphasised personal and subjective knowledge as essential components of objectivity (Bridgman, 1950). The interview sample was thought to be experienced in loss. Ethnography was chosen as an approach because it bore a close resemblance to the routine ways in which people make sense of their everyday lives. (Hammersley & Atkinson, 1995)The main question was: What do people do when they experience loss? The results challenge prevailing medical theories in that we notice that grief can be life long and not necessarily pathological. Grief is idiosyncratic in nature. Books about the theory of grief speak to us although we are aware of them as simplistic and yet not simple enough to hold our experience. We search for models of loss in an attempt to plot ourselves in the process. We may feel wise and realise that all along we have held the key to our own difficulties in the process of loss. The agency and wisdom of the mourner is not acknowledged in medical models of grief. By interacting in the world we work at grief, when watching TV, reading a novel, involved in a love affair, friendship, putting a photograph in a frame or wallet, listening to music, talking, having sex, walking, being silent, accepting a caress, visiting a place.... The list is endless. All activity provides opportunity and location for grief work. The definition of grief work could be broader. The findings suggest that each of us has a functional grieving self, which is permanent, contains a cumulative store of pain and is ready when needed. It is located in a timeless dimension of the constantly changing, fluid self, a self that is not just intrapersonal but also located in the interpersonal, physical, spiritual and cultural domain.

This thesis focuses on the dilemma caused by visible differences which are used etic-ly to envisage a group as an ethnic group. The Arvanites are a group of Albanian speaking Greeks who have been living in Greece for one thousand years. They are thought to have come to Greece as mercenaries. The Great Empires gave them lands where they eventually settled down in payment for their service. Throughout the centuries they have maintained their language. However, with the Age of nationalism, they slowly transformed their identity from a regional localised ethnic identity to a Greek national identity. As a result, the Arvanite language, Arvanitika, is in decline at the present time. I set out to explore the ways in which ethnicity or non-ethnicity is practiced and examine the construction of a Arvanite/Greek national identity and offer this as a case study through which we might further our understanding of the practices and politicisation of identity in a context of the Greek nation but more generally in any national context where ethnic identities are not recognised by national, super-national or international forums. The accomplishment of the Greek national model has been examined intensively in terms of it formation, foundation and historicity and its relationship to Europe and in opposition to other national entities such as Turkey. However, such approaches may explain the Greek invention of nationalism from a political and historical point of view but such approaches miss the cognitivisation of national, local and ethnic identities through action and practice in everyday life. Moreover the actors have forgotten much of their local history which may have given them the propensity to choose to participate in or even subordinate their own ethnic identities for an alternative prestigious, in this case, national history and identity. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in the village of Gogofis in North Eastern Attica, I consider mundane acts of everyday life such as, patron/client systems, kin-like relationships, names and naming of people and the processes of memory production and reproduction, as well as practices associated with food and landscape within the framework of the Arvanites’ relationship to the nation state. I then investigate the Arvanites’ relationship to Albanian immigrants, and to the state to better qualify the Arvanites as Greeks or as ethnic Albanians. I conclude that the Arvanites consciously embrace and maintain their Greek identity through banal processes while having an alternative outlook with regards to the Albanians whom the Arvanites envisage as representations of their past selves. Thus, instead of seeing them as a threatening ‘others’ or simply as sources of cheap labour, they see them as part of their own village, representing future villagers, future Greeks, and future memories. The Arvanite should not be understood as just a passive ethnic group who has submitted unawares to symbolic violence. Rather they are active participants in the nation state and see both social and cultural capital advantages in maintaining the nation. Finally, although this thesis focuses on Arvanite/Albanian/Greeks constructions and expressions of ethnic/local and national identity, it may be considered a framework for any ‘ethnic’ group and their relationship to a state in which the said, group inhabits and participates but fundamentally does not ‘fit’ essentialised categorisations of national membership.

In this thesis, I argue that while Palermo and Sicily, must be understood in the context of both Mediterranean and Italian ethnography, the unique factors which lead to the subordinate economic position of Sicily have also resulted in distinct ethnic and identity politics. Ultimately, however, I suggest that the reduction of importance of the Italian nation-state, in relation to the emerging supra European Union state, renders much of Palermitan distinctiveness less relevant both economically and culturally. Although Italy’s North/South division is primarily based on economic criteria, the transformation of the poor economic conditions of the Italian south into a cultural issue helps perpetuate stereotypes which fuels tensions between the North and the South. Recent ethnic conflicts in Europe, as well as conflict over European Union expansion, have questioned the stability of national borders and have rendered research on national identity both timely and necessary. This anthropological study, carried out in Palermo, the capital of the autonomous region of Sicily, precisely addresses processes of national integration by critically assessing concepts and topics which have marked the anthropology of the Mediterranean. In addition to providing an ethnographic contribution of the particularities of Palermitan ethnic and identity construction, this thesis aims to deconstruct stereotypes that misrepresent Sicilian society. Palermo and its residents are shaped through relationships of unequal power between the centre and the periphery. Sicily’s integration into the European Union, paradoxically, appears to resolve several ongoing issues of national integration. One of the principle conceptual tropes of Mediterranean anthropology has been the honour/shame debates popular from the 1960s. I argue that while such debates have served a variety of fruitful purposes, they neglect the complexities of contemporary Sicily. Instead, I concentrate on the conceptual cluster of honour, the family, social networks and power, as the means by which different levels of society interact, in order to better explain the dynamic relationship between local and national identity. I examine the ways in which the local and the national contrast with one another and how out of such contrasts emerges an identifiable Sicilian, if not Palermitan, identity. The thesis is based on data produced during extended field research in Palermo from April 2005 until August 2006 as well as brief subsequent visits in 2008.

This thesis is ‘about’ two places. Firstly, it is about Town A, which is a milieu located in South-East Northumberland (UK). Town A was once culturally and socio-economically defined by its coalmining industry. Town A’s last remaining mine closed around thirty years ago; at which point Town A became de-industrialised. Town A’s de-industrialisation, and subsequent, on-going transition from an industrial into a post-industrial economy and culture ‘frames’ this work and its dialectics. Secondly, this research is about Gym D, which is a gym that is located in Town A. Gym D attracts the areas’ ‘hard core’ (as distinct from casual) body-building community. Steroid use is rife among the gym’s close-knit community. This thesis proposes that three typologies of working class males have co-evolved and currently co-exist in Town A and use Gym D. These typologies, as I have labelled them, are the Drifters’, the Changers’ and the Traditionalists’. The three groups have all been ‘constructed’ by different cultural habitus’ that have entered and now operate in Town A. The Drifters’ are all consensually unemployed. The Drifters share an anti-work ethic, and rely upon the Welfare state’s benefit systems for their survival. The Drifters constitute Town A’s ‘Chav’, ‘underclass’ culture and masculinity. In contrast, the Changers are all embourgeoised individuals, who aspire to be ‘middleclass’, global, yuppie men. The Changers dress and act differently to other users of Gym D and also socialise in Newcastle’s ‘fantasy spaces’, instead of the ‘rough’ spaces in and around Town A. The Changers all work in white-collar, post-industrial jobs; many of them have been to university. The Changers have thus successfully assimilated into the North-East’s emerging post-industrial economy. Simultaneously, the Traditionalists’ manage to retain Town A’s ‘traditional’, coalmining, artisan identity and lifestyle; despite such becoming increasingly obsolete. The Traditionalists’ all endeavour to perform ‘proper’, ‘hard’ (blue collar) jobs; and continue to live and act as the Town A miner stereotypically did, particularly during their leisure lives. Epistemologically, this work does three things. Firstly, this work examines the contrasting ways that the three typologies of life identified in this research: 1) experience a disjunction in their lives between ‘how things are’ and ‘how things should be’; 2) work/labour (or fail to work), 3) spend money/buy commodities. By so doing, this work considers how relevant the theories of anomie, alienation and commodity fetishism are to users of Gym D today. I consider how the ‘mass sadness’ that afflicts my participants’ lived experiences can be accounted for and contextualised by the theories. Secondly, this work considers how my participants’ ‘gym labour’ and ‘commodity bodies’ relates to their experiences of anomie, alienation and commodity fetishism. I ask ‘does my participants’ involvement with Gym D alleviate or extend their psycho-social depression’? Thirdly, this work considers how the ‘commodity bodies’ that my participants’ have constructed in Gym D relates to their existences and identities at a semiotic level. I suggest that my participants’ modified bodies act as communicative devices in their existences, which denote metaphoric and social information about my participant groups’, within their distinctive, subjective cultural experiences. This thesis is a product of the phenomenological tradition. Its arguments are substantiated by a series of qualitative interviews and a period of ethnographic fieldwork that I conducted ‘on’ my participants.

The Armenian Diaspora in Lebanon was formed after the 1915 genocide, when the arrival of survivors reached its peak. Since its creation no study has been undertaken to examine the impact of displacement, survival, and multilingualism in Lebanon on the status of its language, and the linguistic and attitudinal behavior of its members. This thesis explores the state of the Armenian language through the analysis of language use and domains of use. It investigates the ways Armenians perceive their ethnicity and loyalties, since the awareness of the community and its linguistic ideology and loyalties are the interpretive and explanatory basis for research in this area. Some of the major findings are that limited use of the language is leading to limited exposure to that language, which results in a circle of decreasing competence, lack of confidence in using the language, and increasing reliance and shift to Arabic, English, and French. The study shows that the pattern of language use was very different in the period following the survivors' settlement in Lebanon from what it is today. The generational disparities in attitudes and perceptions demonstrate that along with the significant changes in the way different generations of Armenians grasp the meaning of the Genocide and their ethno-cultural identity, there are also considerable differences regarding feelings of loyalty to their ancestral language, homeland, and heritage. What is particularly striking is that the changes which affected the Armenians since their coming to Lebanon in the early decades of the last century are primarily ideological transformations, new ways of looking at the world and at themselves. While the older interviewees lament the present situation, the younger interviewees accept it as natural. What unfolds is deterioration in the status of the Armenian language and the oral fluency of its speakers, who have undergone a larger and more intense change in matters once held almost sacred by their parents and grandparents.

Over the last decade a body of academic literature has emerged concerning the phenomena of what have been termed ‘alternative’ or ‘lifestyle’ sports (Wheaton, 2004). This thesis makes a contribution to knowledge produced by recent studies by examining the sport of Ultimate Frisbee within the UK. Ultimate Frisbee (commonly known as ‘Ultimate’) is a fast paced, non-contact, mixed sex team sport played with a flying disc or ‘Frisbee’, which marries features of a number of so-called ‘invasion’ games, such as American Football and netball. The data were collected within the Ultimate Frisbee community of the UK from 2004 – 2007 across a range of sites and as an established and active member of that community an ‘insider’ role was adopted (Fetterman, 1998). Data were collected using three methods, namely participant observations, interviews and list mining. In keeping with previous studies on sporting subcultures, foundation chapters are concerned with key questions concerning participation and looking at the social construction of identity via participation in Ultimate. Closer scrutiny served to highlight a number of emergent themes which provide ideal jumping off points to explore highly pertinent aspects for more detailed discussion later in the study. Beyond the micro detail of the study, key findings indicate that Ultimate in the UK represents something of an ‘anti sport’ sport embedded within an alternative counter cultural value system. Furthermore it is also suggested that Ultimate in the UK is a sport at the point of fracture, caught between its ‘alternative’ roots and the modernisation agenda of its governing body.

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