This thesis is a philosophical investigation of such digital objects as images, videos and facebook objects which pervade our everyday life online and constitute a digital milieu with which we live. Despite their popularity, philosophical reflection about them has largely been absent. Digital objects, in their simplest form, are data, which are further formalized through logical metadata schemes or ontologies. The formalized objects present themselves as data which are programmable objects which we create, drag, delete, as well as networks which are created through logical inferences. The thesis will argue that investigation of natural objects by traditional metaphysics fails to understand digital objects. It proposes to develop a new method based on the conceptualisation of technical objects in Martin Heidegger and Gilbert Simondon’s works. Heidegger is important because he understands technical objects by situating them within their world, while Simondon treats them as an evolution towards perfection. The thesis proposes synthesizing the ideas of these two thinkers through the concept of relations by studying the genesis of Markup languages from GML to the semantic web and the history of artificial intelligence, especially of what Hubert Dreyfus calls Heideggerian AI. It develops a theory of relations from Hume (discursive relations) and Heidegger (existential relations) to analyse digital objects instead of substance and hylomorphism. The analysis of relations helps us understand the digital milieu as a technical system, which exhibits a dynamic between these two relations and construct a new conception of temporality. The thesis further proposes to investigate experiences in the technical system through the analysis of both cognitive (Husserl) and existential (Heidegger) meaning by contrasting them with computational logic, algorithms and the extended mind hypothesis. In general, the thesis demonstrates a new approach and a philosophical understanding of computational objects, which is called machine phenomenology.

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This is a socio-historical portrait of a small compact Tibetan population residing in the area near the Nepal border known as Dingri. The work covers the period of their history from the latter part of the last century up to 1959. It begins with a brief glance at a single period in their early history which was marked by the appearance of the Dingri religious heroes, Pha Dampa Sangyas and Milarepa, both of whom are reported to have visited Dingri in the 12th century. Detailed ethnography is combined with a review of recent Dingri history to give a picture of a dynamic prospering community on the main trade route between central Tibet and Nepal: a heterogeneous settlement of agriculturalists, traders, labourers and ritualists. After a rather detailed discussion of the Dingriwa's position as migrants into Dingri from other parts of Tibet and a review of their geography and economy, I devote a lengthy chapter to their social organization in terms of stratification and economy, followed by another chapter dealing with the modest but ubiquitous ritual communites known as Ser khyim pa. From there, I move to a re-examination of Tibetan notions of residence and descent, positing the household as the primary unit of Dingri society. The next chapter - on marriage and family life - deals further with the paramountcy of the household, providing _detailed quantification of marriage patterns in terms of other sociological variables. The non-kin type of social units such as friendship groups, neighbourhood and villages are the subject of the final chapter. There, I illustrate the processes of reciprocation, co-operation and administration that bind these people into a culture.

In recent years, some researchers have started examining the existence of crosscultural self-gifting, as well as its place in consumers' lives, according to an individual-centred versus a group-centred view of self. Nevertheless, inconsistent findings of prior research call for further studies clarifying the role of self-view in self-gift consumption. This study thus attempted to fill this gap by examining ethnic immigrant consumer groups' self-gifting behaviours in comparison to White host members in the UK. Furthermore, the increasing size and growing spending power of ethnic minority groups, varying acculturation processes, and different self-views together highlight a need for a better understanding of how the self-gift phenomenon might vary between Whites and South Asian immigrants in the UK. Thus, the primary objective of this research was to examine the differences and similarities in self-gift attitudes and behaviours between British Whites and South Asian immigrants (British Indians, British Pakistanis, and British Bangladeshis). This research is theoretically grounded in the literature from three domains - namely, ethnicity, attitudinal and behavioural dimensions of acculturation and self-construal - to investigate the ethnic groups' self-gift attitudes and behaviours and to explore the interaction effects among these three domains on self-gifting. Data collected utilising a survey method provided evidence to support the prominence of self-gifting amongst British consumers, including the three ethnic minority groups. The findings also indicated some similarities and differences in self-gifting of these ethnic groups in terms of their ethnicity, acculturation, and selfconstrual. Although the main findings suggested that British Whites and South Asian immigrants do not differ in most self-gift attitudes and behaviours, South Asian immigrants who attitudinally acculturate in both host and home cultures are more likely to engage in self-gifting than immigrants who only have high attitudinal acculturation in either the host or the home culture, or who have low attitudinal acculturation in both cultures. In addition, Strong behavioural acculturating immigrants are more likely to engage in self-gifting than Weak behavioural acculturating immigrants. The results from combined White and South Asian samples demonstrated that individuals who hold equally high independent and interdependent self-views are more likely to engage in self-gifting than individuals 11 who hold either high independent self-views or high interdependent self-views only, or who hold low self-views in both categories. However, the impacts of accultUration and self-construal on self-gift attitudes and behaviours may differ depending on ethnicity.

This thesis is a study of the Sämi community in the village of Inari in northeastern Finland. Through the study I address the following issue: is there any fundamental difference in the way Sämi people relate to the environment compared to neighbouring communities, and to people of socalled "Western" societies? Following recent studies of indigenous peoples of the circumpolar North, my analytical approach hinges upon the principle that the landscape is important in fashioning people's sense of identity and as a repository of their traditions. The natural world is not understood as standing apart from the domain of human social life, but rather as continuous with it. For this reason, no absolute distinction can be drawn between relations with human beings and relations with non-human components of the environment. Hence the question is: what is the relationship between the Sämi people and the environment they inhabit? I argue that this relationship is indeed very intimate, despite numerous technological changes that have affected the ways in which people talk about, engage with and move in it. I also argue that there are subtle differences between their approach and that, for example, of the Finnish community, whose cultural background lies in farming. 6Overall, this study demonstrates that although a number of ecological, cultural and social variables substantially affect the ways people relate to the environment, the connections between these variables are not based on simple cause and effect. Intentionalities shape the quality of these interactions in unpredictable ways. Hence perceptions, identities and traditions are dynamic and continually under construction. Conflicting views on these issues are also very prominent in Sämi life. Their importance lies in the ways they guide people's understandings of their actions in the landscape, both socially and environmentally. Finally, this study further suggests that any ontological division between humanity and nature should be abandoned if we are to pursue environmental policies that realistically address northern native peoples' practical engagement with the diverse constituents of their familiar environments. Such an approach affords the possibility not only of a much richer ethnographic appreciation of indigenous cultures, but also a powerful critique of our own 'Western' assumptions. It also raises the critical problem of understanding how the indigenous perspective responds to the ever-increasing involvement of native people with such 'Western' institutions as the nation state, the market and the Church

The present study explores the adoption and usage of the Internet in France and the UK to provide an insight into contemporary Internet user behaviour. It examines the degree to which theories of innovation adoption and cultural frameworks are relevant in the online environment. A survey is undertaken among Internet users in Lyon and Manchester; indicating a number of similarities and some differences in the activities performed online. The findings of the survey show strong signs of converging Internet user behaviour and call for further investigation into convergence. to-depth interviews with a new population in Lyon and Manchester are carried out using matched subjects in order to eliminate the factors that may have influenced convergence in the survey. The interview data provide strong indicators of converging Internet use. The implications of converging Internet use are discussed from an academic, theoretical and practical perspective

The aim of this thesis is to contribute to the study of African-Caribbean cultural and religious practices. Research in this area has tended to focus on Cuban Santeria, Haitian Vodou, Trinidadian Shango/Orisha/Spiritual Baptist and Jamaican Myal/Kumina practices. There has been little research on Guyanese religious and cultural practices. Kean Gibson's Comfa Religion and Creole Language in a Caribbean Community (2001) appears to be the most complete study of Guyanese Comfa. Comfa is the generic term used for the manifestation of spirits. Anyone who becomes spiritually possessed on hearing the beating of drums is said to 'ketch comfa'. Comfa practitioners recognise a pantheon of seven ethnic spirits: African, Amerindian, Chinese, Dutch, English, (East) Indian and Spanish. These groups have been historically associated with Guyana. Spirit possessions are stereotypically defined to reflect the ethnicity of each spirit. Inspired by Ema Brodber's method of combining sociological research with creative writing, this thesis is organised in three parts to reflect an interdisplinary methodology. Firstly, I combine Gibson's sociological account of Cornfa with the works of writers and postcolonial critics, namely Wilson Harris, Edward Brathwaite, Stuart Hall and Antonio Benitez-Rojo to consider Cornfa's significance to Guyanese cultural identity. I use Harris's ideas in his essay History Fable and Myth to argue that, as myth and art, Comfa has the potential to transform the recurrent image of despair, racial division and political violence that impact Guyana's cultural psyche. Secondly, I explore four texts by Caribbean writers to highlight the social, cultural and historical significance of spirit possession/spiritual practices and the way Caribbean spiritual traditions can be used as literary aesthetic. The third part of the thesis engages the foregoing analyses and theoretical considerations to write a novella with Cornfa as the central theme. The novella aims to demonstrate Comfa's potentiality as a literary and cultural resource.

This thesis explores the role of consumption in cultural change. The research focuses on how consumption of an ethnic online dating website, known as shaadi.com is mediating Sikh courtship rituals. While many recent studies highlight the significance of online dating and virtual communities in a Western context, there has been no detailed exploration of these in relation to the Sikh sub-culture or other similar communities, nor how these sub-cultures experience marriage processes within Western society. The study adopted an interpretivist approach for a longitudinal case study of shaadi.com. In keeping with the interpretivist approach, multiple methods were employed to collate qualitative data from 3rd generation British Sikh members of shaadi.com and their parents. These methods consisted of participant observation and a series of semi-structured in-depth interviews. Findings illustrated the substantial personalised identity conflicts that were encountered by young British Sikhs as they engaged in the processes leading up to marriage. The integration of Eastern and Western courtship rituals within the space of shaadi. com was a significant aspect of the experiential consumption of this site. Young British Sikhs engaged in a journey of hybrid identity discovery, empowered by the characteristics of shaadi. com culture, such as liminality and ritual transference. This enabled them to negotiate issues relating to intergenerational differences, their British Sikh identity and varying degrees of acculturation (their Britishness") and reacculturation (their "Indianess"). Consequently shaadi.com facilitated young Sikhs in reconfiguring their already hybrid identities. In conclusion a theorisation of this virtual space of hybrid identity negotiation in relation to the British Sikh community is proposed, suggesting four hybrid identity positions. The primary contribution of this study has been to introduce an understanding of how cultural change can be mediated by technology and conceptualise how the computer mediates Sikh courtship rituals. Findings illustrate how shaadi.com mediates cultural transformation and the transition of hybrid identities. This research therefore extends existing knowledge in the field of consumer research in three key areas by examining the intersection of consumption and rituals, ethnicity and acculturation.

This ethnographic study seeks to understand the British culture of the meal, through analysing both marketplace and consumer representations of an Italian meal. The study uses an interpretive lens to explore the material and symbolic aspects of ordinary food consumption practices. In doing so the practices surrounding the process of making a meal are examined. This study adopts an innovative ethnographic strategy combining an interpretive analysis of media representations of Italian food, through the reading of 44 Italian cookbooks, with interviews with 20 British consumers and observations of their meal time. Findings contribute to the current debate of everyday consumption practices in different ways. They reveal that practices surrounding the process of making and sharing a meal are intimately bound up in both individual and collective family identity, values and life goals. It is through admitting to and excluding certain Italian dishes, products and brands for their everyday meals that consumers materialise and communicate their social class. Findings show that although there are some resonances between market and consumer representations of Italian food, participants' everyday food choices seem to be driven more by family conventions and routines than by hedonic satisfaction. The meal is in fact a gift of devotional love that mothers and husbands donate to their loved ones. It is also through this everyday sacrifice that individual identity, such as being a mother or a husband is reinforced. Everyday family meals also represent one of "being a family" practices where relations between members and a collective identity is created and perpetuated through sharing a dinnerThis study advances the sociological and interpretive consumer research debate on mundane consumption by showing how ordinary consumption practices, with their related conventions, routines and norms, are emended in the creation, perpetuation and transformation of single, relational and collective identities

Responding to a lack of empirical research on a new generation of websites which are orientated towards interaction, this study aims to understand the ways in which sexualised space is constructed through web 2.0.· It does this by analysing the experiences of Turkish-German queers (TGQs) who use the Gayromeo and Delidivane social networking websites. Utilising qualitative data from a web questionnaire survey and both face-to-face and computer-mediated interviews, the study examines the production and consumption of these virtual spaces in light of the difficulties many TGQs are said to experience in their day-to-day lives. This includes racism within gay spaces of consumption, fears of rejection from family and homophobia within a conservative immigrant community. The study demonstrates how these problems are not applicable to the lives of all TGQs and it rejects the emergence of a homogenised 'global gay' identity. It explains instead a multiplicity of identities and heterogeneity to experience. It is argued that the production of personal profiles, usernames and personas can both challenge and reproduce dominant stereotypes. Whilst for some, Gayromeo and Delidivane are a means to assimilation or a pressure to conform; the websites are also central to the formation of alternative spaces in which multiple strands of identity can be expressed and a hybrid (queer) transnational culture celebrated. Furthermore, this study also reveals an online-offline binary in the literature that positions the virtual as being inauthentic against a so-called real. This research challenges this by explaining how the virtual is increasingly being carried within material space on a growing range of web-enabled devices and by describing how sexualised space is increasingly dependent upon the virtual. Consequently, it is argued that there is a greater need to examine how queers engage with web-enabled technologies locally.