Research into the material culture of the household and the domestic interior has increased rapidly during recent years. It has primarily focused on the appearance and use of domestic space leaving household management and maintenance a neglected area of study. Furthermore the relationship between the ownership of goods, the domestic interior and the use of the home has not been studied in conjunction with the management and maintenance of the household. Additionally, research into the material culture of the household has predominantly focused on quantitative changes experienced during the late seventeenth century and early eighteenth. It has long been established that the ownership of household goods increased in this period, but similar research has not taken place to explore the nature of these goods, nor to extend this work to the subsequent period. This thesis brings these aspects of research together for the first time to create a synthesis between the ownership of goods and the changing nature and use of the home and household maintenance and management. The argument proposed here suggests that the changing nature of the material culture of the household and developments to the use of the home had an impact upon the way that the household was managed and maintained. The complex inter-woven relationship between the material culture of the domestic interior and the ways in which it was maintained and managed reveals that both elements were a part of an emerging middle class culture of domesticity. Therefore, this thesis makes a significant contribution to a holistic understanding of the household by looking at the ownership of goods and the use of domestic space within the context of maintenance and management.

Le processus de mondialisation crée dans son sillage des territoires émergents s’affranchissant des politiques étatiques et régionales. La manière dont ces territoires se mettent en scène, se créent une image, est primordiale tant pour leur légitimité auprès des populations que pour la médiatisation de leurs actions. La Grande Région, espace de coopération d’initiative européenne, est un territoire cosmopolite en quête d’identité qui à travers l’événement «Luxembourg et Grande Région Capitale européenne de la culture 2007» a cherché à se construire, se penser, et se structurer au moyen d’une identité stratégique visant une «victoire identitaire». Cette stratégie a produit un ensemble d’actions coordonnées en vue de créer une politique culturelle commune d’un territoire émergent transfrontalier dont les enjeux, les procédures et les effets sur le long terme sont l’objet de la recherche. De l’enrôlement du réseau par les instances politiques centrales à la mobilisation différenciée des entités de la Grande Région, en passant par l’analyse des publics culturels transfrontaliers imaginés et l’externalisation de la mise en œuvre du dispositif communicationnel auprès des agences de conseil en communication, nous appréhendons l’intégration de l’altérité dans un projet commun à travers son dispositif communicationnel grâce à l’analyse des controverses nées au sein du réseau. L’étude de la pérennisation de l’événement «Luxembourg et Grande Région capitale européenne de la culture 2007», à travers la structure Espace Culturel Grande Région, permet de saisir la stabilisation des contextes d’interactions et de mener une réflexion sur les nouvelles approches d’intégration de l’altérité dans un projet commun au prisme de la notion de «coopétition». À l’heure où la conception de l’altérité et son intégration au sein d’imaginaires collectifs sont des enjeux primordiaux, cette analyse propose de comprendre les actions de co-construction identitaires au sein d’un territoire marqué par des frontières physiques et imaginées et les rapports de force qui en découlent. / The globalisation process brings about emerging territories which free themselves from the state or regional policies. The way these territories put on a performance, create themselves an image is essential as much for their legitimacy towards the populations as for the media coverage of their actions. The Greater Region, a cooperation space initiated by Europe, is a cosmopolitan territory looking for identity which, through the event called “Luxembourg and the Greater Region European culture capital 2007” tried to build itself, think itself and structure itself with a strategic identity aiming at an “identity victory”. This strategy had led to a series of coordinated actions whose aim was to create a common cultural policy of a cross-border emerging territory whose stakes, procedures and long-term effects are the object of study. From the enrolling of the network by central political authorities to the differentiated mobilizing of the entities of the Greater Region, including the analysis of the imagined cross-border cultural audiences and externalizing the settlement of the communicational package towards the communication agencies, we apprehend the integration of alterity in a common project through its communicational presence by analyzing the controversies inside this network. The study of how to make the event “Luxembourg and the Greater Region European culture capital 2007” durable through the structure called Cultural Space Greater Region enables to understand how interaction contexts stabilize and to think about the new approaches to the integration of alterity in a common project by using the notion of “coopetition”. At a time when the conception of alterity and its integration inside collective imagination are vital stakes, this analysis offers to understand the actions of identity co-building inside a territory marked by physical and imagined borders and by power struggles which derive from it.

Les idées de démocratisation culturelle et de démocratie culturelle suscitent divers débats, tant sur le plan des significations, mythes et fondements idéologiques qu’elles supposent que dans leurs cristallisations institutionnalisées. Ainsi, la pensée sociale, associée aux registres de la culture et du temps libre, s’est structurée à partir de sédimentations de l’histoire. Les manières de penser la culture et le temps libre ont forgé le référentiel d’intervention socioculturelle, la structure du champ professionnel, les représentations sociales et les opinions esthétiques vis-à-vis de la culture institutionnalisée. Notre recherche aspire à rendre compte de l’articulation des différents domaines de la pensée sociale, à partir de recherches antérieures, d’investigations menées auprès d’élus locaux, de directeurs d’associations socioculturelles, de stagiaires et de professionnels de l’animation socioculturelle, ainsi que des populations locales. / The ideas of cultural democratization and cultural democracy arouse various debates, both in terms of meanings, myths and ideological foundations that they assume in their crystallization institutionalized. Thus, social thought, associated with registers of culture and free time is structured from sedimentation history. Ways of thinking culture and free time have shaped the sociocultural intervention framework, the structure of the professional field, social representations and aesthetic views to the institutionalized culture. Our research aims to realize the coordination of the various areas of social thought, from previous research, investigations conducted with local officials, managers of socio-cultural associations, trainees and animation professionals sociocultural and local populations.

L'objectif sera, par delà l'analyse des représentations, de mesurer la façon dont l'engouement pour la pratique nautique et les activités de loisirs s'inscrivent dans une urbanisation progressive des bords de marne et inversement. / The objective will be, by the analysis of the representation, to measure the craze for the nautical practice and the activities of leisure activities join in a progressive urbanization of the river banks and conversely.

Cette thèse, qui revisite la perspective critique développée par l'École de Francfort, propose d'investir les transformations de l'industrie culturelle à l'ère du numérique. À partir de l'exemple du financement participatif, nous questionnons la pertinence d'idéaux normatifs structurés autour des notions d'autonomie, d'authenticité et de collaboration. Ces valeurs, constitutives de l'utopie du numérique à son origine, sont remises en avant par les porteurs de projets et les internautes qui y contribuent. Le financement participatif est présenté comme le moyen de produire et de consommer différemment de la culture. À partir des discours des acteurs, nous nous attachons à observer les mécanismes de récupération et d'incorporation de ces transformations au sein de l'industrie culturelle et d'une « forme de vie » spécifique. Ce double mécanisme de récupération des idéaux et de transformation à partir d'eux est appréhendé comme caractéristique d'une modernité hautement paradoxale (A. Honneth). Ce dispositif est saisi de manière dialectique, en s'attachant à l'étude des processus d'autonomisation au coeur même de ces paradoxes. / This dissertations, which reviews Frankfurt School Critical theory's, intends to question the cultural industry's transformations in a digital society. Through the example of crowdfunding, we question the relevance of normative ideals structured on autonomy, authenticity, independance and collaboration. This values, onces constitutives of the digital ideology, are now highlighted by the crowdfunding creators and producers. Seen as a tool which can encourage disintermediation, crowdfunding is introduced as a new way of producing and consumming culture. Based on actor's statements, we desribe how those transformations are incorporated by the cultural industry and, widely by a specific« form of life ». This dual mechanism of ideals' recuperation and transformation within them is understood as specific from a highly paradoxical modernity (A. Honneth). Crowdfunding is considered in dialectical way, and lets us see the empowerment process which appears for individuals in the heart of this paradoxes.

En 2010 – au début de nos recherches –, nous observions une grande effervescence autour du « numérique » dans le domaine patrimonial. Face à ce constat d’ampleur et aux discours toujours plus nombreux à son sujet, nous nous sommes interrogée sur ce que le« numérique » fait (ou ne fait pas) à l’expérience patrimoniale. Bien consciente que le changement de support n’entraîne pas nécessairement (voire rarement) des changements dans les pratiques de médiation patrimoniale, nous entendons dans cette recherche le terme numérique non pas comme la technologie numérique mais bien la notion de « numérique »en tant que phénomène social avec tout ce que ce terme véhicule comme discours,imaginaires, pratiques et horizons d’attente. Au-delà des discours portés sur la technologie,nous avons choisi d’étudier un nombre restreint de terrains (la Cité internationale universitaire de Paris et son centre de valorisation du patrimoine L/OBLIQUE ; le Mont-Royal à Montréal et Les amis de la montagne) et d’opter pour une approche socio-sémiotique. Cette thèse montre qu’une même forme, le dispositif cartographique interactif, peut proposer plusieurs logiques de médiation patrimoniale, entre médiation documentaire et médiation culturelle. Elle amène aussi à s’interroger sur une possible reconfiguration des rôles de médiateur et de visiteur en régime numérique : loin de bouleverser les fonctions et l’identité des institutions patrimoniales, les dispositifs numériques mis en œuvre dans ces deux terrains renforcent leur légitimité en tant que médiateurs culturels. / At the beginning of our research in 2010, there was great interest in the advent of the digital era and its impact in the field of cultural heritage. In light of this and the increasingly numerous debates about it, we wondered what “digital phenomena” adds to (or detracts from) the cultural heritage experience. The change of support does not necessarily (rarely even) changes heritage mediation practices, therefore, for the purposes of this research, the term digital refers not to digital technology but the concept of “digital” as a social phenomenon with everything that this implies through speeches, imagination, practices and expectations. To move beyond the discussions about technology, we have chosen to study a limited number of fields (the Cité Internationale Universitaire de Paris and the Mont-Royal in Montreal) and opt for a socio-semiotic approach. This thesis shows that a same device, the interactive map, can offer multiple possibilities for cultural mediation, between documentary mediation and cultural mediation. It also calls into question a possible reconfiguration of the roles of mediator and visitor in the digital forum: far from upsetting the function and identity of heritage institutions, digital devices implemented in these two fields strengthen their legitimacy as cultural mediators.

Because of their seemingly universal appeal, game elements such as points, goals and leaderboards, are increasingly being incorporated into non-entertainment situations with the aim of increasing user performance. This process is referred to as gamification. However, little empirical research exists on gamification’s effectiveness in enhancing performance, particularly with respect to moderating influence of user personality traits. Social gamification that involves more than one participant incorporates social interdependence, which takes form as negative interdependence (competitive in nature) or positive interdependence (cooperative in nature). Based on the hypothesis that the interdependence type underlying a gamification system would appeal to differing personality traits, this study reports a quasi-experiment involving a platform designed to manipulate participant interdependence structure among cooperation, competition, and neutrality, with the latter acting as the control condition. These three interdependence structures functioned as the experiment’s independent variable, with measures of participant performance as dependent variables, together with the participant personality traits assessed using the five factor model of personality acting as moderating variables. 294 undergraduate participants worked with the platform on a voluntary basis over an eight-week period, spending 38,180 minutes and performing 3,275 actions. At the conclusion of the experiment, the data collected were analysed using Kruskal-Wallis, ANOVAs, multilevel mixed method regression models, and a generalised estimating equation. The study’s results yield significant evidence that incorporating gamification in the experimental platform increases participant performance as measured by completed actions on the platform, and that participant personality traits moderated performance depending on interdependence structure. Significant results suggest that within the gamified platform, Extraversion positively moderates performance under competition and Openness positively moderates performance under cooperation.

This research explores the functions of music by analyzing the relationship between musical and social classification. More particularly it focuses on the manifestation of this relationship during the active participation of audiences in music events where the individual and the collective, the musical and the social are argued to be experientially interwoven. The main argument proposed is that music categories as well as the ritualistic structures and expressions that shape their corresponding live performances are linked with perceptions and fantasies of the social self. Considering elements such as representations, performativity and the constitution of identity within social interaction, this study questions the class-­‐focused approaches conventionally employed to explore the subject. Contrarily it proposes that the ‘reality’ or fantasy of the social self is not ‘a given’ but it is personally configured, and relates the construction of social identities to notions of the spectacle. The interplay between the mediatized representations that shape music categories and individuals’ agency to choose and construct their identity is argued to produce different discursive and performative expressions of ‘the ideal’. In this context, music rituals are sketched as opportunities for the celebration and legitimization of their embodied values, and idealized social identities and relationships. The empirical part of this investigation focuses on Greek music audiences. Employing semi-­‐structured interviews it examines the way individuals with different music identifications construct their understandings of music categories and their rituals, as well as their perceived interconnections with social identities. Its findings suggest that music categories are perceived as naturally linked with different aspects of individuals’ social selves and realities that are expressed and actualized in music performances, verifying the performative and discursive intertwinement of the two modes of classification. However, the analysis of the data collected also indicates that the values expressed or experienced during such immersive processes, which combine social relationships, cultural categories, and multisensory experiences, necessitate widening the theorization of the ‘ideal’.

This thesis examines the multiple meanings attached to risk by a small group of climbers based in the North of England. The study is anchored, empirically in sustained observational fieldwork, and in-depth interviews with adult subjects (9 females aged 22-77, 14 males aged 20-70). In completing this thesis, I believe I have made an original contribution to knowledge in three areas. In re-imagining risk in climbing, I argue that climbers do not participate in climbing because of a desire to take risks, rather, they make every effort to assess, manage and control risks when climbing. In reconceptualising risk in climbing, I present a conceptual model derived from the interviewees’ accounts of risk. This model situates risk in climbing with risk in everyday life. The basis of my third original contribution to knowledge lies in the relationship between risk and identity. The interviewees differentiated between safe and unsafe climbers through reference to embodied climbing practices. The way a climber in this study assessed and managed risk marked them as a safe climber or conversely an unsafe climber. Furthermore, the data revealed both a gendered and an age-related dimension to the relationship between risk and identity. The desire to retain the identity of a climber over time was so strong that older climbers reported modifying their practices to sustain their status as a member of the insider group. In addition, the female interviewees described how perceived family responsibilities mediated membership of the insider group, and their identity as a safe and qualified climber. The female climbers in this study described how such responsibilities led them, like older climbers, to draw back from the edge. These findings have implications beyond the sport of rock climbing and its participants. This research has the potential to inform and enhance our appreciation of risk in other lifestyle sports and moreover, whilst there is a tendency to distinguish between lifestyle and traditional sports, there may be some application of the account of risk presented here to an exploration of risk in traditional sports. The arguments presented in this study also contribute to an understanding or risk more generally. A key conclusion from this study is that risk is best understood where the meanings attached to it are derived from individuals’ everyday lived experience and relatedly where risk is situated within the broadest context of their lives. Finally, the data reported here suggests that risk activities and risk-taking should be explored in relation to an individual’s perceived identity and crucially, the significance of risk for the construction of that identity.

Triggered by globalisation and the increasing media convergence enabled by digital communication technologies, fansubbing has become one of the most observable aspects of Chinese participatory culture, both domestically and internationally. Informed by concepts drawn from the science of complexity and drawing on social self-organisation theory (Fuchs 2002), this study adopts a systems perspective and the method of netnography (Kozinets 2010) to bring to light the dynamics of collective identity formation in The Last Fantasy (TLF) fansubbing group, one of the most influential fansubbing networks in China. In particular, this study aims to reveal how TLF’s fansubbers deploy digital technologies to facilitate their daily subtitling activities, build and maintain their relationships, and express a collective voice in relation to the specific media context in China. Findings from this study are used to evaluate the role played by amateur translation, as exemplified by fansubbing activities carried out by TLF’s fansubbers, in China’s participatory culture. It is hoped that this study will enrich our understanding of the phenomenon of amateur translation in an increasingly networked society.