Inscrite dans le courant de recherches actuelles portant sur les déterminants des comportements en lien avec la santé, cette thèse a pour objectif de contribuer, au travers du développement d'un modèle à base d'agents, à une meilleure connaissance des relations entre le cadre de vie d'adolescents et leurs pratiques d'activité physique. Questionnant les fondements théoriques et empiriques du modèle socio-écologique qui guide la majorité des études actuelles, ce travail a conduit à l'élaboration d'un schéma conceptuel relationnel intégrant les notions de positions et dispositions sociales, ainsi que les liens entre pratiques de mobilité quotidienne et pratiques d'activités situées dans le temps et l'espace géographique. L'implémentation de ce schéma conceptuel a abouti à la réalisation de trois modèles à base d'agents de complexité croissante, dont l'originalité réside dans la non-inclusion explicite d'interactions. Ce travail, bien qu'inachevé en ce quiconcerne l'exploration des propriétés des modèles, a permis de souligner l'intérêt heuristique de la modélisation, permettant d'un côté d'ouvrir de nouvelles perspectives d'analyses, et d'un autre côté, d'offrir un retour sur les données utilisées. / Embedded in current research on determinants of health-related behaviours, this thesis develops an agentbased model to further explore and explain the links between living environment and physical activity in adolescents. Challenging the theoretical and empirical basis of the socio-ecological model that underpins most of current studies, this work leads to a relational conceptual framework that integrates social positions and dispositions with daily mobility and physical activity in both a spatial and temporal perspective. Three increasingly complex agent-based models are developped on this unusual framework that does not explicitly include interactions. Although further investigation is required to fully understand the properties of the models, the study highlights the benefits of this modelling approach that identifies new ways of thinking andanalytical opportunities and gives feedback on the data used.

Cette thèse constitue un outil permettant d’établir, développer et améliorer la coopération entre les partenaires russes et occidentaux, ainsi que d’aider les représentants des secteurs privé et public occidentaux (sociétés privées et organisations internationales) à développer leurs activités en Russie. Son objectif est de montrer le rôle de la mentalité nationale (dans notre cas, la mentalité russe) dans le développement de ces relations. La thèse constitue une étude théorique et pratique, où nous avons utilisé l’approche multidisciplinaire du concept de mentalité; nous avons recouru aux disciplines comme histoire, sciences politiques, sociales et économiques, psychologie et management interculturel. / This thesis is a tool allowing to establish, develop, and improve the cooperation between Russian and western partners, as well as help the western representatives of both sectors (private companies and international organizations) develop their activities in Russia. Its main goal is to show the role of national mentality (in our case, Russian mentality) in the development of such relations. This thesis is a theoretic and practical study for which we used multidisciplinary approach to the concept of mentality; we drew upon disciplines like history,social, political, and economic sciences, and intercultural management.

This thesis explores the part gambling plays in an urban setting in Highland Papua New Guinea. Gambling did not exist in (what is now) Goroka Town before European contact, nor Papua New Guinea more broadly, but when I conducted fieldwork in 2009-2010 it was an inescapable part of everyday life. One card game proliferated into a multitude of games for different situations and participants, and was supplemented with slot machines, sports betting, darts, and bingo and lottery games. One could well imagine gambling becoming popular in societies new to it, especially coming on the back of money, wage-work and towns. Yet the popularity of gambling in the region is surprising to social scientists because the peoples now so enamoured by gambling are famous for their love of competitively giving things away, not competing for them. Gambling spread while gifting remained a central part of the way people did transactions. This thesis resists juxtaposing gifting and selfish acquisition. It shows how their opposition is false; that gambling is instead a new analytic technique for manipulating the value of gifts and acquisitions alike, through the medium of money. Too often gambling takes a familiar form in analyses: as the sharp end of capitalism, or the benign, chance-led redistributor of wealth in egalitarian societies. The thesis builds an ethnographic understanding of gambling, and uses it to interrogate theories of gambling, money, and Melanesian anthropology. In so doing, the thesis speaks to a trend in Melanesian anthropology to debate whether monetisation and urbanisation has brought about a radical split in peoples' understandings of the world. Dealing with some of the most starkly ‘modern' material I find a process of inclusive indigenous materialism that consumes the old and the new alike, turning them into a model for action in a dynamic money-led world.

The analysis of cultural policy in the last decade suggests that creativity and the arts in general are extensively used in political agendas as means of capitalizing on the forecasted socio-economic potential of creative/artistic activities (e.g. Flew, 2005; Garnham, 2005; Hartley, 2005; Hesmondhalgh, 2007). Although some critical studies have highlighted instrumentalism, short-sidedness and practice/practitioners’ averse policy-making and intervention planning (Belfiore, 2004, 2009; Caust, 2003; Oakley, 2009; Newman, 2013), so far only very few studies have exposed the experiences and voices of particular groups of creative workers in the different national (country-specific) contexts to support this criticism. There has been a significant lack of studies that aim to understand how creative workers experience and cope with the changing policy context in their work. In particular, the voice of non-artists has rarely been considered when seeking a better understanding of the sector’s dynamics. This thesis explored the Scottish cultural sector through the eyes of cultural leaders. The study was carried out during a time of significant transformation to the funding structure, processes and relationships in the sector, catalysed by the establishment of a new funding agency (the funder). It focuses on cultural leaders’ understandings of an increasingly politicised cultural landscape that constitutes the context of their work. The thesis also looks at the influence of these understandings on the leaders’ role responsibilities, as well as the essence and the sustainability of the cultural sector. The empirical work for the thesis followed a qualitative research approach and focused on 21 semi-structured interviews with cultural leaders and industry experts based in Scotland. These individuals were purposefully chosen as a group of stakeholders who are able to engage in discussions about the cultural sector in the context of recent changes in the governance and financial subsidy of Scottish (publically funded) arts. The research findings illustrated the importance of leaders’ values and beliefs, which reflect the purpose of their work and shape their enactments in the sector. In particular, the intrinsic motivation, artistic ambitions, social and civic responsibilities of leaders emerged as crucial qualities of their work roles. The findings revealed a discrepancy between these artistic and civic concerns of cultural leaders and the socio-economic expectations of the funder, which contributed to a great deal of unproductive ('inorganic') tensions for which leaders had to find coping mechanisms. Bourdieu’s (1977, 1992) theoretical concepts were used as a starting point in understanding the cultural sector as a cultural field, and cultural leaders as actors enacting their work-related practices in the evolving socio-political and economic system of cultural production. However, upon further analysis of the data, the notions of a ‘worldview’ and ‘stewardship’ emerged and were used to better explain the greater complexity of work in today’s cultural sector. This thesis thus builds upon Bourdieu’s concept of ‘field’ and ‘artistic logic’ and explains the changing cultural sector as a holistic cultural field where cultural leaders enact their stewardship-like work responsibilities from within a strong and dynamic artistic worldview.