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In this thesis several strands of enquiry are braided together. Accounts eo-created with migrant participants are privileged, theoretical material is critically appraised and a range of analytical resources employed. The various explorations follow particular trajectories that make some aspects visible whilst occluding others. Critical appraisal of selected examples of empirical psychological research provides insight into processes by which constructs of migration may be generated and employed, and the authority conferred to this type of research in social and political migration policies is questioned. In recognition of the importance of the host locality in a migrant's ability to adapt, an overview of Manchester's historical, economic and social features is presented and the policy ofmulti-culturalism is discussed. Understandings ofloss and stress that may be associated with migrations are examined through close critique of particular psychoanalytic perspectives on migrations. A resulting broad analytic frame is developed to explore the participants' accounts. To expand understandings of self and culture as intertwined, the meta- theories of the Dialogical Self and Dialogism are examined. Through engaging these meta-theories a deeper exploration of psycho cultural subjectivities is undertaken. Particular contested polyvocalities are identified as themata of "Culture" and "Colour of skin, 'race', belonging". These themata are explored through progressive braiding of pertinent theoretical resources and further critical discursive and dialogical analyses of constructed subjectivities. A concluding discussion appraises the contributions, strengths and weaknesses of this thesis and identifies its particular contributions to knowledge. Words: 237 Keywords: migration, psycho-cultural, subjectivities, discursive, dialogical, dialogism, themata. Acknowledgements. I would like to thank my participants for sharing with me their experiences and understandings of migration. I am grateful to Prof Erica Burman who has consistently given me invaluable fe~dback on drafts of my work and in supervision. She has adeptly balanced challenge wIth.en~ouragement in helping me to identify my occlusions, prejudices, anxieties and my limits of understanding. By so doing she has enabled me to move beyond many of my previously habitual or normalised understandings.

This thesis is based on the data collected in Ruili, a city on the Sino-Burmese border in Yunnan, China. It tries to answer the question: If Han people can make a good living in Ruil i, then why have young Dai villagers chosen to leave Ruili and live away from their hometown? This question led me to uncover the three waves of migration in Ruili since the 1950s, two of which were of Han people moving to Ruili and one was of Dai villagers trying to survive in the city. All of them were displaced from their hometowns to different directions. Through exploring how they came and how their situation was through a historical bottom-up perspective, I found the' three waves were closely connected with nation building and global neo-liberalism. Through the life trajectory of migrants in Ruili over fifty years, this thesis firstly demonstrates how the state objectified both people and land via ideological domination and state apparatus whilst sacrificing the sympathetic foundation in state making, hence showing that the state and its policies are the cause of inequality; secondly, compliance under coercion is a kind of agency utilised by people for different reasons; thirdly, cosmopolitan consciousness is embodied in the trans-territorial mobility of the migrants, calling for improvement of their survival environment and security in the city.

The purpose of this thesis is to investigate the effect of Gujarat's Resettlement and Rehabilitation (R&R) policy of 1987 on the livelihoods of resettlers, with special reference to the impacts on women. The sample is comprised of tribals who were displaced by the Sardar Sarovar Project and had relocated mainly in the early 1990s to resettlement sites in Vadodara District, Gujarat. The main objective of the research is to determine the extent to which the R&R policy was actually implemented, the effect of the nature and degree of participation on policy implementation and the effect of policy implementation on resettlers' livelihoods. Data were collected from 370 heads of households and 89 women from six resettiement sites during 2000- 2001. About half of these selected women had participated in the R&R process and/or had received compensation under the policy. Research revealed that, through an active participation process which included enhanced awareness and information gathering, self-mobilisation and grassroots action, project-affected people acquired the right to implement choice. With support from non-govemmental organisations, they were able to incorporate three unique provisions not typical of resettiement projects elsewhere. These included: the right to five acres of replacement land, irrespective of previous land title status; choice in the selection of resettlement site and relocation unit and access to infrastructure and amenities at new resettlement sites. Contrary to most resettlement experiences elsewhere, households enjoyed substantial improvements in their living conditions post-resetdement, including a modification in gender relations as a result of smaller household sizes and modified structures. A spill over effect was also observed whereby those who had not participated directly also benefited from the policy. With support from external organisations and institutions, resettlers maintained greater control over their lives and decision-making abilities. Feelings of vulnerability and insecurity normally associated with forced resettlement were noticeably reduced.

This dissertation presents an ethnographic research into two Chinese urban villages, where thousands of rural migrants who were bureaucratically categorised as ‘floating population’ established their settlements in the city. The goal of the research is to display the place-making process through the everyday practices of the rural migrants in their urban settlements and to examine the relationship between this place-making process and the formation of the migratory identity in contemporary Chinese urban society. Based on long-term participative observations and in-depth interviews, an impressionist picture is painted to depict the lived world of rural migrants in this small, marginal, yet complex, colourful neighbourhood. This picture contains vivid snapshots of various aspects of people's everyday life in the place, including street life, tenancy relationships, neighbourhood interactions, housing forms, television and public telephone consumption, as well as festival celebrations, most of which are put into academic documentation for the first time. All these scenes commonly affirm the active engagements of the rural migrants in the place-making politics of this unique urban locale and their flexible emplacement in the locality, which defies the ideological construction of this group as always displaced, floating, and out of place in the city. More importantly, the urban villages, as the principal geographical form of rural migratory settlement in Chinese cities, provide a prime example of the ‘progressive sense of place’ in 21st Century Chinese urban society that is featured by multiplicity, fluidity, and connectivity. At the same time, this research distinguishes itself from previous work on the same subject with its sharp focus on the place-making process occurring at the micro and banal level. It has discovered that people’s daily activities like dwelling, walking, street gathering, telephone calling, deliver an empowering space where place is not constructed by conscious planning and design, but by bodily doing and living. Beyond the phenomenological geography of lifeworld which tends to be depoliticised, the study sheds light on the question of asymmetries of power and socio-economic inequities in the lifeworld in the urban villages and tries to represent the rural migrants’ spatial struggles in the place as a tactical resistance that does not necessarily direct towards some end or form, but has the potential to undermine and deflect the totalising ambitions of the dominant power strategies. The above insights drawn from the two urban villages are not only informative in understanding Chinese rural migratory communities in the urban setting, but also revelatory in awakening the sense of place and grasping the complexity of the broader place-making politics in the late modern and transitional society.

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Climate change is one of the most pressing concerns facing the twenty-first century. As natural environments change, their ability to support productive and sustainable natural-resource dependent livelihoods is affected. More specifically climate stresses create continuous pressures on rural households and shocks may create dangerous living conditions. As such, migration to areas that can support human survival and aspirations for a stable existence emerges as a possible consequence. In a rapidly urbanising world, a more stable existence may be found outside of the countryside and in a town. If rural dwellers choose to settle permanently in urban centres then urbanisation will occur. This study examines how the stresses and shocks associated with climate change affect rural urban migration in Malawi. More specifically, the study develops a theoretical framework that examines Malawi's migration system through a 'capabilities' and 'aspirations' lens. Using an aspirations and capabilities framework can help explain some key questions of migration system theory including how patterns of movements are determined; what situations may encourage or discourage the rate of movement between the rural area and the city, including stresses and shocks; and, how a rural individual becomes a permanent city dweller. The findings suggest that rural-urban migration aspirations may increase as rural life gets harder and, at the same time, young rural dwellers are exposed to alternative urban lifestyles. However, stresses reduce the migration capabilities that are needed to move to town. This has repercussions across the migration system, which results in fewer people who are able to leave the village. Following shocks, migration aspirations are at their lowest. This is because those who would have once migrated to town now feel an obligation to remain in the village where they are able to help their rural family overcome the shock. At the same time, regional level shocks affect the ability of urban migrants to maintain their urban livelihoods with implications for return migration. The research was approved though the University of Leeds Ethical Review Team and was conducted under the ethical guidelines agreed during the review.

Gentrification, the contentious terrain where neo-liberalism meets housing, has been widely explored in urban geography, with few under researched areas remaining. This thesis fills one such gap by focusing on artists - a group who have been historically noted to contribute at all stages of gentrification, from triggering it to ultimately being displaced themselves. With increased consciousness of the process opening up their role in a new direction, artists are also more recently engaging in fervent activism and resistance in trying to control the aggressive spread of gentrification. This study concentrates on artists in situ in two cities with widespread gentrification, the international art hubs: London and New York City. The artists interviewed for this study have been resisting gentrification in non-violent ways, using their art to protest. Complementing in-depth interviews and a critique of art works, analysis is carried out to seek how and why artists are motivated to resist and how they reconcile themselves with the contradictions over their roles in gentrification. This thesis demonstrates the existence of new trajectories for the roles of artists in gentrification, particularly in terms of efforts of stalling, or finding an alternative for the process. Overall, artists are aware of what they represent in the gentrification process and are motivated to mitigate any adverse effects of this. On a broader scale, the study uncovers an incubating social movement: grassroots activism which finds itself colliding head-on with the top-down paradigm of economic value creation over social equality. Although the various individual actors in this struggle are not always connected or even aware of each other; some are organising themselves to fight the tide of gentrification, learning and sharing valuable lessons along the way, which have the potential to be useful to those positioning themselves against gentrification.

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