This thesis examines the literary representations of feminist and nationalist struggles in the Middle East particularly in Lebanon and Palestine. It aims to explore the simultaneous articulation of these two pivotal concerns in contemporary Arabic literature written by Arab women, from the 1960s to the present. One of the primary goals of this thesis is to explore how contemporary feminist literature reflects the effects of national crises in the Middle East on women’s status. To this end, this thesis reads closely a number of the novels of two contemporary Arab women writers: Ghādah al‐Sammān and Sah|ar Khalīfah whose work engages in this literary interrelationship of nationalist and feminist struggles in Lebanon and Palestine, respectively. Through the close analyses of these authors’ novels, this thesis explores how, in their response to the political turmoil in the Middle East, contemporary Arab women writers render reality in creative forms: al‐Sammān cries for freedom by exploiting literary existentialism to reflect the human struggle against the backdrop of the Lebanese civil war, while Khalīfah employs critical realism in her portrayal of the human pain during the Palestinian‐Israeli conflict. This thesis argues that both writers challenge long‐established literary traditions by advancing these themes in new artistic styles: literary existentialism and realism, and, therefore, considers this a manifestation of the avant‐gardism of both writers for they move the writings of Levantine women to a higher level by adding these literary forms to the repertoire of contemporary Arab women’s literature. The contribution of this thesis lies in its investigation of the innovative literary styles of these two authors and their place in the writings of contemporary Arab women. Thus, this thesis aims to remedy the neglect of the writings of these authors by presenting close analyses of some of the works of al‐Sammān and Khalīfah with a view to understanding their use of literary existentialism and critical realism.

There are two distinct but related parts to this exegesis. Firstly there is the production of a fifty-five minute documentary Return of the Trojan Horse, and secondly a written exegesis. The latter advances an academic argument centred around the research question - how to motivate the role of the expository documentary at a time when the documentary field is dominated by the debate between philosophical scepticism and empirical realism, while in aesthetic terms, the documentary mode itself is led by perfomative/interactive documentaries such as Michael Moore's Bowling for Columbine. My response to this question is informed in theoretical terms by the Critical Realist paradigm. The use of Critical Realism enables the exegesis to supply an integrated approach which seeks to transcend both the sceptical and the empirical realist positions. In doing so, the exegesis makes a contribution both to documentary theory and the Critical Realist paradigm itself by applying it to the field of documentary film theory. As such the exegesis addresses an absence of aesthetic theorising within the Critical Realist paradigm. As part of the process I review, analyse and synthesise the key theoretical arguments of authors Bill Nichols, Michael Renov, Brian Winston, John Corner and Noel Carroll. The documentary sub-genres are then located within the context of these theoretical debates while the emphasis is placed on the expository sub-genre as utilised in my own documentary film, Return of the Trojan Horse. The exegesis then critically discusses Return of the Trojan Horse from a Critical Realist perspective and reflects on the strategies involved in the production of the film. As the topic of the film deals with the negative impacts of economic liberalisation, the mass media is briefly discussed within the context of a deregulated market and right-wing politics, while reviewing Herman and Chomsky's 'A Propaganda Model' in Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media, 2002.

My research explores the leadership challenge faced by contemporary higher education institutions. Globally, the need for high quality academic leadership has never been greater. Yet growing evidence suggests few academics are keen to engage. In this study, I investigate academic educational leadership (AEL) at the University of Exeter (UoE) from organisational and academic perspectives. My purposes are to clarify early career academics’ (ECAs) attitudes and stances towards AEL, what may lie behind these and to make recommendations about how to nurture their future interest in AEL. My study adopts a theoretical and methodological pluralistic approach. Theoretically, I draw on the leadership research of Mats Alvesson and Richard Bolden, relating to organisational culture and structure. In particular, I adapt Alvesson’s model of ‘multiple cultural configurations’. I also draw on the socio-cultural theories of Margaret Archer relating to ‘agentic reflexivity’. Methodologically, I adopt the role of ‘bricoleur’ (Kincheloe, 2001), drawing on an eclectic range of perspectives and principles derived from pragmatism and applied critical realism. By synthesising these, I create a ‘personal enquiry paradigm’. My theoretical research outcomes add to growing evidence about academic ‘defensive routines’ (Martin, 1999). I suggest that ECAs adopt diverse and nuanced attitudes and stances towards AEL, summarized in a ‘reluctance to lead’ typology. I identify a wide range of influential mechanisms and causal powers (M&CPs) which I summarise in an elaborated three dimensional framework. Influential M&CPs include attitudinal dissonance and misalignment between institutional strategies and processes which help explain reluctance. I argue that nurturing future AELs needs to reflect more closely the priorities of ECAs, set in a wider context of institutional cultural reconciliation and strategic realignment. Adopting a normative stance, I provide an example of how this might be possible. My methodological contribution develops through a series of three dimensional frameworks that suggest that multiple configurations of influences operate at different levels and through time at UoE. Overall, my research contributes strongly to the growing body of theories and methodologies investigating higher education cultures. Whilst the case study findings may not be generalizable, other institutions might benefit from some of the insights provided.

This article explains the implications and benefits of founding transdisciplinary collaborations of knowledge production in critical realism. We call such equal partnerships of researchers and practitioners knowledge alliances. Drawing on the distinction between the referent to which we refer (the object that our research is about) and our references (our research about this object), we show that practitioners can contribute to the process of knowledge production by providing access to referents and producing references but also by achieving societal relevance. In order to accomplish excellence, knowledge production should be organized in ways that engage different types of knowledge in a constructive interplay and use the respective strong points of researchers and practitioners. Abduction and retroduction, two modes of inference vital to critical realism, are particularly inclined to benefit from involving practitioners in knowledge production. We call such an approach potential-oriented and put it in contrast to problem-orientation and the empiricism of evidence-based research and policy-making.

This article explores the implications of founding transdisciplinary collaborations of knowledge production in critical realism. We call such equal partnerships of researchers and practitioners knowledge alliances. Using the distinction between the referents that we refer to (what our research is about) and our references (our research about that), we show that practitioners can contribute to the process of knowledge production by providing access to referents and producing references but also by achieving relevance. Researchers and practitioners bring different types of knowledge. To become excellent, knowledge production should be organized in ways, which engage these different types in a constructive interplay. We call this approach potential-oriented, which we put in contrast to the empiricism of evidence-based research and policy-making. Our deliberate choice of the term potential-oriented reflects the shifts in philosophy suggested by critical realism, but also a sensitivity for how practitioners communicate and express themselves. / Series: SRE - Discussion Papers

This critical realist thesis seeks to understand how student, graduate and professional identities emerge in Emergency Medical Science (EMS) students at a South African University of Technology (UoT) as well as in professional paramedics in the Emergency Medical Care Services (EMCS). It further considers the construct of graduate attributes (GAs) and its relationship to emergence of identity and influence on curriculum design. The research design is that of a case study. The theoretical framework is critical realism whose depth ontology posits three domains of reality. Causal powers and generative mechanisms exist in the Real domain which cause events or phenomena to emerge in the Actual domain that are experienced in the Empirical domain. Using retroduction one may come to explore some of the causes for the event. Using Bhaskar’s concepts of identity, the self, absence and emergence, ontology and four-planar social being, a Bhaskarian explanatory framework of identity to explore the emergence of identity has been created. In exploring graduate attributes, a critical realist question is posed: “What must the world be like for GAs to exist” to explore the possibilities of the existence of GAs. It was found that student identity emerges diachronically in three moments, while professional paramedic identity starts to emerge during the third year of study mainly through the structure, culture and agency of workplace-based learning. In answer to the critical realist question it was found that GAs emerge from the neoliberalist commodification of universities. In seeking an alternative to GAs, traits and attitudes were explored. It was found that these emerge from curriculum, interplay of departmental structure, culture and agency of and from students’ being which makes them ontologically radically different from GAs. This study concludes that student, graduate and professional identities emerge from a person’s core constellational identity diachronically within four-planar social being and the interplay of structure, culture and agency. GAs cannot be related to the emergence of identity and curriculum design because of their ontology; however, if traits and attitudes are substituted for GAs, a close relationship does exist between emergence of identity, traits and attitudes and curriculum design.

This thesis is concerned with the ‘problem’ of change in education, an issue characterised in much of the literature as a paradox of innovation without change. The thesis draws upon school-based empirical research, undertaken in the context of the reactions by Geography, History and Modern Studies teachers to the notion of teaching integrated social subjects, set against the wider framework of the Scottish Executive’s curriculum policy. The thesis first sets the topic in its Scottish and wider context, before undertaking a comprehensive review of the themes that emerge from the worldwide literature on educational change. These include the paradox of innovation without change, teacher mediation of change initiatives, departmental and school cultures, the subject centredness of schooling and factors that have been noted to underpin successful change initiatives. The thesis sets out a theoretical position that draws upon the critical realist social theory of Margaret Archer. This approach posits a centrist approach to the contentious structure/agency debate, suggesting a complex relationship between social structures, cultural forms and individual agency, whereby social reproduction and transformation are played out through continual social interaction. From this foundation of theory, I develop a practical methodology for researching change in school settings. My empirical work consists of a questionnaire sent to 100 schools, and two linked case studies, where data was collected through semi-structured interviews, observations and analysis of school documents. The research identifies trends in school provision and, through the case studies, the processes of curriculum making are investigated using the aforementioned methodology. The thesis concludes that such processes are ineluctably social practices, and that those seeking to innovate in schools should pay attention to the social dimensions of change – the engagement of people with ideas and the social structures that impede, distort or promote change. The thesis concludes by presenting a set of general principles that might serve to facilitate change promoted by future initiatives.

One key to CSR’s success has been its fuzzy definition, whereby its meaning is constantly (re)defined by practice and through the dialectical relationship between companies and their stakeholders. This thesis focuses upon the influence of MNOCs’ socio-political field upon their CSR (rather than upon specific CSR projects), from a critical realist perspective, contributing to existing research in three key ways. Firstly, I present original explanatory models that outline the practice of CSR in Colombia and Venezuela. From these models, I develop further models that categorise the types of CSR practiced in each country. I argue that Colombia follows a conventional model of private-led CSR; by contrast, the Venezuelan model pushes the boundaries of more traditional CSR definitions. Given the government’s dirigiste approach, I categorise the Venezuelan model as an example of a new form of CSR, that I call Regulated CSR (RCSR), noting the inherent contradictions of regulating to increase responsibility. Secondly, I produce original research on MNOCs’ CSR reports, examining how MNOCs’ agency is affected by global socio-political discourses. Paradoxically, whilst CSR is an important element of corporate communication, many MNOCs only disclose limited CSR-related information. Thirdly, this thesis contributes to the growing discussion of CSR’s role within the neoliberal paradigm. I argue that CSR is not and cannot be a panacea for social absences and can have negative social effects. Therefore, appropriate regulation is necessary, starting with greater corporate transparency at an international level to level-up MNOCs’ practices, and national oversight of MNOCs’ CSR budgets and practices.

This thesis is a comparative case study which investigates both formal and nonformal peace education initiatives and situates them within the socio-political, cultural, and economic landscape of Cambodia. The research employs a participatory methodology with reflection and learning as key process components. Cambodian youth [ages 11 to 15] are the primary research subjects, and Cambodian youth [ages 18-25] are the co-researchers in this inquiry. Joint cooperation with local non-governmental organisations as the key stakeholders in this research ensure that the outcomes and findings are useful for praxis as well. Based in the ontology and epistemology of critical realism, the research investigates the practice of peace education in Cambodia. It posits the need for transpection as an analytical framework and a pedagogy which comprises retrospection [looking into the past], introspection [looking inward], extrospection [looking outward] and prospection [looking to the future]. The research describes the contextual factors that (dis)enable the practice of peace education and analyses the ways in which peace education contributes to conflict transformation at the personal, relational, structural, and cultural levels. The thesis argues that peace education in Cambodia makes a deeper impression on personal and relational conflict, but that via transformative agency and through the lens of both feminist discourse, can also make a contribution to cultural and structural conflict transformation as well. Peace education is effective insofar as it operates within an enabling environment where contexts align with mechanisms to catalyse positive change. The thesis proposes that critical peace education in Cambodia should be given greater attention and enfolded symbiotically into ongoing peacebuilding initiatives. Lastly, the model of peace education for Cambodia should be locally owned, focussed on modelling, hybrid (i.e. formal and non-formal), and transpective. That is, peace education should include study of the past, deep self-understanding, critical awareness and perspective taking, and futures thinking. / Peace Institute of Cambodia

Seldom are we privileged to witness an international philosophical movement, which in addition to being a philosophical revolution, vindicates the values and concerns of a critical anthropological approach in Spirituality from the analytic tradition. The work of critical realists is potential remedy for the ills, dichotomies and lacunae inherent in the Western philosophical and spiritual traditions. Critical realism and philosophy of meta-reality, it is claimed, not only emancipate philosophy but, science and society as spiritual. This dissertation explores the many points of confluence and exposes dimensions of living and studying spirituality, which challenge us to think of ontological realism, epistemological relativism and rational (reflexive) judgement in a mode, which cautions against the naive relativism, tacit irrealism and other mistakes which tend to over-characterise our academic discourse with social linguistification, to the detriment of humanity and our utopian freedom and flourishing. / Christian Spirituality, Church History & Missiology / M. Th. (Christian Spirituality)