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Given the large economic and social costs of work-related accidents and injuries, it is not surprising that organisations strive to reduce them; this creates a need to improve the safety performance of the whole construction industry. Health and Safety statistics in general appear to suggest a levelling off of safety performance across the construction industry as a whole and this implies that improving safety beyond the current level of attainment calls for a radical look at how safety is addressed by the industry. Such a radical approach needs to explore alternatives to current practices in safety improvement. Although it is acknowledged that human factors are involved in 80-90% of work-related accidents and incidents, the focus of safety research in recent years still addresses only organisational and environmental factors, rather than variables at the level of the individual. Occupational personality models suggest that the ability to understand, predict and control incidents could minimize their potential transition into accidents. The safety behaviour of the individual worker forms part of such occupational personality modelling. Understanding the safety behaviour of construction workers should provide opportunities for improvement beyond traditional practices in the quest to improve safety management. The study on which this thesis is based aimed to develop a conceptual framework for improving safety performance on sites. This was achieved by exploring, on the one hand, the relationship between the personality traits of individual workers and their safety behaviour (safety participation, safety compliance and safety motivation), and incident rates on the other. The data for the analysis was drawn from multi-cultural construction workers in Saudi Arabia. The emergence of the Big Five personality model has been widely accepted as a valid and reasonably generalisable taxonomy for personality structure and has been used by numerous researchers as a framework to explore the criterion-related validity of personality in relation to job performance. This study employed the Big Five categorisation of traits to explore the relationship between fundamental dimensions of personality and potential for involvement in accidents and incidents. The principal findings from the study showed a very good level of acceptance by practitioners in Saudi Arabia for the conceptual framework developed for managing safety behaviour. The study also established that some personality traits moderated the effects of safety behaviour for incident rates. In addition, the analysis revealed that individual workers characterised by conscientiousness and openness are least likely to experience incidents, and consequently, accidents and injuries at work. However, individuals characterised by high extraversion, neuroticism and low agreeableness are more likely to be v involved in incidents, and potentially, accidents and injuries. These important findings have significant ramifications for the way safety development and training for construction workers should be addressed in the future. Recommendations from the study culminated in the development of a conceptual framework for improving safety performance which aimed to minimize incidents attributable to the worker. The framework relies on the attitudes and behaviours of employees in proposing mitigation strategies for the construction industry.

This thesis explores how traumatic memories of the Tangshan earthquake have been constructed in literature, documentary works, and films. Through analyzing the narrative construction of the Tangshan earthquake in the form of film and literature, this thesis studies the relationship between state power and individual agency in the representation of this natural disaster. It argues that the cultural representation of this natural disaster reflects a subtle shift: one from the dominant nationalistic narrative to the narrative centering on individuals’ psychological trauma. It suggests the high degree of state control and politicization is what is similar between a natural disaster such as the Tangshan earthquake and other political events. To some extent, the Tangshan earthquake has become a political event to promote the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) propaganda. Therefore, this thesis engages existing scholarship on political traumas to research the Tangshan earthquake. It is indicating a subtle shift because it is a slow-changing process and there is no mark to signal a radical departure from the earlier nationalism accounts. There also exists more interlaces and interconnections between the state and individual in the range of sources I have examined. And the overlay of the different narratives reflects the complexity of reality and history.

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This thesis deals with issues relating to the cosmological dimensions of landscapes, the cultural construction of age and the long-term changes in passage rituals and mortuary practices in the Bronze Age societies of Södermanland in East Central Sweden. A gender perspective forms the underlying theoretical framework, while the study as a whole is particularly interested in power relations between generations as an impetus for societal change. Burials from cairns and cemeteries, as well as heaps of fire-cracked stones, rock-carvings and ritual hoards from two Bronze Age Landscapes in Södermanland are used as examples and to illustrate the interpretations presented in this study. It is proposed that perceptions of landscapes and cosmology were created by placing cairns and stone settings at liminal places or boundaries in the landscape, while heaps of fire-cracked stones were situated at focal points. Places where rock-carvings are found, nearby rapids or on islands along river courses, are interpreted as birth-places, and stem from origin myths about the birth of the first humans at these sites. It is proposed that birth, life and death as cosmological principles may be perceived in the landscape and are related to different kinds of waters. In addition, it is suggested that the cultural construction of age is expressed in spatial terms where adults - both men and women - with special abilities and esoteric knowledge related to passage rituals, were buried in cairns. Infants, whose relationship with these adults was special, were instead buried in the heaps of fire-cracked stones. It is also considered that, among other things, the absence of swords in burials implies that the societies of East Central Sweden probably had a social organization that was distinct from the societies of southern Scandinavia. Regarding long-term changes in ritual practices it is suggested that ritual tools used in mortuary practices change from flint daggers in the Late Neolithic, to razors and tweezers during the Bronze Age. Further changes occurred in the Late Bronze Age, when pins were introduced into the ritual practices. Regarding age and gender, osteological estimates show that both adult men and women participated in passage rituals. With the transition to pins we also see changes in who dealt with passage rituals and it is rather young women who were responsible for this sphere in the later period. As children also become visible - both in burials and at rock-carving sites – during the Late Bronze Age, this is interpreted as signalling shifts in power relations between genders and generations in favour of women and younger people.

The main focus of this disertation are relationships of Jan Neruda. They are explained from two different points of view: historical and didactic. The historical part is about the facts, for which the evidence can be found. Those that don't have any evidence in the historical sources are separated. In this part there were also discussed some novels, which portray Jan Neruda. The didactic part contains of the analysis of the textbooks, there was studied, how the information about Neruda's relationships were explained to the students. The last chapter is about websites, where the information about this topic can be found. This topic was there also assessed from the historical and didactic point of view.

This MA thesis analyzes how the protagonists and the narrative structure relates to “the Child” as a linguistic/cultural construction in Mare Kandre’s early authorship (1984-1991). A thematic of children portraits defines this period of Kandre’s writing, which consits of the following works: In a Different Country (1984), The Annunciation (1986), Bübin’s Kid (1987), The Burning Tree (1988) and Aliide, Aliide (1991). Linguistic components, such as the word “child”, the name “Kid” and a reconstruction of the concept of childhood, holds an actuate position in these narratives when they first appear in direct relation to the protagonists. This suggests how generally accepted categories and concepts consciously are at work in Kandre’s writings. Consequently, a category such as “child” can not unproblematically serve as a definition of any of the protagonists, irrespective of their presumptive age. Combining philosopher Judith Butler’s theory of name-calling with theories in the field of Childhood Studies as presented by Susan Honeyman, “the Child” in Kandre’s works is explored through the hypothesis of its function as a name. Close readings reveal how the protagonists, in the encounter with an explicitly cultural or narrative context, are constituted as subjects through the linguistic category “child”. The protagonists can be considered both as subordinated by the conventionally manifested notion of life development as a linear, measurable progress and as introduced to the means which make possible a critical response to that same notion. Since the main protagonists strongly refuse to be defined by the conventions supporting “the Child” as a category, a dialogue is created which gives the narrative its force. That dialogue corresponds to different aspects of the concept of childhood, which place “the Child” as a construction at the heart of Kandre’s narrative composition.

This study explored the lived experience of Gen Z adults in a liminal life-stage crisis where the symbolic meaning of health, identity and brands are in transition. Sixteen ethnographic in-home interviews with college students were conducted and analyzed using Geertz's interpretive and Turner's symbolic anthropology. A hermeneutic textual analysis was used to interpret three types of phenomenological data: text, pictures and collages. An "incubation" step was key in the creative interpretation process where the leap from data to abstract themes was made. Environmental circumstances like money, time, resources and social networks change the quality of health, but the fundamental health explanatory system of a young person is a reflection of their family of origin experiences. Women associate health with mental health-independence and empowerment. Men define health as physical health-food and cooking. Skills such as cooking and shopping as well as the consumption of water, cannabis and other complementary products impact health and identity. Three health worldview themes emerged: health as negotiating identity; creating home; and taking responsibility. Implications for branding and public information campaigns to change the health beliefs and practices of young adults are offered. This thesis closes with a reflection on the "research study," the dominant symbol in the practice of research as a way to analyze the fluid role of consumer anthropology in a capitalist system.