This thesis examines the relationship of labour mobility and socioeconomic transformation in the Solomon Islands, and proposes that one cannot be understood in isolation from the other. Explanation is pursued both at the levels of structure and of agency, and integration of these levels is attempted in some places. This is discussed in the first part of the thesis, within a general discussion of issues of theory and method. The second part of the thesis deals with the structural parameters of labour mobility. Through the twentieth century, the institutions of government, mission and capitalist enterprise have been central in shaping the Solomon Islands social formation. The roles of these formal institutions with implications for labour mobility have ranged from purveyors of ideology to employers of labour. Another major element in the social formation is an original Melanesian mode of production which influences labour mobility through village-level institutions such as the land tenure system, kinship, and household operation. Labour circulation is a major factor in linking village and non-village institutions, and more abstractly in articulating two different modes of production. The third part of the thesis considers the ways in which individual agency operates within structure. The data base are life histories and related information from the Mbambatana language group on the island of Choiseul. This is integrated with national, regional and village-level structural information. Education is important in the way it 'selects' individuals for certain kinds of employment. This selection process occurs within the wage economy generally, but is further refined within institutions of employment. This results in labour mobility 'streams' which have identifiable characteristics related to gender, education, and employment type. Movements within each 'stream' have typical temporal and spatial characteristics. Patterns of labour mobility, especially sequence, are affected by gender and life cycle factors. For men and women the most critical changes take place in the 20s age span, but individual behaviour varies according to marriage and childrearing patterns. From a village perspective, labour circulation is a logical response to the necessity of operating within two different economic systems typified by different modes of production. This process of articulation is manifest in other ways as well, and households or families may adopt different strategies in operating within two different systems. The particular strategy adopted depends on the labour power available, degree of access to land, and employment possibilities of individual members.

This thesis examines the relationship of labour mobility and socioeconomic transformation in the Solomon Islands, and proposes that one cannot be understood in isolation from the other. Explanation is pursued both at the levels of structure and of agency, and integration of these levels is attempted in some places. This is discussed in the first part of the thesis, within a general discussion of issues of theory and method. The second part of the thesis deals with the structural parameters of labour mobility. Through the twentieth century, the institutions of government, mission and capitalist enterprise have been central in shaping the Solomon Islands social formation. The roles of these formal institutions with implications for labour mobility have ranged from purveyors of ideology to employers of labour. Another major element in the social formation is an original Melanesian mode of production which influences labour mobility through village-level institutions such as the land tenure system, kinship, and household operation. Labour circulation is a major factor in linking village and non-village institutions, and more abstractly in articulating two different modes of production. The third part of the thesis considers the ways in which individual agency operates within structure. The data base are life histories and related information from the Mbambatana language group on the island of Choiseul. This is integrated with national, regional and village-level structural information. Education is important in the way it 'selects' individuals for certain kinds of employment. This selection process occurs within the wage economy generally, but is further refined within institutions of employment. This results in labour mobility 'streams' which have identifiable characteristics related to gender, education, and employment type. Movements within each 'stream' have typical temporal and spatial characteristics. Patterns of labour mobility, especially sequence, are affected by gender and life cycle factors. For men and women the most critical changes take place in the 20s age span, but individual behaviour varies according to marriage and childrearing patterns. From a village perspective, labour circulation is a logical response to the necessity of operating within two different economic systems typified by different modes of production. This process of articulation is manifest in other ways as well, and households or families may adopt different strategies in operating within two different systems. The particular strategy adopted depends on the labour power available, degree of access to land, and employment possibilities of individual members.

The aim of this research is to account for the life of an industrial site and to show the dynamism of the site by exploring what its trajectory in space and time can tell us about socio-economic and political tendencies occurring during its lifespan. This research will focus on the micro life of a particular industrial site in order to grasp the rhythm of societal change including its cultural and political overtones, and to explore the strategies of transformation of industrial sites in contemporary societies. In addition, this research aims to contribute to a better understanding of the concepts of waterfront regeneration and urban transformation by investigating the life of an industrial site. The objectives of the research are firstly to understand the site life and the rhythm of change of the examined industrial site with the intention of understanding the urban transformation, urban policy and planning. Secondly, to discuss how the site has been transformed, redeveloped and reused through time; and lastly to analyse the roles of various actors involved in the trajectory of the site. In order to support this argument, this research will benefit from inter-disciplinary literature studies. Three main bodies of literature will be put forward; these are waterfront redevelopment, cultural geography, and architectural theory. The dynamic life of the Tophane site in Istanbul is the case study that is analysed in this research. The Tophane site has been, and still is, a very controversial and multi-dimensional site with respect to its use and transformation. Due to its strategic location at the connection point of the Golden Horn and the Bosporus, overlooking the historical peninsula. It has been used for a variety of functions in its history, such as artillery barracks, warehouses, exhibition spaces for the Istanbul Art Biennials, Museum of Modern and Contemporary Arts as well as cruise port. It has been subject to some of the most controversial urban transformation proposals in Istanbul, both regarding the use of the site as well as the bidding processes associated with these proposals. This PhD will cover the different phases of this site's lifetime from the beginning of the twentieth century until 2014 and investigates the crucial roles played by various actors in its transformation and in the resistance to its transformation. The innovative aspect of the dissertation is that it crosses the boundaries of cultural geography and architectural theory. In addition, the original use of research methods such as thick description, actor network theory, controversy mapping and layering aspires to contribute to architectural studies. Furthermore, the focus on the Tophane site in Istanbul aims to expand the geographical scope of both waterfront redevelopment and cultural regeneration literature. The ultimate contribution of the dissertation is to demonstrate how a thorough analysis of the complexity and the versatile nature of a site, including its changing phases and layers, can lead to a better understanding of the macro scale processes that shape the urban environment.

FundaÃÃo Cearense de Apoio ao Desenvolvimento Cientifico e TecnolÃgico / A questÃo indÃgena tem sido relegada pelos governos e pelo estado brasileiro, o que nos impÃe lutarmos pela superaÃÃo das demandas de diversas etnias que habitam o territÃrio nacional. No CearÃ, existem diversos povos e entre eles faremos um estudo analÃtico dos elementos Territoriais, de Identidade e Culturais da Terra IndÃgena Pitaguary da Aldeia de Monguba, situada no municÃpio de Pacatuba, ao sul da capital cearense. Faz necessÃrio, portanto, compreender os processos dinÃmicos que ocorrem na Ãrea em estudo. Dentro desta perspectiva, verificamos as formas de intervenÃÃes no espaÃo e os processos de estruturaÃÃo territorial, buscando (re) conhecer os territÃrios construÃdos e as territorialidades motivadas pelas aÃÃes sÃcio-culturais, identificando os conflitos que geraram, no passado, uma descaracterizaÃÃo Ãtnica e confundindo hoje alguns indivÃduos da aldeia, no que diz respeito à afirmaÃÃo Ãtnica indÃgena Pitaguary. Utilizamos como pesquisas bibliogrÃficas sobre as temÃticas indÃgenas no Brasil e, especificamente, no CearÃ, os conceitos de territÃrio, identidade e cultura, alÃm de documentos sobre a Ãrea da comunidade, buscando compreender como esta vem resistindo à morosidade do sistema burocrÃtico brasileiro, em demarcar suas terras e evitar conflitos com possÃveis posseiros e grileiros. Durante os estudos em campo, foram feitas aplicaÃÃes de questionÃrios e entrevistas junto à comunidade para percebermos como se dÃo as relaÃÃes sociais. No andamento do trabalho, percebemos os conflitos pela terra, retomadas de terras sob domÃnio de posseiros e uma baixa qualidade de vida da Comunidade IndÃgena da Aldeia de Monguba que tem 107 famÃlias, cerca de 388 habitantes, segundo os dados fornecidos pela FundaÃÃo Nacional de SaÃde â FUNASA. Esperamos que com este trabalho os governos iniciem um processo de valorizaÃÃo pela cultura do paÃs e, especialmente com a cultura que foi base de nossa formaÃÃo social brasileira, a indÃgena. l / The aboriginal question has been relegated by the governments and the Brazilian state what makes them fight for the overcoming of the demands of the diverse etnias that inhabit the national territory. In CearÃ, there are diverse peoples about whom we will make an analytical study of the Territorial, Identity and Cultural elements of Pitaguary Aboriginal Reserve of the Village of Monguba, situated in Pacatuba city, in the south of Cearà state. Therefore, it is necessary to understand the dynamic processes that occur in this study area. Inside of this perspective, we verify the forms of interventions in the space and the processes of territorial structure, trying to recognize the constructed territories and the territorialities motivated for the partnercultural actions, identifying the conflicts that had generated an ethnic descharacterization in the past and has been making some individuals be confused about their aboriginal ethnic affirmation in Pitaguary Reserve. We made use of bibliographical research related to aboriginal subject matters in Brazil and specifically in CearÃ, the concepts of territory, identity and culture, beyond documents about the community area, trying to understand how it has resisting the slowness of the Brazilian bureaucratic system in demarcating its lands and preventing conflicts with possible one who holds legal titles to property and squatters. During this field study some questionnaires and interviews were made in the community to perceive how the social relations are. During this work, we perceived the conflicts for the land, and the retaken of ones, under domain of one who holds legal titles to property, and the low quality of life of the Aboriginal Community of the Village of Monguba that has 107 families, about 388 inhabitants, according to the National Foundation of Health - FUNASA. One expects that with this work the governments initiate a process of valuation of the culture of the country and especially of the culture that was the base of our Brazilian social formation, the aboriginal.

Virtual reality (VR) and videogames present, enable, and constrain human engagement with what may broadly be called digital worlds. Videogames have already become a global force in popular culture. Although VR technologies have existed for half a century, it is only during the past decade that VR has become more widely accessible to the public beyond the confines of research institutions and industry use. Very little scholarship has examined the interconnections of videogames and VR as co-extensive cultural forces that shape ideas and feelings about inhabiting digital worlds. This thesis specifically examines the often-employed lexicon of immersion, presence, or feelings being inside of computer-generated contexts as they exist across videogames and VR. By analyzing 15 participants’ interactions with a contemporary VR videogame and interviewing them about this experience, I discuss how immersion, presence, or the feeling of being inside computer-generated worlds is performative and exceeds what the technology affords. Instead, engagement with digital worlds intersects with other performances, actions, and previous engagement with objects or other digital worlds to make sense of creating meaning in VR. / Graduate

On May 13, 1985, Philadelphians watched a live news broadcast as a police officer tossed a duffel bag full of plastic explosives onto the roof of an occupied rowhome in a Black, middle-class West Philadelphia neighborhood. The bombing and the decision to allow the fire to burn killed five children and six adults – all members of a controversial group called MOVE – and destroyed 61 rowhomes. This dissertation employs insights from memory studies, critical race theory and journalism practices to examine the ways in which an otherwise little-known event has been described and commemorated in Philadelphia over the past 35 years. It also considers the extent to which public understandings of the event have changed over time, with particular attention paid to which voices are privileged - and silenced - in the official narration of a complicated tragedy. To do so, this dissertation relies on: a series of interviews with journalists, officials, and others with firsthand knowledge of the event; critical discourse analysis of 35 years of local anniversary coverage of the bombing itself; and object studies of a related documentary, real-estate listings from the now-rehabilitated blocks in West Philadelphia; and a vast archive of material related to the city's official investigation into the events of May 13, 1985. It concludes with discussion of the ways in which the bombing is currently being invoked in protests against police brutality in spring of 2020 and an articulation of the ways in which authority over the memory of the MOVE bombing has been constructed to marginalize both MOVE members and the community in order to legitimize an official narrative that benefits city administrators and law enforcement. / Media & Communication

It was hypothesized that the socialspatial dialectic (location, education, politics and race) contributes to Mississippi’s low livability ranking. Regression models were employed using race, student funding rates, high school graduation rates, property tax, and voter turnout in the 82 counties as variables. The research found evidence that Blacks have lower graduation rates than Whites and property tax has a significant effect on voter participation at the gamma = .001 level. Social capital disadvantage seems to reside within both races with voter participation, property tax rates, and school funding being more pronounced with Whites. Results suggest that political capital should not be diminished in researching Mississippi’s livability ranking.

This narrative chronicles the dissemination of sacred music from the eastern seaboard to the West and South spanning a time frame from the colonial era to the latter part of the Early Nationalist Period (1700-1820). Musical culture in its migration away from the eastern seaboard also parallels the greater western and southern expansion of the United States from its initial configuration of localized regional subgroups to the beginnings of a larger national identity. From this conceptual base, sacred music becomes a vehicle for understanding not only religious and musical changes over time, but also the broader maturity of a nation. Focusing on this period allows for inquiries both into the development of hymnody in the Middle Atlantic, and the subsequent developments of the West and South. These chronological delimitations allow for a discussion of musical practice beginning with formative sacred music developments and continuing to the incorporation of techniques shaped by reform-minded musicians from the eastern seaboard. The following topics guided the construction of this thesis: explicating how the Middle Atlantic region shaped compositional trends, aesthetic, and performance practice of the American West and South; identifying the various southern cultures as understood by eighteenth and nineteenth-century southerners and their application to sacred music practice; understanding how nineteenth-century Americans distinguished between the West and the South; understanding how southern and western music relates to individual denominations and cultures within these areas; and understanding performance practice common to the evangelical and non-evangelical branches of individual sects. Identifying patterns of development in American sacred music of the South and West involves documentation of performance practice, denominational aesthetics, and tunebook bibliography. The study of eighteenth-and-nineteenth-century material by twentieth-and-twenty-first-century writers has falsely defined cultural borders of this region according to a post-bellum conceptualization of the boundaries of the North and South. Prior to 1850, writers defined their borders according to a different set of geographic boundaries than today. Consequently, this thesis differs in terms of geographic and cultural definitions of the North and South from current scholarship because of this writer’s application of colonial and Early Nationalist understandings of American culture.

The thesis discusses the development of nineteenth century responses to the United States. It hinges upon the premise that travel writing is narrative and that the travelling itself must therefore be constructed (or reconstructed) as narrative in order to make it available for writing. By applying narratology to the work of literary travel writers from Frances Trollope to Henry James I show the influence of travelling point of view and writing point of view on the narrative. Where these two points of view are in conflict I suggest reasons for this and identify signs in the narrative which display the disparity. There are several influences on point of view which are discussed in the thesis. The first is mode of travel: the development of steamboats and later locomotives increasingly divested travellers from the landscape through which they were travelling. I concentrate on Frances Trollope, Charles Dickens and Mark Twain travelling by boat, and Robert Louis Stevenson and Henry James travelling by rail to examine how mode of travel alters travelling point of view and influences the form of travel writing. The second is the frontier: writing from a liminal space creates a certain point of view and makes travel not only a passage but a rite of passage. I examine travel texts which discuss the Western frontier as well as the transatlantic frontier. As the opportunity for these frontier experiences diminished through the spread of American culture and developments in travel technology, so the point of view of the traveller changes. A third point of view is provided by European ideas of nature and beauty in nature. The failure of these when put against American landscapes such as the Mississippi, prairies, and Niagara forms a significant part of the thesis, the fourth chapter of which examines writing on Niagara Falls in guidebooks and the travel texts of Frances Trollope, Dickens, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Anthony Trollope, Twain and James. Other points of view include seeing the United States through earlier travel texts and adopting a more autobiographical interest in travelogues. In the final chapter the thesis contains a discussion of the nature of truth in travel writing and the tendency towards fictionalisation. The thesis concludes by considering the implications for truth of having various travelling and writing points of view impact upon constructing narrative out of travel.

The transformation of cities is a challenge of global significance that will depend on the capacity to re-imagine the potential of cities, and thus needs more than standard technocratic urban planning approaches. Deep engagement with the arts provides one avenue for recasting the future of cities. This thesis explores the question of how ‘critical urban art interventions’ develop alternative ways of knowing urban nature, and the opportunities and limitations of using art to reimagine the future of cities. By drawing on urban political ecology and cultural geography, the thesis documents and explores the aims and tactics used in five urban art interventions to reimagine sites of urban nature in Stockholm. Qualitative interviews and participant observation were carried to explore these questions. Findings suggest that tactics used in urban art interventions promote embodied ways of knowing, and simultaneously interacting with the physical and socio- historical constructions of sites of urban natures.