This thesis explores the Malay songket motifs in relation to Malaysia's cultural identity and the transformations of these motifs within the context of the researcher's own art works. An examination of Malaysian government's fixed National Culture policy on identity is contrasted with the reality of identity as dynamic. The identity policy was created and asserted on a multi-racial population based on concept of MalaylBumiputera with no recognition of the 'Other', the nonBumiputera culture. Divisions among the populace were created by the privileges of political, economic and social adjustments given only to the Bumiputera. The lack of addressing the concerns of recognition and acknowledgement of the 'Other' and existence of 'difference' and stereotyping becomes the main interest of this research. In this thesis, the Malay songket motifs were used as a vehicle to demonstrate the Malay's strong association with traditional customs and rituals, a culture that became the focus of the National Culture policy. The motifs symbolises the dominance of the Malays clinging on to power to control the nation, echOing the height of the Malacca Malay Sultanate Empire eight centuries ago. The sense of growth, unity and human spirituality associated with animism was expressed in the songket motifs. However, evidence of the motifs assimilation with Hindu-Buddhist and Islamic influences proved that there is no Malay 'purity' in this art form. The researcher's practice transforms the flat images of the songket motifs into installative art works. Foods, light, shadow, images and sound become the media which express the research findings drawn from documentary, visual and oral sources concerning the songket motifs. His practice differs from the normal practice of Malaysian artists, who literally translate Malay culture into art work. The researcher's practice employs specific references to Malaysian sources free from didactic, cultural-political content. Above all, as a Malaysian working in the UK, the researcher not only engages his theoretical findings to inform his practice, he becomes part of the research. He is both a Malaysian artist himself and a contributor to that part of Malay culture that is examined in this thesis. He contributes to the compilation of the songket motifs information into CD-ROM.

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Identifying (with) performance: Representations and Constructions of Cultural Identity in Contemporary Theatre Practice - Three Case Studies discusses ways in which contemporary live performance affirms, challenges or constructs collective models of cultural identity by addressing the performative relationship through which identity is joined to the process of identification. The thesis argues that cultural identity is constructed within the process of identification, and that this process is articulated through performance. It examines strategies of intervening in this process by theatricalizing those cultural practices that establish and confirm our collective attachments. The thesis explores these strategies through an -in-depth case study of three exemplary artistic practices: Welsh theatre company Brith Gof; Guillermo Gómez-Peña and Coco Fusco, a Mexican and a Cuban-American performance artist based in the U. S.; and the Israeli Acco Theater Center. Using techniques of reiteration, reframing, decontextualization, emphasis, or exaggeration, these artists defamiliarize established patterns of cultural performance in order both to affirm and question the way in which these performances attach us to a collective identity. They utilize forms of interacting and counter-acting the processes of 'seeing' and 'feeling in the identification of and with others in performance. The thesis is composed of six chapters. Chapter One outlines recent theoretical debates on cultural identity and its relationship with identification, focusing in particular on anthropological and ethnographical approaches to performative cultural practices and on sociological and philosophical approaches to performative practices in the constitution of identity. Chapter Two scrutinizes three theatre historical models for a study of identity, and complement these with an account of the current debate on performance theatre, performativity and theatricality. Chapter Three analyses Brith Gof’s theatrical oeuvre in reference to its articulation of spatial concerns. Chapter Four discusses Gómez-Peña’s and Fusco’s performance work in relation to its corporeal strategies. Chapter Five focuses on a discussion of the Acco Theater Center’s seminal performance Arbeit macht frei vom Toitland Europa, in an investigation of its address to the temporal orders of biography, memory and history. Chapter Six concludes the thesis with a general look at the constitution of identification in theatre and performance.

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Tourism research has tended to overlook issues relating to the variability of tourism access and participation across diverse social groups. This study selects one particular minority group, the UK Afro-Caribbean community, and examines whether this group emulates, or may wish to emulate, various tourism patterns. It is hypothesised that the community's impetus to travel and be involved in tourism is , different from established norms. This supposition is derived from a theoretical assessment of the possible factors which influence Afro-Caribbean access and participation: the economic, the social, the cultural and the product-related determinants. Accordingly, this work considers, through a "marginality perspective", structural factors which could have a significant influence upon tourism involvement, especially racism, economic disparities and urban constraints. However, through recognising an "ethnicity perspective", it is suggested that "tourism" could be culturally discordant and considered not to be a priority in people's lives. Therefore, particular forms of "travel" (eg. the visiting of friends and relatives market), reflecting cultural aspirations and preferences, are believed to be of importance to the Afro-Caribbean community. This study employs an ethnographic method, applied to various members of Manchester's (Moss Side) Afro-Caribbean community. This method, developed through a variety of strategies (informal/unstructured. interviews, "casual conversations", observation/participation, etc.), attempts to reveal people's perceptions (impressions! opinions) and experiences of traveVtourism. The approach adopted is reflexive, intracultural and based on an emic (insider) perspective .. The ethnographic presentation explores degrees of access and forms of participation through particular case studies: UK travel (with reference to countryside travel), European travel, Caribbean island travel, and transatlantic travel (with reference to America and Canada). The fmdings indicate that "travel" by the study group is atypical of mass and mainstream "tourism", distinguished by differences of kind and volume. Tourism involvement per se is limited, an outcome of both the marginality and the ethnicity determinants. The interrelationships between ethnic and racial boundaries have an effect of differential access, thereby influencing various aspects of tourism and travel: motivations, preferences, trips and destinations chosen (and not chosen), frequency of ventures, quality of experiences, host and guest relationships, etc . .. . An analysis of the social data reveals that whilst members of an Afro-Caribbean community do not aspire to a tourist identity, tourism and travel can, in various ways, reinforce an ethnic and cultural identity.

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