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From 1871 up to the 1920s, Alsace, a region on the border between France and Germany, was forced to change its national affiliation several times. How, in this context, did the cultural identity of Alsace evolve? With what, and with whom, did Alsatians identify with, and why? In my exploration I will focus on three case studies. Their selection is determined by three criteria: one is that it is of importance to consider issues a vast majority of the population could relate to. Secondly, these case studies will mostly focus on Strasbourg. This is the capital of the region, its cultural centre and the location that France and Germany engaged with most. Finally, the selection is aided by the consideration that cultural identity is closely linked with the appropriation of particular spaces that are reconfigured according to changing socio-political contexts. I will therefore first examine the historical development between 1871 and the 1920s, and embed into this the debate that surrounded the new imperial architecture in Strasbourg. This will be followed by an analysis of the promotional devices found in selected travel guides about Alsace that span several decades. Finally, I shall consider the more particular vision of Alsace promoted in caricatures by Hansi and Zislin, which draw upon regional attachments and national stereotypes and prejudices, but also determine clear and recognisable settings that Alsatians could easily engage with. These case studies will show how Alsatian identity was promoted and challenged in daily life (and in specific spaces), which included, at times, propagandistic discourses, in order to make an assessment of the extent to which Alsatian identity evolved during a period of conflicting loyalties for the population.

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The research investigated the impact of cultural change on the professional identity and practices of social workers in the Australian Defence Organisation (ADO). The researcher sought to understand both the nature and impact of change. The literature was reviewed with regard to the research and understanding of the concept of profession. The review highlighted the ideological nature of profession and the way in which the dominant culture impacts on professionals’ understanding of their identity and practice. The culture impacts on the development of the professionals’ relationship with clients, professional values and practices, practice boundaries, autonomy and status, accountability and knowledge and skills. The analysis of the literature illustrated that professionalism reflected the cultural impact of industrial capitalism while the emerging new professionalism reflected the impact of late capitalism. The research was undertaken from 1995 to 2004, a time of significant reform and change in Australia. The changes were reflected in changing relationships in the political economy and subsequent government and societal reforms. The cultural hegemony or dominant discourse changed from industrial capitalism to late capitalism and this change challenges professional identity and practice. The thesis argues that, an analysis of the case of ADO social work, particularly ADO social workers’understanding of their identity and practice demonstrates the impact of professionalism from 1957 to the mid-1980s. From the mid-1980s to 1996, it is further argued, it is possible to discern the impact of new professionalism as ADO social workers pursued their identity and understanding of practice in terms of the cultural reforms, that is, the emerging new professionalism. The thesis identifies six areas in which both professionalism and new professionalism impact on professionals, their identity and practice together with six features of both professionalism and new professionalism. These features are reflected in the professional projects. A case study of ADO social work was undertaken. The case study was constructed so that it satisfied the tenets of the qualitative method: describing, understanding and explaining. The case data was analysed in terms of the framework established. This framework identified six features of professionalism and new professionalism. Documentary data was analysed, that is, the public statements, reports and evidence given by ADO social workers, which articulated their understanding of their professional identity and practice. The case study confirmed the impact of professionalism on ADO social workers’ identity and practice. However, the data did not demonstrate that ADO social workers pursued their professional project in terms of the emerging new professionalism. Three explanations are suggested as to why ADO social workers resist cultural change and continue to pursue professionalism. The first reason is the finding that the profession of arms, the dominant profession in the organisation, resisted many of the reforms. This enabled ADO social workers to continue to understand their professional identity and practice in terms of professionalism. A second reason is ADO social workers’ focus on the organisational restructuring of ADO social work services, a project pursued by many ADO social workers from 1973. The organisational restructuring is understood to be part of ADO social workers’ professionalisation project in terms of professionalism. A third reason is that ADO social workers view the changing culture as a significant threat to their understanding of their professional identity and practice. Bureaucracy, hierarchy, the state, service, tradition, monopoly, institutions, authority, supervising were giving way to market, flexibility, outcomes, performance, competition, teams, entrepreneurialism and choice. Along with many professional colleagues ADO social workers view the changes as the ‘deprofessionalisation’ of professionals in the ADO. The thesis argues that new professionalism will increasingly impact on the identity and practice of ADO social workers as members of a socially constructed occupation. Attempts by ADO social workers to continue to develop and maintain a professional identity and practice in terms of professionalism will mean that social workers will become irrelevant to the needs of the ADO and its Members and families. Professionalism is no longer part of the hegemony of the dominant culture. The thesis argues that the future for ADO social work lies in the pursuit of a critical professional project in terms of the emerging new professionalism, understanding that new professionalism like professionalism ‘masks’ the oppressive nature of the capitalist project.

This thesis finds that Geoffrey of Monmouth¡¦s Historia regum Britanniae includes political arguments that support kingship government and primogeniture. Through analysis of existing academic literature, and through the perspective of cultural change theory, this thesis argues that Geoffrey employs three elements¡Xthe Norman writer Dudo of Saint-Quentin¡¦s work De moribus et actis primorum Normannorum ducum, the historical progress of the Normans after their conquest of Britain, and the Geoffrey¡¦s own support for kingship and primogeniture¡Xto compose diverse information into a political argument. This thesis also discovers that Geoffrey¡¦s political argument for kingship government and primogeniture is discussed by the Anonymous author of The Oldest Anglo-Norman Prose Brut Chronicle. The Anonymous author proposes the idea of contract as solvency for the civil wars which the combination of kingship and primogeniture alone cannot resolve.

The impact people and organizations have on the environment has been on the agenda in media for decades now. Still, very little research has been conducted in looking at what impact organizational culture can have when organizations attempt to become more environmentally friendly. For most organizations the environmental work is not part of their core business but rather something they work on at the side, if at all. Due to this, when an organization decides to implement an environmental vision and goals the employees may not adapt to it. This leads to the research question: How can an organizational culture be changed towards becoming environmentally friendly?To gain insight in the topic we researched general organizational cultural change theories which we used as a foundation for the deep, semi-structured interviews we conducted with five organizations that have worked towards becoming environmentally friendly for some time, and all consider themselves successful in having an environmentally friendly organizational culture. The respondents are very different from each other in regards to both industry and size, and some of them are Swedish while others are international. We chose maximum variation sampling as it would help us identify common methods organizations us across their variations.We found that to a large extent the same methods that are used for changing general organizational culture also can be used when changing the organizational culture towards becoming more environmentally friendly but that there are many adjustments to be made in which parts of the theories are most important. There is nonetheless a noticeable difference in the importance the different methods have and what the respondents emphasized as crucial. We found that the main drivers of motivation are communication and the importance of involving all employees in the environmental work. There is also a need to recognize and encourage employees for their work. All in all, however, the one method that stands above all other is what one of our respondents concluded with “The most important thing to do to create environmental change is to inform, inform and inform the employees”. The respondents highlighted the importance of making all employees feel like they are included in the process. That they understand the need for change is also something that seems crucial to getting people onboard. We also found that a lot of emphasis needs to be put on evaluation. Existing theory was however very weak in this area. We found tendencies of the organizations going through an environmental cultural life cycle where they start off the project, but maintain it poorly and hence every so often have to start over and therefore more focus therefore needs to be put into maintaining the cultural changes and not ever believe that the work is done. The work doesn’t end, but the environmental work and adaption is an ongoing process, even though the mindset of working environmentally can be permanently changed and built into the culture of employees.

The aim of this study was to determine what the requirements were for a South African construction company to successfully implement and maintain a system of quality control known as Total Quality Management. The need for the study originated from the higher levels of competition experienced in the construction sector due to globalisation together with the economic downturn experienced after the 1998 rise in interest rates. The study was based on a literature study of the writings of pioneers in the field of quality such as Crosby and Juran. From these works a better understanding of what is meant by the word "Quality" was extracted. The characteristics of quality, as well as its relationship to productivity were explored. The meaning of quality in the construction industry, methods for measuring quality and the costs pertaining to quality was also researched. The next step was to determine what a Total Quality Management system entailed. Three axioms of Total Quality Management were identified and these were Commitment, Scientific knowledge and Involvement. It was shown that Total Quality Management required Primary- and Secondary strategies and had various focus areas. In defining the critical success factors for the implementation of a Total Quality Management system, it was found that commitment; cultural change and empowerment were necessary. The process of installation also required the continuous repetition of fourteen steps. The critical success factors in maintaining a Total Quality Management system was found to be leadership's ability to motivate people through communication, recognition, rewarding and empowerment as well as the management of areas such as team building, training and education. Finally, conclusions were reached, recommendations made and possible subjects for future research identified. / Thesis (MSc (Project Management))--University of Pretoria, 2004. / Construction Economics / unrestricted

During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the xii Shoshones of Cache Valley evolved from scattered pedestrian hunter-gatherers to large, armed, mounted bands that hunted and gathered from the Great Basin to the Plains. Trade with European Americans helped initiate this evolution. However, Shoshones did not respond passively to the presence of European Americans. Shoshones actively sought change, and incorporated trade goods into their culture within a Shoshone context. They adapted to each wave of European Americans that they encountered. When Mormons dispossessed them of their land, Cache Valley Shoshones resisted by going on the offensive. Finally overwhelmed, the remnants of the Cache Valley Shoshones submitted--physically but not spiritually--to European-American oversight.

La collection « Terre Humaine » (1955-2015) dirigée par un géographe et explorateur français, Jean Malaurie, se présente comme un espace de diffusion d’idées, d'objets, et de pratiques permettant d’explorer, dans la seconde moitié du XXe siècle, la perméabilité des frontières du champ littéraire au contact de l’anthropologie et de la photographie. La diversité des profils des auteurs, des modes d’écriture, des espaces et des périodes, dissimule l’unité souterraine d’une aventure éditoriale à vocation universelle qui cherche à comprendre les populations les plus variées, à la fois dans le temps et dans l’espace, afin de percer les mystères de l’existence humaine. La mise en réseau de témoignages portant sur des sociétés dispersées à la surface de la planète engendre une vision parallèle de l’espace mondial. En écho avec l’aventure des Annales mais aussi avec le réalisme et le naturalisme du XIXe siècle, une réflexion initiale sur les modalités d’écriture en sciences sociales finit par donner naissance à une littérature ethnographique fondée sur l’exploration de modes de vie et de pensée de populations marginales à l’échelle du globe. L’ethnographie est envisagée non plus seulement comme méthode scientifique de collecte de données mais plus généralement comme un mode d’écriture textuel, visuel et audiovisuel narrant la métamorphose tragique de sociétés au contact d’une civilisation. / “Terre Humaine” Publishers’ Series (1955-2015), which is supervised by a French explorer and geographer, Jean Malaurie, may be examined as a heuristic space of diffusion of ideas, objects and practices to explore, in the 2nd half of the twentieth century, the tightness of the literary field in contact with anthropology and photography. The diversity of the authors’ backgrounds, writing genres, spaces and periods of time, masks the underground unity of an editorial and self-claimed universal enterprise which aims at understanding the most diverse populations, both in time and space, to uncover the mysteries of the human existence. Networking testimonials on societies scattered around the globe discloses a parallel worldview. In connection with the Annales review and the 19th century realism and naturalism, early reflections on writing in social sciences end up spawning an ethnographic literature grounded in exploring ways of living and thinking among marginalized groups worldwide. Ethnography is not anymore only considered as a scientific method to collect data but more broadly as a textual, visual and audiovisual writing genre relating the tragic metamorphosis of a society in contact with a civilization.

Yes / After more than 3500 years of occupation in the Neolithic and Bronze Age, the many lake-dwellings’ around the Circum-Alpine region ‘suddenly’ came to an end. Throughout that period alternating phases of occupation and abandonment illustrate how resilient lacustrine populations were against change: cultural/environmental factors might have forced them to relocate temporarily, but they always returned to the lakes. So why were the lake-dwellings finally abandoned and what exactly happened towards the end of the Late Bronze Age that made the lake-dwellers change their way of life so drastically? The new research presented here draws upon the results of a four-year-long project dedicated to shedding light on this intriguing conundrum. Placing a particular emphasis upon the Bronze Age, a multidisciplinary team of researchers has studied the lake-dwelling phenomenon inside out, leaving no stones unturned, enabling identification of all possible interactive socio-economic and environmental factors that can be subsequently tested against each other to prove (or disprove) their validity. By re-fitting the various pieces of the jigsaw a plausible, but also rather unexpected, picture emerges. / Swiss National Science Foundation