Master's thesis. / Database: Nordic Web Publications. Format: PDF.

Bachelor thesis. / Format: PDF. Bibl.

Master's thesis. / Format: PDF. Bibl.

Masteropgave. / Format: PDF. Bibl.

Diss. Amsterdam : University, 2009. / DVD title: If you do good : beach seine fishing in Ghana.

This thesis seeks to make visible the presence and voices of minority ethnic households in rural communities by addressing the ‘place blindness’ in research on ethnicity / ‘race’, and the ethnicity / ‘race’ blindness in rural literature. The overall aim of this thesis is to develop an understanding of the lived experiences and perspectives of minority ethnic households and individuals in parts of rural Scotland, and the Highlands and Islands in particular. The emphasis is on exploring the contingent, flexible and changing interaction between ethnicity / ‘race’ and rurality. This is achieved by drawing on four separately commissioned studies which were undertaken between 1998 and 2004, and were re-analysed for the purposes of this thesis. Within the context of these studies, the thesis examines the ways in which the social and spatial demography of rural minority ethnic households, and particular conceptualisations of rural have been mobilised to shape ideas and practices about belonging in parts of rural Scotland. In particular, the studies explore the ways in which minority ethnic households, parents/carers and young people across the four studies have felt they have been ‘invisible’ in relation to policy and service delivery issues, and developed strategies to overcome their marginalisation. The thesis concludes that the relationships, experiences and practices based on ethnicity / ‘race’ have to be understood as being grounded in specific spatial, national, local, historical and material contexts which are dynamic. It stresses the need to move away from binary accounts portraying minority ethnic groups as always ‘passive victims’, and the ‘host’ communities as invariably ‘perpetrators’ of racism, by recognising the importance of taking into account the cross-cutting nature of individual identities and experiences, deconstructing ‘white’ and recognising the countervailing forces of constraints and agency within this context.

For the last several years a great deal of research has been carried out under the general heading of Consumer Behaviour. Researchers are studying consumer purchasing behaviour in all of its many facets and a great deal of additional highly useful information has become available to marketing scholars and practitioners. Generally these researchers have utilized as a basis for their research one of the current models of consumer behaviour as proposed by the recognized scholars in the field. These models although different contain many similarities. They all are multi-dimensional, containing many elements which interact to Influence the consumer's decision making process. (A more thorough discussion of the various models occurs later. ) Most of the recent research projects have been concentrated on one of the elements, in a logical way, in order to extend the amount of knowledge available concerning the element and how It interacts with the remaining aspects of the model. Inasmuch as the majority of this research is being carried on by researchers in the United States (U. S. ) utilizing the marketing/economic/sociocultural environment of the U. S., it is the writer's contention that not all of these research findings are automatically applicable or useful on a world-wide basis. Indeed, if one is concerned with a different country, for example the United Kingdom (U. K. ) or Canada, in which there exists a differing marketing, economic or sociocultural environment, then one must view the U. S. oriented research results not with scepticism but at least with some apprehension and with a questioning attitude. It is this attitude which led the writer to question the lack of concern and therefore research pertaining to certain aspects of the element "social influences". One of the multi-dimensional aspects mentioned above which, although not uniformly labelled in the various models of consumer behaviour, does appear to be common to these models, is "social influences". The major elements which the writer has identified within this "social influences" dimension are social class, family and culture. Although different researchers have utilized variations in the definitions, and therefore the sub-elements which are included in each of these three elements, it is a truism that a transposed cultural background (or ethnic background) i. e. immigration, is either not considered, or at best briefly noted and thereafter ignored or overlooked. - This lack of references to immigration and the apparent little amount of thought given to the various ethnic backgrounds represented by immigrants disturbed the researcher so for the purposes of this study it was decided to concentrate on ethnic background in order to clearly establish the validity of considering ethnic background as a major social influence of consumer purchasing behaviour, or to validate the position taken by other U. S. oriented researchers, I. e. that ethnic background is not a major influence on consumer purchasing behaviour and can be overlooked. Thus this study is primarily concerned with only two aspects of the models of consumer behaviour: family purchasing and culture. The study is not concerned with the culture in place in the environment but instead with transposed cultures via immigration.

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Europoje gyvena apie 9 milijonus romų. Europos sąjungos tvirtinimu, šiandien romai pažeidžiamiausia ir beteisiškiausia tauta Europoje. To priežastimi laikoma silpna integracija į visuomenę, skurdas, tinkamo išsilavinimo trūkumas, socialinė izoliacija ir rasistiniai stereotipai, neigiamos nuostatos visuomenėje trukdančios romams susirasti darbą, silpna teisinė apsauga ir pan. Lietuvoje romų problematika jau ne pirmus metus yra visuomenės akiratyje. Pagrindinės problemos, su kuriomis susiduria romai Lietuvoje darbo, būsto, švietimo, sveikatos srityse ar gaunant viešąsias paslaugas, ir kurios buvo identifikuotos valstybės Romų integracijos 2000-2004 m. programoje, išlieka. Mūsų visuomenėje romai labiau tapatinami su socialiai problematiška grupe, negu laikomi atskiros tautybės atstovais. Įtakingi romų bendruomenės žmonės dažnai lieka nematomi, aiškaus lyderio nėra. Šiandien socialinės integracijos politikos diskursas reikalauja platesnio romų problematikos apibrėžimo. Todėl labai svarbu apibrėžti ir išskirti prioritetinius veiksnius, lemiančius romų politikos vykdymą ir aktualumą. Šio darbo tikslą nulėmė romų švietimo aktualumas, kuris gali prisidėti prie jų integracijos. Pagrindinis šio darbo tikslas – išnagrinėti romų, kaip etninės grupės socialinę integraciją ir padėties švietimo sistemoje problemas. Tyrimo tikslas įvertinti Vilniaus m. romų integracijos ypatumus ir padėtį švietimo sistemoje. Tyrimo metodika – kokybinis tyrimas, pusiau struktūruotas interviu su romų... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / Approximately nine million of Romanies live in Europe. European Union states that Romanies are the most vulnerable and deprived of the civil rights nation in Europe. The rationale for vulnerability and deprivation is poor integration to society, poverty, lack of suitable education, social isolation and racist stereotypes, negative attitude in society which obstruct Romanies to seek employment besides there is poor juridical security. Problematic situation of Romanies stays in social Lithuania’s outlook not for the first year. The main problems that Romanies encounter in Lithuania are in employment, residence, education, health fields or accessibility of public services and those which were identified in “The Integration Program of Romany into Lithuanian Society for 2000-2004” still remain. In our society Romanies are identified as problematic group rather than regarded as distinct nation’s members. Influential persons of Romanies community often remain invisible and there is no identifiable leader. At the present time the discourse of social integration politics demands more comprehensive definition of Romanies topic. Therefore, it is very important to define and accentuate underlying factors that cause implementation and relevance of Romanies policy. The goal of this study was determined by relevance of Romanies education, which may have influence to the groups’ integration. The predominant intention of this study is to analyze social integration and difficulties in... [to full text]

This doctoral dissertation is an experimental ethnographic investigation of the political consciousness and radical modes of livelihoods of marginalized "street" populations in a postconial Latin-American city, and of their connections with the transnational flows of capital, goods, peoples, and symbols of Global Capitalism. / Beginning in the streets of Salvador da Bahia in this place I call "Global Brazil", this inquiry presents a focal lens through which to examine how the structural and cultural forces of Late-Capitalism (Jameson, 1994) in a globalized world and the legacy of colonialism play out at the level of local and transnational actors' lived experiences (that is, for example, how these forces define, 'value', shape, hurt, confine, and displace bodies; but also how bodies dodge these forces, use these forces, reinvent themselves, or strategically perform their colonizer/colonized identities in a search for agency) and focuses, among other salient aspects, on the connections, dependencies, exploitation, violence, and desire between "street children", subaltern women, transnational prostitutes, (sex)tourists, sexpatriates (Seabrook, 1996) and other foreign men and women constructed as "gringo/as" in the context of Global Brazil. / Written as a collage between contemporary social, cultural, and political theory and an experimental ethnographic novel (Hecht, 2006), this project explores, or at best poses certain questions about contemporary forms of domination, survival, and resistance while hoping to shed light on undertheorized aspects of our globalized late-capitalist era by investigating the perspectives of local social actors on the structural, cultural and transnational forces in which their radical livelihoods are embedded. / Finally, as a work of political pedagogy, this investigation is also fundamentally preoccupied with the role of grassroots politics, research, ethnography, and global social actors---such as the author and other 'academics'--- who occupy positions of social, economic, political, and symbolic power, in collaborating with other segments of civil societies to work toward equitable alternatives to contemporary social suffering. / Intertwined with the many faces, voices and stories of this ethnography, thus, readers will encounter the voice, eyes, body, experience, reflections, interrogations, doubts, pains, fears, desire, violence, hopes, defeats, desperations, and resistance of the author, who, as an individual 'articulated' (Nelson, 1999) as white, male, gringo, intellectual, transcultural, geopolitically mobile, ethnographer, and flaneur in the context of this story, constitutes a character deeply implicated in the global flows and forces that are the object of this study.