My research investigates the impact on the survivor of loss of a twin in childhood. Using the qualitative method of thematic analysis applied to a single case, I analyse a published biographical account of surviving this traumatic loss. My findings point to the extreme emotional suffering involved. Among the defences employed to protect the survivor from the anguish of separation and from survival anxiety and guilt, the dead twin is internalised. The trauma and the dead twin are encapsulated in the psyche, unaffected by Time. They are experienced as holes in the psyche and contact with them is avoided. The result can be a half-life for the adult survivor, with a sense of his secret self as wounded, weak, frightened, inhibited, and haunted. This impact of the traumatic loss endures until it is actively mourned and integrated, so far as possible, into the survivor’s life. My findings indicate that external and internal containing objects are needed for this task. It is through mourning that the surviving twin dis-identifies from his dead twin and re-finds the living twin as a life-giving and loving internal object. Through mourning, other containing and protective internal objects are rediscovered and reconfigured. The result is an enlivening of the survivor and a new sense of himself as emotionally capable and contained. In my conclusions regarding the clinical implications of my findings, I suggest that there needs to be recognition of and respect for the survivor’s great sorrow. Above all, treatment needs to be about connectedness and finding a way to the lost good objects. Lastly, I suggest how future research might test the implications of my findings for other kinds of loss of a twin and sibling loss in general.

Increasing numbers of women are giving birth when older, yet they face being labelled ‘at-risk’ due to associations between their age and complications in pregnancy. The primary aim of this study was to explore the pregnancy experiences of women aged 40 or over from the perspectives of these women and their community midwives, with a particular focus on risk status and risk communication. This research used a grounded theory approach underpinned by symbolic interactionism. Research participants comprised ten pregnant women aged 40 to 47 and their ten named community midwives. One antenatal appointment per woman-midwife pair was audio-recorded during the second trimester of pregnancy, followed by individual interviews with each participant. Some women were interviewed again following antenatal appointments with a consultant obstetrician and all women were re-interviewed three to five weeks postnatally. Data were transcribed and analysed using initial and focused coding techniques. Three concepts were identified from the data. ‘Navigating risks’ involved women’s understanding of their pregnancy-related risks and associated decision-making, from the women’s and midwives’ perspectives. Decision-making is complex and fluid; it can be emotional and may result in older pregnant women going with the flow of health-professional advice. ‘Responsibility’ for choices and for balancing their personal, their families’ and babies’ needs was demonstrated through women’s desire to make the right decisions, sometimes within a state of uncertainty. ‘Enabling relationships’ between older women and their community midwives can contribute to normalising older women’s experiences of pregnancy and developing balanced understandings. Community midwives can be instrumental in optimising older women’s experiences of shared care, although balancing the demands of their workload to meet women’s needs can be challenging. These three concepts are linked and underpinned by the notion of ‘doing the right thing’, which was evident throughout the data. Women’s and midwives’ voices and actions demonstrated a determination to do the right things for themselves, for others and for each other, despite the challenges this might pose. Regardless of experience and efforts to make responsible choices, older pregnant women are likely to have additional needs. Involving them in the development of flexible guidelines to meet these needs could enable care to be more meaningful, supportive and beneficial for older childbearing women and their midwives.

This thesis looks into the complex relationships which women have had with their bodies throughout the twentieth century. It uses oral history evidence, medical sources, and official government material to examine women’s experiences of and access to physical recreation and sport throughout the life-cycle. It argues that despite the official view that throughout the twentieth century women’s sporting bodies were essentially fragile bodies, unsuited to competitive and manly sports, there were a number of alternative discourses available to women during these years. Women who had strong sporting identities, and confidence in their own physical abilities, were able to test the capabilities of their bodies and maintain their exercise participation throughout adolescence, menstruation, pregnancy and during motherhood, despite the advice of state officials, and many doctors, which advised them against participation. This thesis makes a powerful contribution to what at present is a largely uncharted historical landscape of female participation in and experience of physical recreation in Scotland and the UK in the mid-twentieth century. In a global context, it contributes to our understanding of the relationship between the female body and physical activity throughout the physically and culturally guided female life-cycle, and the particular ways in which women interacted with sport and exercise throughout the twentieth century.

Economic theories of fertility transition were the dominant paradigm during the second half of the twentieth century, but in more recent years their relevance has been questioned and sociological or cultural explanations have become more popular in the demographic literature. In many cases theoretical perspectives have been abandoned all together in favour of an empirical approach leaving economists and demographers isolated from each other. Using data collected in Nepal as part of the World Bank‟s Living Standards Measurement Study, which includes large amounts of economic information at the household and individual level, the feasibility of the economic approach to fertility transition is tested in the context of rural Nepal. In order to do this it was necessary to check the quality of the Nepali fertility data. This was done and it was concluded that higher parity births tend to be underreported, while childlessness tends to be over-reported. It was also found that the quality of urban fertility data is suspect – rural fertility is focussed on throughout since it relates to economic variables in a substantively different way to urban fertility. The relationships between fertility and the main components of income in rural Nepal – agriculture and remittances – are studied. It is hypothesised that fertility and landholding are related through the land-security hypothesis and the land-labour hypothesis. The land-security hypothesis holds that owned landholding and children are substitutes because they are both forms of security, while the land-labour hypothesis holds that cultivated landholding and fertility are complements since children can assist in tilling the land. Remittances are purported to affect fertility through increasing son preference. This is because remittances provide security and sons send remittances. Support is found for all the hypothesised relationships. This implies that the people of rural Nepal value children for the economic benefits they can bring. The economic value of sons vastly outweighs that of daughters and the findings of this thesis indicate that increasing remittances and high levels of functionally landless households mean that son preference is unlikely to disappear soon. Overall, this research highlights that economic theories of fertility transition have been unjustly neglected and are important for our understanding of fertility determinants – they are therefore extremely relevant for both demographers and policy makers

This thesis examines how the authors of ephemeral print used the gender framework for political ends during the first Civil War. In particular it considers how both the royalist and parliamentarian pamphleteers constructed and promoted a hegemonic, patriarchal definition of manhood amongst their male supporters in order to encourage them to fight for either king or parliament. It also demonstrates how the pamphleteers of each party drew upon deep-seated cultural allusions and a pre-existing language of insult in order to claim that their enemies were ‘unmanly’ or ‘effeminate’ and therefore unable or unwilling to uphold the patriarchal social order. The thesis shows that the pamphleteers of both sides set out to demonstrate that their own men were exemplars of patriarchal manhood, while simultaneously claiming that the anti-patriarchal behaviour of their opponents had betrayed their unsuitability for a position of authority within the commonwealth. Gendered language was therefore a powerful way to legitimise the claim of one’s own side to patriarchal authority and political power while simultaneously delegitimizing the claim of one’s opponents. The introduction outlines the key questions which the thesis seeks to address and gives my reasons for undertaking this study. Chapter one examines the reluctance of past generations of historians to study the wartime tracts and highlights the importance of the new cultural history, gender studies and the linguistic turn in bringing the gendered language of the wartime tracts to academic attention. Recently, there has been a surge of interest in the print culture of the Civil Wars. In particular, the pioneering work of David Underdown has led other historians to explore how the wartime pamphleteers made use of cultural references in order to communicate political ideas. Chapter one situates my thesis within these recent developments in scholarship. Chapter two considers the main gendered themes of the parliamentarian tracts during the first Civil War. It explores how and why manhood was constructed and how gendered insult was utilised by the pamphleteers. Chapter three focuses on how three principal royalist personalities were represented in parliamentarian tracts, namely Charles I, Queen Henrietta Maria and Prince Rupert. Chapter four considers the broader gendered themes within the royalist literature of the period and tests the assertions of previous historians that royalist propaganda was frequently elitist and self-defeating. Chapter five explores the royalists’ treatment of three key parliamentarian figures: Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, Sir William Waller and Lady Ann Waller. It explores the careful treatment that Essex initially received from the royalist polemicists and contrasts this with the increasingly barbed attacks that were made against Waller, particularly by commenting upon the actions of his wife, Ann. The conclusion summarises the key arguments of the thesis and relates my findings to other broader questions regarding the operation and contestation of patriarchal power during the conflict, the practice of printing and how the use of gendered language developed in the polemical works of the later 1640s. The thesis ends with a brief discussion of some areas in which further research might enable us to better understand the vital role that gender played in reinforcing authority during the turbulent 1640s.

Government policy states that early intervention and working in partnership with parents is essential as part of a preventative system. However the recent review of SEN and Disability (DfE, 2011a) highlights how support often works against the wishes of the family. By exploring with parents how support is delivered in practice, this thesis identifies strengths and improvements that could be made to address these problems. An ethnographic case study approach was adopted to capture a close, detailed and in-depth view of the world of the parent-participants (Yin, 1984). Data was collected from six parents via semi-structured interviews that were audio-recorded. Twelve months later four parents agreed to be observed and compile their own evaluation of an experience of support. Supplementary and contextual detail was recorded in fieldnotes and via a non-participant observation. Findings are encapsulated in six narratives inviting the reader into the world of the parent. The research represents a journey of how interpretation unfolded with the parent-participants alongside the researcher who also reflected her learning and changing perspectives. Each narrative portrays the unique experiences of the parents and indicates that the way in which each individual defines themselves and the professional providing support has an impact on the quality of the encounter. For this reason applying the transactional model (Sameroff, 1991) which is consciously aware of the factors that influence definitions is recommended as a way forward. When practised by the professional a positive partnership relationship could emerge. This would mean that support options could be tailored to individual needs that respect and involve the parent. This research therefore identifies effective ways to engage in providing the high quality arrangements the government recommends.

The safety of home as a place of birth in developed countries, and the extent to which pregnant women should have the right to choose a home birth, are highly contentious and emotive subjects which have been hotly debated for many years. Since 1993, Government policy in England and Wales has been that pregnant women should have a free and informed choice about whether to give birth at home or in a hospital or birthing centre. However, fewer than 3% of maternities take place at home, indicating either that this option is not routinely available or that most women do not want to have a home birth. Previous research indicates that there is an element of both, and that most women believe that hospital birth is safer than home birth. Although research has demonstrated that, for low-risk pregnancies in most developed countries, perinatal death is no more common for planned home birth than for hospital birth, and that maternal outcomes tend to be better if there is a planned home birth, this research has been done at the population level. At the level of the individual women, there remain lingering doubts over whether home birth can be as safe as hospital birth if there are serious complications in labour. Using data from four UK datasets, this thesis contains detailed analysis of the characteristics of women who plan a home birth in the UK, and how these have varied over time and according to where the woman lives. Recognising that decisions about place of birth are subject to change over the course of a pregnancy, the analysis presented here identifies key factors which robustly predict whether women will express an intention to give birth at home, whether their intentions will change during the pregnancy, and whether those who intend a home birth will actually have a planned home birth. Understanding these predictors helps to understand the factors that may influence women’s choices at different stages of pregnancy. There is evidence from this analysis to suggest that women do not all have equal access to choice about where to give birth. Understanding of the factors that predict women’s choices also enables a fair comparison of the relative safety of planned home birth and planned hospital birth, while controlling for the fact that women who plan a home birth are not a random sub-set of the population of childbearing women. From the perspective of the mother, planning a home birth (whether or not she goes on to give birth at home) is associated with a much lower risk of the potentially life-threatening postpartum haemorrhage (defined as the loss of more than 1,000ml of blood) and several other distressing labour complications such as retained placenta. From the perspective of the baby, the risk of perinatal death is slightly, but not significantly higher, if a home birth is planned than if a hospital birth is planned, even if high-risk pregnancies are included in the analysis. However, there is weak evidence to suggest that, if pregnancy/labour is complicated by malpresentation, umbilical cord prolapse or the need for infant resuscitation via positive pressure/cardiac massage, the risk of perinatal death is higher if a home birth is planned than if a hospital birth is planned. Other pregnancy and labour complications are associated with a higher risk of negative outcomes, but this is true whether a home birth or a hospital birth is planned – hospital birth has not been shown to be safer in these situations. Malpresentation occurs in roughly 1 in 20 pregnancies and is detectable before labour commences, so this research provides some support for the current advice that women with a malpresented foetus should be advised to plan a hospital birth unless and until midwives attending home births can be fully confident in their ability to deliver a malpresented foetus vaginally. Cord prolapse and the need for positive pressure/cardiac massage, on the other hand, are both extremely rare and not predictable before labour. Given their rarity and the lack of strong evidence that home birth is less safe when they occur, rather than being encouraged to plan a hospital birth ‘just in case’, women should be provided with the available information and allowed to come to an informed decision without being put under pressure to choose any particular birth setting. Additionally, midwives attending home births should have a thorough grounding in dealing effectively with these situations when they occur in the home setting

In this thesis, I am developing a theory of the translingual imagination which can be used as a tool to explore literature written in a second language. The term ‘translingual imagination’ was first coined by Steven Kellman in his essay ‘Translingualism and the Literary Imagination’, describing the work of authors writing in a language other than their first. Recent years have seen a growing body of research on these writers, not least because of a risen interest in post-colonial writing and transnational and migration studies. Literary scholars have increasingly questioned ‘the paradigma of monolingualism’, and linguistic research has looked at interrelations between migration,language and identity. However, research projects have often focused on prose writing, predominantly examining the work of canonized male authors (such as Kafka, Conrad or Rushdie), and post-war migrants(such as Turkish-born authors writing in German, or South American-born writers writing in English). Poetry written by women poets of German-Jewish origin has mainly been considered part of Holocaust writing, and over the past decades German scholars have been trying to reclaim these texts as ‘German -Jewish’ poetry. My thesis considers the work of four English poets of German-Jewish origin in the context of translingual writing. While using Kellman’s term, I shall suggest a set of specific criteria to allow for a clearer definition of the ‘translingual imagination’. In applying these criteria to the work of women poets of German-Jewish origin, I will not only show the translingual imagination at work but also encourage a new reading of literature written by German-Jewish refugees that goes beyond the notion of exile poetry.

The history of amateur tennis pre and post the Second World War is dominated by the sporting biographies of male players with women’s stories largely ignored. This research addressed the issue of women tennis players’ marginalisation through a biographical analysis of the women’s amateur circuit with particular emphasis on the previously untold story of four British tennis players: Mrs. Phyllis King (née Mudford, who competed at the Wimbledon Championships 1928-1953), Mrs. Joan Hughesman (née Curry, Wimbledon 1939-1960), Mrs. Joy Michelle (née Hibbert, Wimbledon 1947- 1957), Mrs. Christine Janes (née Truman, Wimbledon 1957-1974). The lives of the women were investigated utilising biographical methods of life story interviews and analysis of life documents including published biographies and archival and media sources. Gender and social class emerged as key themes which were explored through the microcosm of women’s tennis shedding new light on a wide range of issues from the influence of family, gender role expectations and life on the amateur tennis circuit. The findings reveal the significance of fashion in British tennis whereby it is argued that choice of clothing was a form of gender compliance. Further to this the contributions of fashion designer Teddy Tinling is recognised as a key factor in changing the shape of women’s tennis post the Second World War. The research reveals the key role sport played in shaping the women’s identity from the onset of their playing careers through to their retirement from sport

This thesis examines the influence of Christian interpretative frameworks on three New Woman novels: Olive Schreiner's The Story of an African Farm (1883), Amy Levy's Reuben Sachs (1888) and Sarah Grand's The Heavenly Twins (1893). It shows how Christian narratives were used to plot women's civic and sexual emancipation in the decade leading up to the naming of the 'New Woman' in the literary marketplace of the mid-1890s. This thesis arises out of an interest in women's theology and how this intersects with new feminist forms of women's fiction. It argues that, by the end of the nineteenth century, a theological apparatus enabled women novelists to plot female subjectivity outside of a Christian devotional context. Christian themes, such as self-sacrifice, conversion and prophecy, provided New Woman authors with a shared framework within which to nuance their ideological differences. Chapter one considers faith, doubt and the Woman Question in Olive Schreiner's The Story of an African Farm. This chapter shows how she used the high form of spiritual biography to plot women's civic and sexual struggle. Chapter two considers how the Christian structures of late-nineteenth century feminist thinking and Jewish conversion intersect in Amy Levy's Reuben Sachs. This chapter focuses on an original account of the Jewish heroine's reading of Swinburne's Poems and Ballads at the centre of Levy's novel as a scene of sexual and cultural revelation. Chapter three examines Christian tropes in sex education debates of the mid-1890s and how these are plotted in Sarah Grand's The Heavenly Twins. This chapter is concerned with the religious contours of social purity campaigning and how they impact on questions of literary form. The thesis concludes by considering more widely the effect of a fragmentation of Christian culture on fictional representation of women's social and intellectual transition in the final years of the century.