The post-accession migration to the UK from the eight Central and Eastern European countries that joined the European Union in 2004 has attracted a significant amount of attention in public discourse as well as from scholars and policy-makers. On the one hand, these migrants are praised for their contributions to the local or national economy, for their work ethic and self-reliance as mostly young and well-educated labour migrants; on the other hand, post-enlargement migration is depicted as a threat to local public services and the British welfare system, or to British society more generally. Our knowledge about the 'new European migrants' in the UK, however, is limited in so far as the existing literature tends to adopt these interests and perspectives of the 'host society' or analyse migrants' experiences through an ethnic lens. Based on ethnographic fieldwork conducted over a twelve-month period, this thesis provides an empirically-grounded, contextually rich and theoretically informed understanding of how Czech- and Slovak-speaking migrants who arrived in Glasgow after 2004 negotiate insecurities and risks and build social security in their everyday lives in the city. The thesis offers novel insights and contributes to existing theoretical, methodological, and empirical research on the nexus of (post-accession) migration, social security, and risk. Methodologically, by focusing on a language-based group across ethnic, national, and cultural boundaries and by analytically probing the heterogeneity of the research group, the study challenges simplistic generalisations and the uncritical adoption of ethnocentric concepts and ideas. Each of the empirically-driven chapters develops both the theoretical and empirical argument in its own right, exploring, for example, the various processes through which a 'risk population' was produced in the field; my informants' notion of zkancelovali with regard to state-provided support in Glasgow; the significance of past experiences and everyday knowledges in negotiations of risk and in/securities; or the notion of 'exploring potentialities of care' in Glasgow and beyond. Theoretically, the thesis fruitfully integrates socio-cultural concepts of risk with an anthropological reconceptualisation of social security and refines these in relation to migrants' lived experiences. Overall, this ethnographic study argues for the value of shifting our gaze from a sole focus on migrants as research objects to wider processes and contexts in which migrants' specific meaning-making activities and everyday practices of negotiating in/securities and risks are situated and embedded.

This thesis provides an ethnographic analysis of how Greek gay men experience the ways in which their sexuality is subject to ‘negotiation’ in the family and the military, how these ‘negotiations’ influence and sometimes even inhibit the creation of an LGBT movement. The experiences of my ethnographic informants produced little material for generalisations but the diversity of their voices suggests that they are constantly fighting between the desire to belong and the wish to remain different. I argue that the theoretical framework of timi and dropi (honour and shame) can still be a valuable explanatory tool for an understanding of Modern Greek homosexualities. Yet, this thesis offers a critique of this paradigm for its neglect to account for the possible ways in which the sexual contact of the men in a family may occasionally be seen as a threat to the family’s honour. As a result, silence becomes a defence mechanism that many of my gay interlocutors and their families employ to deal with homosexuality. This varied silence often inhibits the sense of pride in the man’s homosexuality and in turn prevents him from joining the movement that would require him to be vocal about his sexual self. The military experiences of my interlocutors, on the other hand, challenge the assumption that the military is a strictly heterosexual space. What they often describe as the ‘homo-social’ environment of the military acted as a catalyst for several of them to come to terms with their homosexuality. The thesis also explores the history of Greek LGBT activism from its inception in 1976 to today and examines the reasons behind its limited success in capturing the hearts and minds of my interlocutors.

Many HIV/AIDS prevention interventions have been shown to increase awareness and knowledge but few have been shown to impact on behaviour. This ethnographic study was designed to provide a holistic account of risk perception in order to inform our understandings of how HIV risk is perceived. Through qualitative methods it is both a deductive testing of the risk theories of Douglas and Giddens and an inductive, grounded investigation to identify which risks are prioritised and the discourses which influence risk perceptions in one rural and one neighbouring peri-urban site in north-western Tanzania. Risk perception is framed by multiple, sometimes contradictory, discourses which shape individual perceptions of risk at particular moments. These are defined as a series of ‘risk moments’, each of which is context specific and contingent on dynamic social conditions. Living in a society in flux, where multiple forms of tradition co-exist with modern ideals, rural dwellers’ experiences of past misfortune are often interpreted to inform a future-oriented risk perception. The role of chance and fatalism are dominant public and private discourses, but ones which co-exist with collective and individual capabilities to control risk through reliance on social capital and social networks to create maendeleo(development), despite restricted lifestyle alternatives and vulnerable socio-economic conditions. Responses to some risks are invariable and predictable, such as routinised actions like hand washing. Responses to other risks, such as crop failure, vary according to predictable patterns. These patterns include social position and biography, defined through gender, socio-economic status, partner type and exposure to alternative lifestyle choices through migration. This is one of several ways in which risk perceptions are dominated by social factors. Others are the presumed social causes of many risks, and the social benefits or costs of risk aversion. Conflicting social risks, such as exposure to jealousy and being too trusting, are subject to cautious strategies to manage ambiguous social relations. Within this dynamic social world, characterised by contradictions between adaptation and resignation, risk priorities are constantly re-assessed and management strategies renegotiated as individuals encounter novel circumstances. The results from this research have confirmed this contingent nature of risk perception and contributed to our knowledge of people’s approaches towards health risks and understandings of prevention which may be useful in the design of appropriate behaviour change campaigns.

OBJECTIVES My topic of research is a comparative study of ethnicity and (selected) health patterns among second generation Poles (and to a lesser extent, first generation Poles), looked at by means of two case studies, one in the UK and one in the USA. I examine the level of ethnicity (cultural) maintenance in a white - assumed assimilated - minority ethnic group in two specific geographic locations and therefore the context specific nature of ethnicity maintenance. I also examine whether it is possible to assess the impact of such maintenance on their personal health, well-being, and quality of life. METHODS My research design includes a (smaller, post WWII) selection of first generation UK and USA Polish respondents who act as point of reference, and allow me to define within this study, the parameters of the cultural 'nuances' in question. My design allows for the assessment of any evidence of ethnic self-identity and a common sub-cultural identity, as well as any differences between the two groups of respondents in relation to their respective degrees of co-operation, and accommodation problems, with host groups. The collection of data is operationalized via multiple methods, including questionnaires. I employ the use of qualitative, quantitative, and ethnographic elements, thus allowing for multidimensional analysis of selected issues. Comparisons are made with extant data from both the host ( indigenous) communities. RESULTS/CONCLUSION Empirical results bore out variations in the degree of maintained ethnic lifestyles, across a range of social groups. Some of the differences can be explained by the different environments (UK and USA), as well as the diasporic nature of the first generation's immigration experiences. Qualitative and ethnographic evidence was found to be crucial in explaining the various affective ethnic nuances that quantitative methods are unable to reveal, such as the pervasive impact that the first generation's diasporic experiences, as well as the nature of the Polish exiled community, have had on the second generation, both in the UK and the USA, and their respective qualities of life. This study has indicated that maintaining one's ethnic roots can for these individuals be just as problematic, although in differing ways, as for members of non-white ethnic minorities.

The aim of the research is to analyze the ways in which the cultural meanings of professional sport associated with gender, ethnicity, and age are changing in the U.K. and the U.S. in the context of international social processes. This study contributes to the examination of mediated sport, and therefore, wider sporting and social processes, in several ways. It assesses mediated sport discourses as reproducing existing power relations as arranged around the social categories of gender and ethnicity. It acknowledges hegemonic masculinity remains as a useful concept for understanding the construction of gender, specifically within mediated sport. Elements of hegemonic, and therefore subordinate, masculinity are demonstrating nuanced changes. Discourses relating to media coverage of large-scale sporting events further emphasize the divisions and are implicated as resources for difference making between individuals and groups based on ethnic, ‘racialized,’ and national identities. Finally, this study offers an initial exploration of mediated sport and age. Here mediated sport discourses build a system of values and definitions related to cultural understandings of the body, social interaction, and behavioural convention; this establishes what the researcher has termed an ‘age complex’ derived from mediated sport discourses.

Since 2000, Glasgow has received thousands of asylum seekers, forcibly dispersed to the city through the implementation of the 1999 Immigration and Asylum Act. Over the years, many of those individuals have organised into what have gone on to become formally constituted voluntary associations. This thesis explores the social meanings and lived realities of association life, and the nature of associational practices, as they emerge and develop over time amongst dispersed African asylum seekers and refugees in Glasgow. Based upon fieldwork undertaken over a twenty-six month period involving participant-observation, the thesis locates members’ micro-level understandings, experiences, and definitions of associational life within the wider macro context of broader political, social and cultural change. In so doing, the thesis analyses the complex and differentiated ways in which associational lives are experienced, and explores their intersection with a wide range of collective and individual identities beyond those connected to migrant status and ‘refugeeness’. The thesis thus seeks to challenge dominant definitions of associational forms as ‘refugee community organisations’, arguing that these contribute to constraining groups within fixed boundaries, and to perpetuating their position as an ‘unsettled’ population. Moreover, it is argued that the focus on ‘refugeeness’ fails to attend to the combination of internal and external factors affecting association emergence and continuity. Combining perspectives from social theory on migrant and minority associations and social movements with an anthropological approach that integrates internal processes with external forces, the thesis presents nuanced accounts of solidarity and struggle within groups. In contrast to representations that construct asylum seeker and refugee-led associations as fixed in time and space and defined by migrant status, this thesis argues for an understanding of group life that is sensitive to the fluidity of social relations in multiple social contexts which change and evolve over time. This requires an analysis of both the conditions that encourage the founding of groups and of the factors which support or inhibit their continued existence, and is crucial to ‘moving beyond refugeeness’.

The story of indigenous peoples’ knowledge systems, also known as indigenous knowledge (hereafter IK), is a complex one tangled with different and sometimes conflicting interests, values, and interpretations from a variety of disciplines, or specialized fields. A number of international treaty and trade agreements that want to ‘harness’ IK also turned it into an object of global governance, as this PhD study argues. This study also argues that the well-being of IK has gradually emerged as a global agenda for sustainable development and intergenerational justice, which constitute the defining characteristics of contemporary discourse of heritage. Consequently, IK issues and debates have become more versatile and multifaceted with a widening scope and mounting stakes. This is a sociological and legal study of knowledge that analyses the epistemological struggle resulting from different understandings of the nature and purpose of IK, which has causal relationship with the inadequacies of the governing regimes documented in this study. This study argues that such struggle and inadequacy form the core problem for IK governance. Furthermore, this study takes a novel approach guided by indigenous peoples’ epistemology, which represents ties between ecology, landscape, and people in a web of connections, to argue that IK is a cross-cutting subject and a form of emplaced knowledge. Hence it is not simply a property issue or debate as most literature tends to focus on. This study further argues that what constitutes the cornerstone of IK claims by indigenous peoples is essentially biocultural diversity that nurtured and sustained IK as well as IK-holder communities as distinct peoples. Through an interdisciplinary approach of synergy and synthesis, this study developed a number of original ideas and frameworks to analyse this complex story of IK. By doing so, this study shows how IK is a challenging subject that is inevitably political; it is also tangled with inherently heterogenetic and incoherent regimes of governance, from intellectual property and trade to environmental governance and development to natural and cultural heritage and human rights. This study takes these regimes as sites of inquiry in the tradition of critical theory to further unpack and problematize the development imperative and the private-property-based system exercised by these regimes. Finally, this study concludes that IK governance can make or break vulnerable groups like indigenous peoples to a point of prosperity or deeper poverty and extinction. Therefore, it requires particular care with an integrated approach. This study aims to fill an important gap in the literature with recommendations for future policy and research.

This study explores the possible influence of the media on teenagers’ constructions of gendered identities, with a specific focus on drinking alcohol and engaging in sexual/romantic relationships. Understanding the factors underlying alcohol consumption and sexual activity in this age group is an important public health priority. Teenagers in ‘western’ countries are drinking more alcohol than ever before and these drinking habits may be associated with risky behaviour, such as unprotected sex, and with morbidity and mortality. In comparison to other west European nations, the UK demonstrates a poor history of sexual health in teenagers, with the highest levels of teenage pregnancy and the second-highest level of abortions in women under the age of 20. Approximately half of all sexually transmitted infections diagnosed in the UK in 2009 were seen in the under-25s. Research also suggests that the mass media influence teenagers’ behaviours, including drinking alcohol and sexual practices. The question about the influence of the media is complex. There are two opposing theoretical positions which purport to explain the influence of the media: the 'media as powerful' versus the 'media audience as powerful'. This study adopts a theoretical approach which accommodates both of these: the 'influence of presumed media influence' theory (Milkie, 1999). A contentious issue is how the media is understood by teenagers to influence their alcohol consumption and their sexual/romantic relationships. This thesis has sought to address these issues by answering the following research questions: 1: Is the media integrated into the lives of teenage boys and girls? 2: How do teenagers’ understandings of gender-appropriate alcohol-use relate to media portrayals of alcohol use? 3: How do teenagers’ understandings of gender-appropriate engagement in sexual/romantic relationships relate to media portrayals of sexual/romantic relationships? 4: Is Milkie’s (1999) ‘influence of presumed media influence’ theory a useful way to understand the media’s position in teenagers’ lives, and specifically their understandings of gender-appropriate alcohol use, and of romantic and sexual relationships? 5: How are teenagers’ understandings of gender-appropriate behaviours with regards to drinking alcohol and sexual/romantic relationships used in the construction of their gendered identities? Fieldwork was conducted with teenagers aged 13-16 years, specifically in Edinburgh and in Ayrshire. The main sample comprised 25 semi-structured group discussions with 11 follow-up individual interviews, during which participants were asked to reflect on, and interpret, images from popular British television programmes that portrayed instances of alcohol use and sexual/romantic relationships. This method was intended both to prompt discussion on the process of media influence and to allow the participants to reflect on similar situations in their own lives. The research found that the mass media does shape teenagers’ perceptions and expectations of drinking alcohol and engaging in sexual/romantic relationships; and in doing so shapes their gendered identities. Importantly, the research confirmed Milkie’s ‘influence of presumed media influence’ theory that resolved the apparently incompatible ‘powerful media’ versus ‘powerful audience’ approaches to media influence. This suggests that media influence might be all the stronger for not being readily recognised or acknowledged as being influential. Media were more influential for teenagers’ understandings of gender-appropriate engagement in sexual/romantic relationships than they were for teenagers’ understandings of gender-appropriate drinking. The reason that media portrayals of drinking were considered to be only a minor influence among other stronger influences such as peers and family may be that these activities are more public. Sexual behaviour is less public therefore teenagers rely more on media to shape their images of what is considered to be appropriate behaviour. Sexual behaviour and drinking alcohol were intertwined. Many participants talked of how sexual negotiation and activities were often accompanied by drinking. Being drunk, or, importantly, pretending to be drunk, may be understood as a process that is useful for teenagers when trying out perceived gender-appropriate identities as they engage in their relationships. As with alcohol, romantic and sexual relationships are acted out in a particular way which is informed by discourses which specify gender-appropriate behaviour, attitudes and roles (and with the help of alcohol itself, which acts as a social ‘lubricant’) and in doing so is a component of the project of identity construction. The implication of this research is that existing concern about the influence of the media should be concentrated on the media portrayals of behaviours that are less public, such as sexual/romantic relationships, rather than media portrayals of behaviours that are more public, such as drinking alcohol.

This thesis examines media representations and audience reception processes through a detailed study of media reporting and public understandings of asylum and refugee issues. It is based on sixty interviews in which refugees seeking asylum, professionals working with them and members of the general public were invited to comment on their own memories and beliefs using pictures from the TV coverage. The pictures used are included in a detailed thematic content analysis of national and regional broadcast news. Public understandings are systematically compared to the content of media reporting. In particular it explore people’s memories and beliefs of national and regional broadcast news. The content analysis revealed that the national news represents asylum in unsubstantiated and problematic ways whilst the regional news has a more balanced approach to representation of the issue. The thesis explores the diversity of audience reactions and the different ways in which people may accept or reject the media representations. However it also draws attention to the themes which recurred in all of the interviews and argues that there is strong evidence of media effects. The thesis highlights factors in media coverage which are particularly influential. It demonstrates how language, structures, and images may influence audience responses and examines how media representations may structure patterns of misinformation. The audience were poorly informed on asylum and refugee issues. In addition attention is drawn to viewers’ everyday relations and experiences. Some interviewees use specific knowledge to reject news reports. The research provides comprehensive and fruitful insights of cultural differentiation linked to ‘race’/ethnicity, gender, class and geographical location. The thesis concludes by arguing for a media studies schema which connects questions about audience reception with questions about media production and content as well as the construction of broader relations within society enabling researchers to contribute to current debates about power, control and social conditions.

This thesis examines a variety of theoretical issues relating to ethnicity, multiculturalism and racism in New Zealand. It is argued that whilst the country’s history has been replete with anti-Asiatic racisms, it is necessary to transcend the timeless notion of racism as colour discrimination and to instead, situate past and present anti-Asiatic racisms within the nation’s temporally specific positions in modernity. Through an orientation to time and diachrony, the research considers if a liberal policy of multiculturalism is conducive for contemporary New Zealand society. In view of academic debates suggesting that a ‘practical’ version of multiculturalism exists alongside the country’s constitutional biculturalism, it is argued that the de facto version of multiculturalism exhibits the characteristics of commercial and conservative multiculturalisms which fail to address the problem of racism. A liberal form of multiculturalism, it is maintained, will not produce the best outcome for New Zealand because it is insensitive to indigenous rights and will remain mutually exclusive from biculturalism. This research then concludes with a discussion on the likely future of cosmopolitanism in New Zealand, both as a theory and how it might possibly work in practice without immolating the hegemony of biculturalism.