Between the 17th and 20th centuries, the British misunderstood African cultural practices and reported on those in derogatory terms. With other European nations they projected Africans as ‘savages’ without any cultural traditions and consistently devalued traditional African religions and dances. Those views have seeped into the psychology of the British mentality and specifically, may have negatively influenced African dance development in the UK. This thesis seeks to address those issues through a re-examination of the literature and a re-appraisal of Africa’s religions and dance forms. It will illustrate that in spite of he continuous attempts to decimate African cultural expression, Africa’s cultural practices survived and re-emerged in the Caribbean through slavery and through vibrate practice. The adaptation of the forms in their new environment, especially through adopting some aspects of Christian worship, nurtured alternative ways that later enabled the forms to find expression, as theatrical dance, in the UK. The thesis is informed by international field trips, through the use of video and Internet sources, from attendances at African and Caribbean cultural events, through a wide range of secondary sources and from interviews spanning over twelve years. It is presented in two main sections. section one includes the Introduction and chapters One and Two. The Introduction provides a backdrop of current issues in African dance development and chapters One and Two provide a framework of African cultural practice on the continent and in the Caribbean, indicating how European perceptions of the people and their practices skewed the truth. Chapters Three and Four provide a detailed account of African dance development over the past fifth years through the activities of performance companies and support agencies. Chapter Five investigates dance development in the UK, specifically focusing on the works of two London-based choreographers and exploring how their spiritually determines their practice.

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.

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.

Battlefield sites are some of the most iconic locations in any nation’s store of heritage attractions and continue to capture the imagination of visitors. They have strong historic, cultural, nationalistic and moral resonances and speak to people on a national as well as a local scale. They have the power to provoke contention but at the same time foster understanding and respect through the consideration of deep moral questions. Battlefields are suffused with powerful stories of courage, sacrifice, betrayal and even cowardice. They have a strong sense of place and can provoke a range of cognitive and emotional reactions. But as sites they are inherently unremarkable and rely on the incarnative powers of interpretation to inform and enliven otherwise empty landscapes. This thesis is a wide ranging analysis of what battlefields mean to tourists and the effect interpretation has on battlefield sites. In order to further understand these aspects the development of the sites is also investigated including the historical and cultural forces which have been at play in creating such ‘attractions’. This makes use of the semiotic interpretation of tourist sites and the ‘site sacralisation’ model of Dean MacCannell in addressing the important question of what factors are present in the creation of an attraction. The study uses the four main ‘managed’ battlefield sites in the UK – Hastings (1066), Bannockburn (1314) , Bosworth (1485) and Culloden (1746) – to illustrate these objectives and comparisons are also made with a more recent conflict, that of the First World War (1914-18) at the Western Front in France and Belgium. Using an array of qualitative and quantitative methods the study addresses a hitherto relatively understudied area of tourism in exploring the meanings attached to the more historic sites and how they compare and contrast with visitor experiences at sites of more modern conflict. Interviews with experts/stakeholders involved with battlefield sites as well as both visitors at conventional times and at a re-enactment event were made and a large corpus of material was gathered from which conclusions were drawn. Although not statistically generalisable because of methodological constraints the results from the study add an important dimension to our understanding of battlefield tourism and what conflict sites mean to people. The study demonstrates how there is a very dynamic relationship between site and visitor and this is manifested in deep and wide ranging discourses which are reflected by the visitor comments. This is complemented by the views of experts/stakeholders. The study addresses some of the salient points surrounding the nature of visitor experience using the theory of the tourist ‘gaze’ propounded by John Urry. It asserts that a broader appreciation of the visitor interaction needs to be adopted utilizing a multi-sensory approach and not restricted to the dominance of the visual in interpreting the battlefield site. Interpretation is seen as critical in endowing relatively unremarkable sites with meaning and the existing approaches taken by the agencies managing the case study sites are found to be particularly effective in educational terms. The study examined the deeper meanings thought to be attached to places of suffering and death (the numen) but found a very weak response suggesting that the commercialisation of such sites results in a diminution of any visceral type of experience. For the Western Front the deeper meanings were eclipsed by grief and the study thus concluded that the numen can be subsumed into more complex reactions to places of death and suffering. With regard to the development of the historical sites the study challenges the stages of sacralisation in that more contemporary forces involved in attraction creation are neglected. A further commercialisation stage is added to update the model. Battlefield sites have much to inform us about how heritage is received and understood by the public. This is even more instructive in the case of a conflict site where the nature of the attraction might sit uncomfortably with public perception. This study aims to shed light on the meanings of such ‘dark’ sites within society and in doing so can in turn provide vivid reflections on our own culture milieu.