My thesis examines the discursive similarities between the public political voice of Thatcherism and the "bureaucratic" policy voice of Community Care Documents. The similarities I am searching for between the rhetoric and the documents involve mythical representations of the family, the free market and the community. The argument of the thesis is that the construction of meaning in the policy documents is at least partially supported by discursive representations present in the public discourse. These representations mythologize: first, the role and form of the family; second, the role of women in caring within the family; and third, the role or capabilities of the market; and fourth; the "failings" and "breakdown" of the welfare system. I also argue that these representations exist within certain key social and economic conditions relating to "late capitalism" or more, exactly, the model of flexible accumulation and market regulation prevalent in Britain during the eighties. I conclude by arguing that if language does have a role in power relations, then it can be useful for policy analysts to learn some of the models of linguistic or discursive analysis. Such an inclusion would especially be useful in understanding the difficulties that women and other "minorities" have in finding a voice in the policy arena. / Master of Arts

State violence, and policing in particular, continue to shape the black British experience, racialising geographical areas associated with African and African-Caribbean communities. The history of black struggles in the UK has often centred on spaces of racial violence and resistance to it. But black-led social movements of previous decades have, for the most part, seen a decline in both political mobilisations, and the militant anti-racist slogans and discourses that accompanied them. Neoliberalism, through securitisation, resource reallocation, privatisation of space and the de-racialising of language, has made radical black activism an increasingly difficult endeavour. But this does not mean that black struggle against policing has disappeared. What it does mean, however, is that there have been significant changes in how anti-racist activism against policing is articulated and carried out. Three high-profile black deaths at the hands of police in 2011 led to widespread protest and civil unrest. These movements of resistance were strengthened when the Black Lives Matter movement in the United States mobilised hundreds of young people in solidarity actions in England. In this thesis, I argue that, over time, racist metonyms used to describe places racialised as black (Handsworth, Brixton etc.) and people racialised as black (Stephen Lawrence, Mark Duggan etc.), have led to the rise of metonymic anti-racism. While metonymic anti-racism was used alongside more overt anti-racist language in the period between the 1950s and early 1990s, I argue that such overt anti-racist language is becoming rarer in the post-2011 period, particularly in radical black grassroots organisations that address policing. Intersecting with metonymic anti-racism are gender dynamics brought to the surface by female-led campaigns against police violence, and forms of resistance which target spaces of post-industrial consumer capitalism. Understanding how police racism, and resistance to it, are being reconceptualised through language, and reconfigured through different forms of activism, provides a fresh understanding of grassroots black struggle in Britain.

This ethnographic study explores how 'Romanian Roma' migrants in the UK, without previous relationships to their place of arrival, negotiate their identity to make place in a diverse urban area. The thesis argues that state forms are (re)produced through embedded social relations. The restructuring of the UK welfare state, coupled with processes of labelling, means that the notion of public and private space is changing. Migrants' encounters with state actors in the home are increasingly important. I lived with three families between January 2013 and March 2014, during a period of shifting labour market regulations and the end of European Union transitional controls in January 2014. Through mapping families' relationships and connections, I identify encounters in the home with state actors regarding children as a defining feature of place-making. The thesis introduces the term 'home encounter' to trace the interplay of discourses and performances between state actors and those they identified as 'Romanian Roma'. Due to the restructuring of UK welfare, various roles assume different 'faces of the state'. These include education officers, health visitors, sub-contracted NGO workers, charismatic pastors and volunteers. The home encounter is presented as a public 'state act' (Bourdieu 2012) where negotiations of values take place in private space determining access to membership and welfare resources. In addition, blurring boundaries between welfare regulations and immigration control mean that these actors' seemingly small decisions have far-reaching consequences. The analysis raises questions of how to understand practices of government in diverse urban areas; the affect of labelling, place and performance on material power inequalities; and processes of discrimination and othering.

This study of the Philanthropic Society (later the Royal Philanthropic Society) sets out to explain how it survived during many shifts in thinking about the treatment of juvenile offenders in nineteenth-century Britain. The study also pays particular attention to relationships between the Society and the state, showing how the Society was gradually drawn into dependence on the state. The thesis begins with an overview of the Society's work prior to its decision to move from London to Redhill in 1849. Next it proceeds to a close study of the Society's work until the end of the century. The decision to concentrate on the Redhill Farm School reflects not only changing views about the reformation of young offenders, but also the financial imperatives which forced the Society along paths shaped by the state. Close attention is paid to the way Parliamentary inquiries and commissions, which in the mid-Victorian period tended to laud the Society as a model, later criticized it for lagging behind advanced thinking. Interwoven within this narratives are descriptions of the specific measures the Society took for training and caring for boys at Redhill. It explores the nature of unpaid labour, training and discipline enforced at the farm school. It also examines the variety of subjects taught during the years a boy would spend working within a strict discipline, and the methods used to enforce such discipline. Another subject worthy of extended consideration is the Society's enthusiasm for emigration to British colonies following a boy's term of incarceration. The thesis closes with an examination of how and why the Society lost its reputation as a leader in the treatment of young offenders in the late-Victorian period, as government imposed new rules and regulations. The overall argument is that the Society born as the result of moral panics about children at risk became a long-term survivor as the result of partnerships with the state.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

This study examined public perception of the social relevance of Christian churches in the year the New Poor Law was passed. The first two chapters presented historiography concerning the Voluntary crisis which threatened the Anglican establishment, and the relationship of Christian churches to the New Poor Law. Chapters 4, 5, and 6 revealed the recurring image of "true" Christianity in its relation to the church crisis and the New Poor Law in the working men's, political, and religious periodical press. The study demonstrated a particular working class interest in Christianity and the effect of evangelicalism on religious renewal and social concerns. Orthodox Christians, embroiled in religious and political controversy, articulated practical concern for the poor less effectively than secularists.

No description available.