In the broadest sense this work is concerned with processes of cultural construction in the contemporary city, and their connections to the framing, recording and concrete manifestation of society and its ills. Acknowledging the academy to be a productive site in this regard this thesis takes a somewhat meta-theoretical approach, engaging with dominant analyses of urban problems and the methodological approaches they entail. My specific focus is on understandings of time and modes of temporality – crucial factors in the organisation of urban society but which appear largely naturalised in both everyday life and the academy. Attempting to uncover some of the ways in which the socially constructed nature of time has become invisible in these contexts, my aim in this work is to recast time and temporality as critical factors in the formation of urban culture and the organisation of urban society, which warrant detailed future study. Beyond that, this work seeks to establish this case as an impetus for the examination of other absences in urban knowledge production, and a renewed urban imagination. To this end I have designed a methodological approach of autoethnographic rhizoanalysis. I have rhizomatically analysed the urban studies canon for the (non)presence of time and temporality within its dominant texts, practices, performances and methods; and I have performed everyday and experimental autoethnography, as I have continued to make sense of time and temporality as a member of both the contemporary culture that experiences time as naturalised, and the academic culture which seeks to construct knowledge of the city. Along the way this work has also engaged with the craft of academic work, as I have worked to uncover some of the everyday assumptions and practices which may serve to maintain and strengthen hegemonic ideas of the nature of time, temporality and truth. As a counter to the ways in which existing approaches may limit rather than expand urban imaginations I have made a hand-embroidered, patchwork quilt to accompany this written thesis. This object allows for an alternative way of experiencing and performing this work as it relates to processes of knowledge production and cultural construction, of and in the contemporary city.

There is a general consensus around the kinds of jobs graduates might be expected to progress into once they complete their university education. Teaching, law and journalism are regularly cited as classic examples of ‘knowledge-based’ occupations that comprise the kinds of abstract problems and non-standard tasks that require independently minded, creative, and highly educated workers. However, there is very little research exploring graduates’ work post-graduation, and that which there is tends to focus on skill utilisation or the demand for, and deployment of, graduate skills in the labour market. This study takes a different approach, asking what it is about a particular type of work that might mean that the people performing it would benefit from a higher education. It draws on findings from qualitative interviews, exploring the nature and demands of these three occupations to conduct a critical analysis of the assumptions that underpin the skills-based, employment-focused model of higher education that governs current understanding of the relationship between higher education and work, and the role it can and should play in preparing students to meet the demands of these kinds of jobs. The thesis finds that journalists, teachers and solicitors are required to exercise a large amount of discretion in the interpretation and performance of partially and imprecisely specified work tasks and situations, but that this discretion is mediated by their employment circumstances, and complicated by the uncertain and unpredictable nature and conditions of their work. Acting purposefully in these conditions of uncertainty is central to successful performance of these jobs, but extremely demanding of their occupants. It concludes that higher education remains uniquely placed to make an important contribution to students’ preparation for this kind of work, but that this potential can only be realised by rejecting the priorities and focus of a higher education for employment guided by recruiters, and pursuing instead a higher education for performance that focuses on the knowledge and dispositions that will be of most value to students.

This research focuses on the demand for and use of literacy and numeracy skills in low paid work. The motivation for the research is to examine the assumption, widely espoused by policy makers, that literacy and numeracy skills are vital at all levels of the labour market and that deficiencies in these skills are the source of widespread economic problems. The primary aim of this study is to understand the extent to which employees in low paid occupations use literacy and numeracy skills in their work. Alongside this, the research considers the extent of mismatch between the skills of employees and the demands of their job, the extent of change in the demand for literacy and numeracy skills and the sources of demand for literacy and numeracy skill. Methodologically the research focuses on qualitative case studies of frontline work in two major low paying sectors, retail and residential care. Research took place in three Nursing Homes in England and three retail outlets in South Wales. This qualitative analysis is supplemented by a quantitative analysis of the Skills and Employment Surveys from 1997 to 2012, which provides a broader picture of the extent of and changes in the use of literacy and numeracy skills in low paid work. The research raises doubts about the extent of demand for literacy and numeracy skills in occupations at the lower end of the labour market and the incidence of deficiencies in the skills of employees. This in turn leads to questions about the viability of approaches to literacy and numeracy policy predicated on these assumptions.

Post financial crisis, economic and business news has generated conflicting narratives where, for example, bankers and corporate executives enjoy large salaries while ordinary people find their lifestyles under increasing pressure. Accordingly, the issues of income inequality, wealth and poverty have attracted increased scholarly attention. Citizens make sense of such issues via the media, and most often via TV news which is still the U.K’s primary news provider. Given that U.K broadcast media are bound by public service obligations, the intellectual puzzle addressed here is whether either side of the financial crisis (2007 and 2014), two TV news providers (BBC1 and ITV1) address financial news generally, and income inequality more specifically, in ways that serve all citizens. Large-scale content analyses are used to identify recurrent themes within economic, business and financial news, and stories containing elements of income inequality, poverty, wealth and the “squeezed middle”. To further explore how these issues are covered, typical cases are developed using critical discourse and multimodal analyses. The study finds that while economic and business news has increased and has been partially redefined by the crisis, income inequality is covered less in 2014 than in 2007, and since it is embedded within various news stories, the issue is not covered in ways helping citizens to make sense of causes and consequences. Despite indicators that “trickle down” economics is broken and that wealth remains concentrated among a few, even post-crisis, economic growth is presented as a universal solution to ease discomfort and inequality. Although coverage of business actors and corporations is often critical, the wider model of capitalism within which they operate remains unchallenged. In conclusion, despite the seismic financial events and normative expectations that they should discuss issues of social significance, because of institutional, economic and historic causal mechanisms, these channels do not provide any such critique.

This research explores the experiences of Chinese seafarers and bereaved families in the process of claiming compensation following workplace accidents. For a long time, issues regarding seafarers’ rights in such cases have failed to attract substantial public attention. International and Chinese studies indicate that seafarers may suffer higher risks of work-related injuries compared with land-based workers. Studies conducted in Australia, Canada and the United States show that claimants under workers’ compensation system may suffer extra psychological harm when claiming damages. However, there is little attention, in academic discourse, paid to the struggles of Chinese seafarers and/or bereaved families in the processes of claiming compensation following work-related casualties. This research aims to examine the procedures for compensation claims and to explore individual experiences of the claim process to determine whether Chinese seafarers suffer additional harm during claim processes. Two major qualitative research methods, documentary analysis and semi-structured interview, are applied in this research. The findings based on an analysis of legal claims process documents and records and interview data with the key informants, including claim handlers in shipping companies, maritime lawyers and maritime court judges in China, suggest that the compensation standards for occupational casualties of seafarers are chaotic and the current social welfare system does not provide effective assistance for the victims. The research results, therefore, show that Chinese seafarers and their families are most likely to suffer additional harm in the process, including intensive psychological pressures caused by the lack of procedural transparency and mental trauma resulting from claim suppression by their companies. Moreover, when resorting to public institutions, including labour administration and judicial authorities, Chinese seafarers are unlikely to receive timely and sufficient remedies.

This thesis comprises an ethnographic exploration of the emergent scientific field of biogerontology (otherwise known as the biology of ageing) ‘in the making’ at its different sub-sites. Specifically, biogerontology, as a field on the frontiers of science research in the UK and US, seeks to redefine ageing as malleable and pathological. I examine this approach to ageing in relation to an ethics of care for all of life. By examining public biogerontology (conferences, media, academic publications), with an in depth focus on UK biogerontology, I illuminate biogerontologists’ perspectives and concerns, and I show how these are circulated in this public setting. By extending focus to two genetics laboratories where biogerontologists study ageing as a biological process (using model organisms), I provide insight into the mundane practices of biogerontologists, and I also offer comparison between the verbally expressed concerns of public biogerontologists and the practical labours of care in the laboratory setting. Moreover, I explore the fragmented, ambiguous, and complex ordering of care in the laboratory setting, which is part of viewing the field as a continual accomplishment. Whilst ‘good science’ as ‘excellence’ is shown to be the primary concern and care of the field, I also show moments in the laboratory setting where biogerontologists extend their care, as a practical and affectual labour, to the animal (models) that they are working with. As well as examining the standardisation of ageing, and the way that the animal (models) are figured as instruments, I conclude by showing that whilst life itself becomes instrumental in science experiment, the moments of care for life in the laboratory break from this instrumental relation. Furthermore, I show that these moments open up space for biogerontologists to reflect more deeply upon the field and its implications for the future of humanity and, also, all life on earth.

This thesis is an ethnography which explores acquired brain injury (ABI) survivor experiences of rehabilitation and compares these experiences with an analysis of discourses of ABI, as well as the social and organisational arrangements of rehabilitation services. Acquired brain injury interacts with the health care setting in complex ways. Many of the usual markers in which the individual might be interpreted as a patient such as assessing symptoms, the method of diagnosis, how the progress of the patient is viewed and the actual act of getting better are immensely complicated and, at times, even contradictory in this setting. Very often, these markers become negotiated. When the understanding of these different interactions between actors is contested, (e.g. when there is a disagreement between professional, family member and patient as to what a symptom might be or what a goal to work towards might be) this can become problematic. The ultimate objective is to use the study’s findings to inform ABI services and potentially enable better provision. Health care professionals work tirelessly in difficult environments, with increasing workloads and often with scarce resources. Research that specifically engages with the interactions within the health care setting will aid understanding of good practice and help prioritise the importance given to parts of the service which are currently under-represented. This research also aims to make a contribution to the sociology of biomedicine, healthcare organisation and work which investigates the body, identity and disability, particularly hidden disabilities. The practical implications of this research would inform decision makers of the extent to which identity work and participation underpins the success of the overall rehabilitation process.

Since the 1990s UK governments have sought to harness third sector organisations in the delivery of services due to their perceived capacity to address social problems, and provide more responsive and individually-tailored services which can foster the capacity of individuals to lead more independent and fulfilled lives. However, these enhanced expectations exist alongside state retrenchment and mounting pressure to deliver services in more cost-effective ways. As grant-funding has been replaced by contracts, voluntary organisations have faced pressures to change their services in line with what commissioners want, compromising the distinctive values and practices that have traditionally been associated with the sector. Despite these empirical trends, there has been little in-depth sociological exploration of the effect of contracting on the values and practices of individual organisations, and how this is experienced by those who work, volunteer and use their services. This is surprising given that the ‘values-driven’ nature of these organisations is generally understood to be what makes them distinctive from the organisations of the state and the market. Instead, ‘values-driven’ is routinely conflated with ‘value-added’, in an instrumental view which treats values as transactional resources. Consequently, there has been a failure to grasp the intrinsic importance of values to people’s wellbeing, the rootedness of those values in practices, and the implications of changing people’s practices to achieve with greater efficiency an external product or outcome. This study adopted an Aristotelian lens to explore the relationship between values and practices on a third sector mental health garden project. The research used ethnographic participant observation and in-depth interviews to investigate how the practices of gardening and care embodied the values and aims of the organisation, and how those who worked, volunteered and used its services attached meaning to what they did. The research found that for project members’, being able to participate in practices in a way which was congruous with their values, was understood as an important facilitator of wellbeing. In keeping with the Aristotelian contention, participants perceived wellbeing as something which was realised through achieving those ‘internal goods’ which constituted excellence in their practices. Adapting practices to make them more effective at realising external outcomes not only threatened the very means through which these values were realised, but also undermined how project workers felt they could utilise their practices to facilitate wellbeing. The centrality of doing well to being well documented in this research suggests that if policy is to take wellbeing, and the role of the third sector in fostering this seriously, then values should be viewed as ends in themselves, and not merely as means to realise particular external outcomes.

The aim of this research was to explore how complexity thinking might inform social work with families in need of support around early neglect. Complexity theory has begun to be applied to social work practice, but its practical application has been inhibited by the combined pressures of an emphasis on evidence-based practice, a risk dominated discourse which has driven practice down a managerialist route, and a neoliberal political agenda which has driven a case management model. Using ethnographic methods, participant observation and unstructured interviews, the research followed a team of family support practitioners within a voluntary sector project in South Wales working in early-intervention social work whose practice was explicitly informed by complexity thinking. This thesis responds to three questions: how complexity thinking informed team members’ understanding of practice and how they worked with families to foster change; what characteristics impacted their ability to effect change in families and manage turbulence within the team and in what ways complexity thinking impacted their understanding and management of risk. Findings suggest that the strong theoretical base of the team, underpinned by complexity thinking, was instrumental in the creation of an environment conducive to effective practice, and a model of practice that encouraged collaboration, consistency, containment, challenge and contingency, for practitioners as well as for families. In addition it enabled the team to be anti-fragile to the significant churn they experienced, a challenge that will be familiar to many in social work. Using Beck’s theory of a risk society the thesis explores the idea that risk is an inescapable component of a fast-changing, reflexive modernity and argues that the assessment and control of risk is something that can never be definitively accomplished. Where risk is unpredictable, especially in such a contested area as child welfare, the most useful methods are those that encourage creativity and adaptability, and this is facilitated by complexity thinking.

Almost a decade ago, Berridge, Dance, Beecham and Field (2008, p.49) noted a worrying absence of research into the UK picture of education support teams in terms of their organisational structure and priorities. This thesis represents an original contribution to knowledge in regard to the educational support provided for Looked-After Children in Wales. The overall sample (n=28) comprised four Looked After Children Education (LACE) coordinators, seven LACE team practitioners and seventeen young people with looked-after status, aged 14-16 years old, from across four local authorities in south Wales. This qualitative research is informed by constructionist ontology and is positioned within an interpretivist framework. Data were subjected to a coding framework and thematic analysis. The research yields useful insights with some clear implications for policy and practice. It has sought to address that void and add to a slowly growing knowledge base as little is known about the ways in which LACE Coordinators and their team practitioners interpret and enact relevant policy in their day to day work. Research findings include: The LACE team relationships with young people being described by workers were typically in administrative and procedural terms; LACE practitioners’ support typically lasts for an hour, once a week, and which was described by some young people as of welcome but limited value. Thus, the perennial discourse of ‘low attainment’ that surrounds looked-after children might be more aptly be re-cast as ‘low investment’ by the state, national and local; LACE practitioners’ described their work practice as a specialist knowledge area, but also disclosed how their knowledge and expertise was often undervalued or rejected by other external practitioners; young people’s identities appeared to be fashioned, by LACE practitioners, through occupational assumptions derived from a broader public welfare child discourse. In contrast the young people’s own identities did not coalesce with the perceptions of LACE practitioners. Instead, their comments indicated a more ‘normalised’, non-stigmatised, and pragmatic but also care (as affect) related sense of self. The thesis has argued that there needs to be a new framework that unites the way workers understand looked-after children and the relationships that will optimise meaningful achievement.