The United Nations Development Programme’s Millennium project argues for the importance of sexual and reproductive health in the achievement of all Millennium Development Goals. Sex education programmes, aimed principally at the youth, are thus emphasised and are in line with the specific Millennium Development Goals of reducing the incidence of HIV and improving maternal health. In this paper I analyse recent South African sex education and Life Orientation (a learning area containing sex education) manuals. Danger and disease feature as guiding metaphors for these manuals, with early reproduction and abortion being depicted as wholly deleterious and non-normative relationships leading to disease. I argue, firstly, that these renditions ignore well-designed comparative research that calls into questions the easy assumption of negative consequences accompanying ‘teenage pregnancy’ and abortion, and, secondly, that the persistence of danger and disease in sex education programmes is premised on a discourse of ‘adolescence’. ‘Adolescence’ as a concept is always already saturated with the colonialist foundation of phylogeny re-capitulating ontogeny. Individual development is interweaved with collective development with the threat of degeneration implied in both. This interweaving allows for the instrumentalist goal of sex education in which social changes are sought through changing individuals’ sexual attitudes and behaviour.

Physical processes such as the weather are usually modelled using nonlinear dynamical systems. Statistical methods are found to be difficult to draw the dynamical information from the observations of nonlinear dynamics. This thesis is focusing on combining statistical methods with dynamical insight to improve the nonlinear estimate of the initial states, parameters and future states. In the perfect model scenario (PMS), method based on the Indistin-guishable States theory is introduced to produce initial conditions that are consistent with both observations and model dynamics. Our meth-ods are demonstrated to outperform the variational method, Four-dimensional Variational Assimilation, and the sequential method, En-semble Kalman Filter. Problem of parameter estimation of deterministic nonlinear models is considered within the perfect model scenario where the mathematical structure of the model equations are correct, but the true parameter values are unknown. Traditional methods like least squares are known to be not optimal as it base on the wrong assumption that the distribu-tion of forecast error is Gaussian IID. We introduce two approaches to address the shortcomings of traditional methods. The first approach forms the cost function based on probabilistic forecasting; the second approach focuses on the geometric properties of trajectories in short term while noting the global behaviour of the model in the long term. Both methods are tested on a variety of nonlinear models, the true parameter values are well identified. Outside perfect model scenario, to estimate the current state of the model one need to account the uncertainty from both observatiOnal noise and model inadequacy. Methods assuming the model is perfect are either inapplicable or unable to produce the optimal results. It is almost certain that no trajectory of the model is consistent with an infinite series of observations. There are pseudo-orbits, however, that are consistent with observations and these can be used to estimate the model states. Applying the Indistinguishable States Gradient De-scent algorithm with certain stopping criteria is introduced to find rel-evant pseudo-orbits. The difference between Weakly Constraint Four-dimensional Variational Assimilation (WC4DVAR) method and Indis-tinguishable States Gradient Descent method is discussed. By testing on two system-model pairs, our method is shown to produce more consistent results than the WC4DVAR method. Ensemble formed from the pseudo-orbit generated by Indistinguishable States Gradient Descent method is shown to outperform the Inverse Noise ensemble in estimating the current states. Outside perfect model scenario, we demonstrate that forecast with relevant adjustment can produce better forecast than ignoring the existence of model error and using the model directly to make fore-casts. Measurement based on probabilistic forecast skill is suggested to measure the predictability outside PMS.

Establishing similarities between embodied practices typically posed as fundamentally distinct (such as 'African' female genital cutting and 'Western' cosmetic surgery) has become increasingly common within feminist literatures. Cross-cultural comparisons can reveal the instability of essentialist binaries constructed to distinguish various groups as culturally, ethnically and morally 'different'. These strategies, however, are also problematic. In their emphasis on cross-cultural commonalities between practices, they often efface historical, social and embodied particularities, while reifying problematic notions of 'culture'. When employed by privileged 'Western' feminist theorists, such strategies can involve appropriations which affirm, rather than challenge, dominant discursive hierarchies. Consequently, the crucial links between violent histories of embodied differentiation and contemporary relations of power are not effectively interrogated and problematic binaries remain intact. This thesis thus seeks to develop a more historically-grounded, relational and politically accountable feminist approach to addressing essentialist constructions of embodied 'cultural practice'. Mapping feminist and other critical literatures, I identify three main approaches to linking embodied practices: the 'continuum', 'analogue' and 'subset' models. Through three case study chapters, I conduct a comprehensive analysis of these models, and their potential discursive-material effects. Each case study focuses on a different set of practices which have been linked: 'African' female genital cutting and.-`Western' body modifications; Muslim veiling and anorexia; and 'passing' practices associated with the categories of race, gender and sexuality. I argue that rather than illustrating how particular practices or their imagined subjects are fundamentally similar, we should examine how they are constructed relationally in and through one another. This is possible through genealogically tracing how their historical trajectories of production intersect and inform one another. As an alternative to commonality-based comparative approaches, I advocate a 'relational web model' which traces multiple constitutive connections within a network of differently situated embodied practices or figures.

The power struggle between the death of Isabel I of Castile and the Comunero uprising of 1520-1521 involved both dynastic rupture and a crisis of legitimacy. While Juana's titular rights as proprietary sovereign were always recognised, her husband, father and son opposed her right to govern. The thesis challenges deeply-embedded views about Juana's political indifference, while also questioning the recent, influential contention that Juana sacrificed her rights to protect dynastic interests. Juana might have suffered intermittently from mental health problems, but was a key player, and the history of the period cannot be understood without taking her queenship, and question of her right to influence government policy, fully into account. Juana saw herself, above all, as Isabel's daughter, and a Trastámara, and her successes, failures, and changing political strategies are seen in this light. Despite her notion of filial obedience, at a time when her father, Fernando II of Aragon, who had co-reigned with Isabel, remained active and ambitious to govern Castile, Juana engaged with, and greatly influenced, major events between 1505-1507. Again, in 1520, her role during the Comunero revolution, when she came to the defence not only of her son, Charles V, but, more especially, of the principle of royal authority, proved crucially significant. The thesis explores political and cultural concepts of the time to show how they were applied to the manner in which Juana was seen, such as the development of a Queen's 'party' based on the knightly ideology of honour and loyalty; the application of the notion of 'shadow' monarch to attempts to marginalise her from power in 1506-1507, and the essentially gender-based topoi of jealousy and hysteria that informed views about the last Trastámara monarch's unfitness to govern.

This thesis sets out to examine how local environmental movements mobilize to engage a new intertwined national and global context in which capitalist globalization has intensified major problems, in particular social and economic inequalities and ecological degradation. In their struggles, local movements mobilize beyond their local and/or national borders, inserting themselves into transnational networks. A representative of such struggles, as I argue in the thesis, is the Bergama movement. The Bergama Movement, a local environmental movement struggling against a transnational gold-mining company in Western Turkey, is analyzed based on an extensive field research reflecting the geographical scope of and the diversity of actors involved in the movement. The research aims to understand the interrelated dimensions of a social movement such as initial mobilization, mobilizing structures, framing, identity construction, and political opportunities; embedding it in a new political and social context in which structures and practices at varying levels of politics become enmeshed. Thus, the thesis shows that making clear-cut distinctions between the local, the national and the global, is inadequate in understanding local movements which challenge actors of capitalist globalization. The contribution of this thesis lies in using the case of the Bergama movement to unpack the interrelated dynamics involved in enmeshed scales of doing politics. In that regard, I show that national and transnational actors align themselves, as in the case of the state in Turkey and transnational mining corporations, in a pro-mine network, while the Bergama activists have formed an extensive movement network by forging links with global civil society actors, external political parties, supranational and international organizations and the media who challenge capitalist globalization. Witnessing that their national political context is being restructured under capitalist globalization, they extensively utilize transnational political opportunities and define themselves as part of a general anti-capitalist globalization struggle.

This thesis reports on a research project investigating how women use the internet, and how this use is productive of femininity. It takes an approach to researching this technology that examines what it becomes when it is used, and looks in depth at this internet use in a small number of women’s lives. Diaries, online and offline interviews, photographs and participation online were used to investigate their use of and experience of the internet, to investigate what is particular about women’s use. The project attempted to think differently about the internet, to use a relational approach, influenced by phenomenology and home geography to argue that in order to understand the internet we need to consider embodied practices and the objects and movements that make it possible. The entity of the internet emerges in a range of modalities, with human, non-human, material and semiotic components in a constantly shifting ecology of relations, many of these gendered. It is not a simple or discrete entity. This means it can operate in the lives of women in very diverse ways, from a formal setting oriented to work, to a purely leisure uses, mediated through rooms, posture, expertise and affect.

Although Social Networking Sites have become dominant in the lives of many consumers, research on virtual brand communities in the context of Social Networking Sites is scarce. This study focuses on addressing this gap by investigating how identification with the brand and the brand community, participation on official brand pages on Facebook, and attachment to the brand develop and support brand equity in the context of Social Networking Sites. Participation in virtual brand communities has been generally viewed as posting and lurking. This study has developed new participation scales to address the limited perspective of participation in the literature. In addition, this study aims to investigate the types of members of brand pages on Facebook and the nature of their participation. The author developed a model that provides a new understanding of how brand equity develops in Social Networking Sites. The study was conducted in two stages. Firstly, a pilot study was conducted that used focus groups to build new scales to measure participation in Social Networking Sites, which were tested and validated by analysing quantitative data collected from an online and offline survey. Secondly, the main study was conducted by collecting data from an online panel of 436 UK consumers. Structural equation modelling techniques were then used to assess the validity of the new proposed participation scales and to test the set of interrelationships among the proposed variables. The findings indicate that consumer identification with the brand and the community has a positive impact on participation on brand pages as well as on attachment to the brand. The findings also reveal that brand loyalty, perceived quality, willingness to pay a price premium, and word-of-mouth are all predicted by brand attachment. Finally, this study has shown that participation is a two level behaviour that is based on three member types: tourists, minglers, and fans. The model and the new participation scales proposed in this study present a new perspective on online consumer behaviour. In addition, the findings of this study have implications for understanding and building consumer-brand relationships in Social Networking Sites. Keywords: Brand Equity, Brand Identification, Brand Community Identification, Virtual Brand Community, Perceived Quality, Brand Loyalty, Word-of-Mouth, Willingness to Pay a Price Premium, Brand Attachment, Participation, Social Networking Sites, Structural Equation Modelling,fACEBOOK

This thesis examines the effects of product placements on consumer attitudes toward the placed products, in the genre of television sitcoms. The study utilizes the integration of balance theory, parasocial interaction theory and genre theory to evaluate the “Balance Model of Sitcom Product Placement Effects” and test its applicability under the conditions set for the execution of the present research. Through the utilization of the three theories, the character-product associations existent in the conventions of contemporary sitcoms and the consumer-character relationships likely to be developed with the viewing of serialized television programs, are examined with regard to the way that their interaction influences consumer attitudes toward placed products. As the model has its foundations on balance theory, it is suggested that the theoretical premise of attitudinal alignment can explain the interactions existing in the model’s relational system which consists of three elements; the consumer, the character and the placed product. The consumer attitude alignment process toward the character is tested as being guided by the consumer-character relation variables of consumer attitude toward character and parasocial attachment with character, and the character-product relation variables of character’s attitude valence toward, and strength of association with, the placed product. The methodological premises set for this research involve the utilization of a contemporary sitcom as stimulus, a sample consisting of a particular target group of 128 participants who hold specific characteristics and are regular viewers of the sitcom, and an online survey research instrument for the measurement of the variables. The findings support the predictions regarding consumers’ attitudinal alignment toward products according to characters’ attitudes toward products, with consumer parasocial attachment with character constituting the most influential factor in the process. This research supports the generalizability faculty of the balance model of placement effects, by corroborating previous findings. Moreover, this study facilitates the accretion of product placement knowledge by following the methodological underpinnings of the replication approach, and fulfils its major purpose of providing corroborated, generalized and extended propositions regarding placements’ effects in the television media context, thus offering valuable practical implications for the practice’s employment by marketers.

This thesis offers a critical history of the Glasgow University Media Group from 1975 to 2005. It argues that, viewed as a whole, the GUMG’s work constitutes a School of media sociology, which can now be recognised as such. The GUMG has lead research into the production, content and reception of public communications and has made a contribution to its field that it as significant as those made by the Birmingham School; the Toronto School and the Chicago School among others. However, there are barriers to that recognition, with which this thesis is also concerned. They are the misperception that the work of the group is biased by Marxist analysis and is motivated by a conspiracy theory of the media. The thesis also looks at the GUMG’s increasingly intimate relationship with broadcasters and examines how that relationship has contributed to a public sociology of the media, which is the most distinctive feature of the Glasgow School of media.

It is argued that for organisations to truly achieve high and consistent levels of performance in their dealings with other firms they must move from contract based models predicated on the pursuit of cost efficiencies and the exploitation of bargaining power to more collaborative or partner based models. These new exchange relationships pursue greater organisational value through the development of cooperative working practices and the nurturing of trusted relationships. It is proposed that this type of approach to other firms can reduce transaction costs and increase productivity as well as improve innovation and learning which, it is further argued, is more important than contract and cost efficiencies in creating sustainable competitive advantage in a dynamic and uncertain environment. This study examines inter-firm relationships from a practitioner’s perspective. The goals of the study were to develop the author’s knowledge of collaborations to assist in his role as Account Director for a major Network Systems Integrator and to add to the academic research on inter-firm collaboration. This thesis documents the findings from the study. It examines the collaborative literature and introduces an integrated model of academic research and theoretical principles which collectively are proposed to predict successful collaborations. The thesis charts a case study of an inter-firm relationship in the UK telecommunications sector over 8 years, recording and analysing the main purchasing and collaborative episodes over that period and providing a unique insight into the dynamics of an inter-firm relationship in a highly competitive and highly uncertain industry. The thesis includes a significant examination of the literature on research methods and services science. The services science review was conducted through a collaborative lens, with the literature analysed in terms of its contribution to collaboration theory and practice. The findings from the study illustrate that the literature on alliances and collaborations is extremely fragmented with no universal theory to guide the practitioner. A pervasive theme from the literature was that firms in a highly competitive and uncertain environment are more likely to seek value through collaborations. The study examines the extent to which a collaborative approach is being pursued in the case of a firm in the UK telecommunications sector. The case investigates the veracity of the literature and highlights the practical challenges associated with creating value through collaborative initiatives. The findings indicate that inter-firm relationships are extremely complex economic, social and political arrangements requiring significant management effort and consequently attracting significant costs. The case charts the evolution of a relationship from a traditional customer-supplier exchange model to a more complex arrangement characterised by portfolio relationships and competitive collaborations underpinned by reciprocity. Creating collaborative value in this environment is subject to successfully navigating an array of organisational and cultural barriers significantly under represented in the literature with exchange behaviours relating to lack of leadership, moral hazard, opportunism, hold-up and competitive learning being at the core. In the case examined, these behaviours existed within a culture of institutionalised antipathy towards outside firms which ultimately led to the failure of their collaborative initiatives. The implications of this study are significant. The economies of the future are projected to be predominantly knowledge based and services led. Industrial and state competition is predicted to be founded on knowledge management and services innovation. The unit of management for this innovation is said to be the service system as opposed to the firm. Services systems are conceptualised as complex networks of firms, capabilities processes and technologies which are predicated on knowledge collaborations and effective service exchanges. The dominant industrial and academic approaches to explaining and directing management practice in these services collaborations assume an open and productive flow of knowledge across firm and state boundaries. The stated pre-requisite for a firm operating in this environment is that it possesses a collaborative capability, i.e. the ability to work effectively with other firms in a culture of openness and honesty. A capability and culture not found to be prevalent in this study. However, despite the challenges found in case study, the researcher’s closing argument is simple. When competitive performance depends on the firm’s relationships with other firms, managers need to pay attention to the following sets of actions: (1) Building a collaborative intent with the business (i.e. educating stakeholders on the value of collaboration in the context of their business goals and gaining senior management sponsorship and commitment to the process); (2) Developing a collaborative architecture (i.e. a structure (team or function) within the firm which has responsibility for activities at the boundary of the organisation and which is tasked with setting collaborative goals and strategies); (3) Identifying and crafting collaborative arrangements with other firms that support the firm’s strategy (i.e. firm selection, ensuring collaborative fit and developing value propositions in the context of the industry segment); (4) Managing collaborations (i.e. operationalising the relationship, setting joint goals, activities and measures, building relationships, and making joint decisions); and (5) building the appropriate levels of collaborative capital that energise the flow of resources and knowledge across the firm boundaries and create organisational and collaborative value. These activities are proposed to help build a collaborative capability. Although, the findings of this study indicate that the development of this capability and the management of a collaborative environment is a significant challenge and one that potentially requires significant commitment and change on the part of participating firms in order to have any real probability of success.