The body has become an increasingly important resource upon which individuals construct their self-identities. Whether it is through the clothes that we choose to wear, the hairstyles we adopt, or the size and shape of our bodies, consumer culture increasingly promotes the body as an entity of individual choice whose outward appearance reflects who we are on the inside. This thesis explores the relationship between the body and self-identity through an exploration of contemporary tattooing practices, and in so doing adds to the burgeoning body of work that has explored the relationship between the body and identity (i.e. Turner 1991; Giddens 1991; Shilling 2012), and the expanding corpus of literature that has explored tattooing (i.e. Sweetman 1999a, 1999b, 1999c; Atkinson 2002, 2003a, 2003b, 2004; DeMello 2000; Pitts 2003; Sanders 2008). Data for this thesis was generated by conducting mixed-method ethnographic research in order to explore how individuals utilise tattooing as part of their individual body projects of self-identity. Adopting Norbert Elias’s figurational – or process – sociology I explore how and why tattooing has become an increasingly sought after and acceptable form of corporeal alteration that has moved from the social margins to occupy a place of heightened respectability, and why individuals choose tattooing over others form of body project available to them. I propose that a key reason for tattooing’s popularity in 21st century Britain is that is allows individuals to fulfil quests for authenticity that have become an increasingly central concern for contemporary citizens. Concurrently, this thesis also explores the relationship between researchers and their research settings by examining the insider/outsider status of social researchers, and exploring themes of involvement, detachment, and reflexivity. It argues that the ideal of totally objective social research proposed by Weber is not obtainable, nor should it be. Instead, researchers should take into account their own biography and how this impacts upon the research process and the dissemination of findings, in order to produce object-adequate knowledge.

To inform an emerging cartographic criminology, this thesis considers cartographic and geographic literatures that are not often present in criminological research. It offers both an historical overview of the way crime has traditionally been mapped within criminological discourse; and a critical review of contemporary crime mapping as an empirical criminological practice. It argues that contemporary "geographies of crime" are too often constructed in very abstract and dehumanising ways. As a result, they obfuscate and thus hamper our true understanding of the spatial dimension of crime. Cartographic criminology reconciles the relevant literatures in several vast disciplines (cartography, geography, criminology, and sociology) to address the growing use of crime and crime control maps. Focus is placed on dozens of different types of maps as case studies in this thesis to assist in developing a critical understanding of the many roles maps play, along with their consequences. By exploring these literatures and emphasising imagination in the mapping of deviance, crime, and control, cartographic criminology (re)imagines ways maps inform and shape our criminological knowledge. Cartographic criminology undertakes conventional criminology’s failure to critique its employment of crime maps and the consequences of their publications. This thesis values the multitudes and significance of maps and assembles interdisciplinary knowledge to strengthen its mission. This thesis establishes a fundamental appreciation of cartography by offering a brief review of cartography and identifying the insights that this field offers as a framework for situating crime maps. Additionally, it offers an overview of criminology’s engagement with maps and demonstrates the discipline’s failure to engage with the maps that are so often used. Various branches of geography (social, political, and cultural) inform the remaining chapters which focus on maps depicting a variety of criminal and deviant activity, the acquisition of the maps, and the general consequences of their use.

The explanations of the remarkable decrease in crime that has been reported over the last two decades in a number of western countries thus far are assessed here as having been limited and unconvincing. In the light of these limitations, this thesis explores three under researched factors and their potential impact on recorded and reported crime rates in England and Wales. First, the contribution of security measures to the fall in crime is evaluated. The likely impact of security measures is found to be limited to few crime categories and is seen as an unlikely major determinant of the crime drop. Second, the impact that the recent increase of immigration into the UK may have had on recorded crime levels is examined. European immigrants in particular are found to be associated with lower crime rates, especially with low rates of robberies and assaults. However, the link between immigration and crime is noted to highly fluctuate depending on outside factors and cannot account for the cross-national relative uniformity of the crime drop. Third, changes in volume and distribution of repeat victimisation are explored. Analyses demonstrate that a large proportion of the decrease in crime can be attributed to a drop in repeat events against the same targets. The thesis concludes with suggestions about further research likely to clarify the crime drop and hence to identify mechanisms whereby it might be sustained.

This research works to demonstrate how different descriptions of place and identity can be understood as being co-constructed. Specifically, how this process facilitates market to be adaptable, more resilient, type of place. It is an exploration of the notion that ‘People make places and places make people’. In order to illustrate the process of research and knowledge development, the first two chapters of this thesis demonstrate a progression of the research subject. Chapter 1 sets out the key characteristics and similarities of both place and identity presented across a range of disciplines and theories. It concludes that these similarities indicate a need for a theoretical development capable of encompassing the process of construction of both concepts. Chapter 2 begins to develop the theoretical approach by looking at a short background on the previous work on markets. Further, this chapter develops the approach taken that focuses on the material culture found in and around markets. This focus is structured by a focus on Actor Network Theory and specifically focuses on how this helps us understand distributed agency and what this might look like for an understanding of place and identity. In light of the subject and theory explored in the previous chapters, Chapter 3 provides the philosophical and methodological underpinning of this thesis. The chapter lays out how and why markets were chosen and provides the framework of the methodology including coding analysis, participant observation and ethical considerations. Following the phenomenological 12 tradition, such an account works to describe the complexity of interconnected events, highlighting the process of construction through interpretive account. The results chapters are highly descriptive and cover the key themes of resilience, connectivity and selection. The final results chapter focuses on the process of ‘stalling out’ as a performative one – the practice of which holds the construction of both individual and place identity. The four results chapters combine descriptive text and photographic images taken by the researcher and informants. Finally, the last chapter provides a very short summary and suggests that markets and people can be understood as very similar systems.

This research identifies and explores the emotions of women who are exiting (leaving) prostitution. In both the prostitution and desistance literature, emotional factors clearly emerge as part of the process of change for exiters and desisters; however, there has been very little direct focus on their importance and impact on this process. The research makes a unique contribution to the desistance literature by mapping the process of change for women with particularly complex and challenging circumstances and focusing on the emotional aspects of this change. Overall, the research confirms that understanding the emotional aspects of exit offers new insights and gives rise to a new approach to service provision. The findings reveal that emotions are central to desistance and that role transition is a prerequisite for desistance. The data has shown that exit is a process of self-determination, becoming one’s authentic self, and that this process is bound up with emotional drivers and barriers. The process of exit necessarily involves fostering positive emotional experiences through both external and internal changes. The data suggests that an understanding of dominant emotional constructs at any given time will give a gateway into how best to respond to the needs and motivations of the exiter through service provision and offers an emotionally intelligent model to meet these needs. Service provision plays a key role in bridging the change in lifestyle of exiters through generating emotional energy, increasing access to alternatives, fostering hope, and enabling women to reimagine their lives.

Background: Health policy in England has increasingly promoted coordinated and integrated health and social care services delivered through partnerships with public, private and voluntary sector organisations. End of life care would likely benefit from improved coordination as patients in the last few months of life with incurable, irreversible illness often require access to a range of services. A regional partnership project, which served as a case to study the implementation process, proposed to coordinate end of life care through establishing a Navigation Centre, shared electronic palliative care patient record (EPaCCS) and working groups to develop new patient pathways within the region. There is a gap in understanding how such complex, multi-innovative programmes are implemented by partnerships. Aim: This study draws on implementation theory to explore the implementation process of a project delivered by a partnership, specifically the shape of the process, what influenced the shape and what implementation outcomes were achieved. Design and Methods: The study adopted a pragmatic, pluralist design using primarily qualitative methods including: document review, observations, interviews, focus group and telephone interviews. A thematic analysis was conducted using the Framework approach which allows for the data to be reduced and sifted through to find linkages and patterns in the data by both source and theme as part of an inductive and deductive analytical process. Findings: The implementation of the Project was characterised by an interactional, over-lapping process in which planning, development, implementation and adaptation of the various innovations proceeded simultaneously, though at the end of the two year project period many tasks were incomplete. Barriers to implementation included: the NHS reforms, lack of robust project management, interconnected project elements, and competition from similar innovations. Facilitating factors included: leadership by the Hospice as experts in end of life care, work benefit, individual motivation, and sole ownership and management over implementation. External threats to the Project had variable influence on the partners and suggests that project resiliency is particularly important for complex multi-organisational programmes which are implemented over time and by multiple stakeholders from different sectors. This study's contribution to knowledge is that resilience to unplanned events in a project appears to be the product of implementation strategies, innovation adaptiveness and implementer characteristics. Future research should look further at what contributes to project resiliency and how projects can develop resilient factors to ensure their success.

The rapid economic development in China since 1978 and the one-child policy enacted in 1979 produced a large number of middle class families with only one child. Initially inspired by the Western means to affluence, these one-child migrants came to the UK (mostly) as international students and remained after their study to take up opportunities to gain work in the professions. As the only child they were faced with the dilemma of seeking greater mobility in the host country, and looking after their ageing parents in China. This research seeks to understand the factors behind their decision to migrate or to settle, and how the only-child migrants in the UK negotiate filial obligations in relation to their parents in China. The transnational one-child family provides a unique case for investigating how families function and change under extreme conditions; as well as how traditional family values and practices shift in the 21st Century within the context of rapid modernisation. The findings of the research are based on interviews with 27 one-child migrants, 6 migrants with siblings and 7 parents of the one-child participants. The migrant participants are from different regions of China and were dispersed in the UK. The majority of the sample has an urban middle class background. By including parents and children from the same family, which is rarely done in transnational family research, this study is able to analyse the separated household members from both sides. The detailed accounts of the migrants' lived experience reveal a multi-level decision-making process over the life course of these families, a predominately parent-to-child intergenerational material transfer, as well as a reconfigured reciprocity between one-child migrants and their parents. Families represent the most intimate form of a transnational social field. One-child transnational families in this study have shown intense circulation of material resources, emotion and care forged by the biological bond and family contract; these families played a crucial "bridging" role that connects the social spaces between China and the UK. As a result individual migrants are actively involved in relationships in multi-layered spaces, and simultaneously influenced by these relationships. International education and the globalised late-capital world gave rise to a demographic of Western-educated Chinese migrants who are relatively mobile, while some aspects of their lives are still geographically bound. By introducing the time factor into the family-migration nexus the thesis shows that migrants' establishment in the host country and their transnational ties are neither incompatible, nor are they static; their relationship evolves with the life cycle of the individuals, and the changing society in both the host country and China.

This thesis explores the conditions under which community-based consumer food co-ops can foster pro-environmental food practices. Case study methodology is employed to study five UK food co-ops and identify opportunities and challenges to developing capacities in those co-ops towards: building a shared sense of purpose around environmentally sustainable food consumption; making sustainable food choices accessible and affordable; and, encouraging member participation. Additionally, life history interviews were undertaken with 18 individuals who were already making environmentally friendly food choices to illuminate how community food co-ops can develop strategies to engage their members and promote sustainable food consumption. Building a co-op community with a shared purpose around sustainable food consumption is more likely when there is clarity of focus on the prioritisation of environmental objectives among members and the leadership team; however, high overhead costs may shift the focus to commercial survival. Co-ops can be more price-competitive in the category of fresh produce and unpackaged wholefoods than in packaged and convenience foods. Members' labour can reduce overhead costs, but getting members to participate is a considerable challenge. Democratic structure alone is not enough. Participation was motivated primarily by the need to belong to a community and a commitment to co-ops' perceived values. There was limited evidence at the studied co-ops of systematic efforts to create opportunities for social learning and relationship-building among members towards strengthening volunteering commitment and developing practice-relevant knowledge and skills. Life history accounts of sustainable food practitioners illustrated how factors such as parents and peers, work, education, books and media, living environment, and ethical concerns, worked through key mechanisms of influence, including direct experience, knowledge, social learning, facilitating contexts and personal agency, to shape sustainable food practices over time. Understanding these factors and mechanisms suggests a number of practical strategies for food co-ops to effectively engage their members with environmental objectives. As well as removing structural constraints, effective strategies will be alert to the bi-directional nature of attitude-behaviour relationships and the formative processes that underpin a range of self-transcendent values aligned with environmentally responsible food consumption.

There are several studies that demonstrate the effectiveness of Pivotal Response Training (PRT) as an evidence-based intervention for children with ASD. However, very few researchers have conducted studies on parent’s use of these strategies, specifically in naturally occurring contexts (i.e., home setting). This study was a preliminary attempt to teach parents how to implement the six motivational procedures of PRT during everyday routines. A concurrent multiple baseline design across nine parent-child dyads consisting of baseline, intervention, and post-intervention phases was utilized. Parent-child interactions were conducted in a free play context to code for parent in- structions or comments provided, parental responsiveness, and changes in the children’s social communication behaviours. Results of the study showed improvements in social communication and decreases in challenging behaviour, as a result of the parent-mediated intervention. Additional- ly, the results of the study suggest that in spite of the lack of consistent fidelity at the specified 80% criterion, children with autism still demonstrated social communication, play, and behavioural ben- efits, during interactions with their parents. Parents reported lower levels of stress and were overall satisfied with the intervention. Findings from this study demonstrate the feasibility of PRT parent- mediated interventions based on PRT conducted in natural environments.

Using concepts by Homi Bhabha (1994) such as ‘hybridity’, ‘in-betweens’ and ‘third space’ the aim of this thesis is to investigate the tensions between identity, location, culture and belonging in an attempt to understand how Iranians who have moved to Newcastle upon Tyne renegotiate their cultural identity, and create a sense of home and belonging in a new space. A diasporic space, formed in the interstices between their re-imaginings of Iran as home (religious, cultural and national), and their desire to create a home in the UK. In order to explore these ideas further, this thesis used ethnography to access the members’ everyday lives and conducted biographical interviews to gain an in-depth perspective on their lives in Iran, their decision to leave Iran, their process of migration and re-settlement in the UK. This thesis will demonstrate that although post-modern concepts have moved away from fixed notions of diaspora and identity, towards notions of fluidity and renegotiation; the members of this Iranian community attempt to fix and essentialise their Iranian cultural identity in order to distance themselves from the Islamic Republic on the one hand, whilst embracing their cultural hybridity on the other.