This thesis explores the articulation of cultural meanings about belonging, entitlement and positionality that are emerging across transcultural boundaries in Neapolitan street markets. I conducted nine months of ethnographic fieldwork from licensed and unlicensed market stalls around Piazza Garibaldi central train station, working with Neapolitan and migrant street vendors. Street markets are an important part of the informal economy in Naples. High levels of unemployment and strict EU immigration rules have made market vending into a vital survival strategy for both Italian citizens and newcomers. Markets are thus a key site of encounter across racialised boundaries. My analysis of notes, photos and audio recordings gathered in the field reveals a compendium of multilingual language practices that are used by people in street markets as part of an everyday, pragmatic cohabitation with difference. My work contributes to the existing body of knowledge about ‘race’ and racism, in particular adding to the growing number of studies about postcoloniality in Italy and Southern Europe. In stressing the importance of language in intersubjective interactions I not only tell a story about the particular context and history of race relations in Naples – where different sorts of speaking are central to a fraught history of political, economic and cultural subordination – but also offer a key to understanding what is at stake generally in the complex and ambiguous multilingual reality that has resulted from intensified migration across the world. In addition, the thesis considers the models of collective organisation and resistance that come about amongst people subjected to informal, unstable and differential legal statuses and labour conditions. My research participants are struggling to find ways to live with and survive the fact of their own disposability within the global economy. I argue that this leads to both tactics of racialised closure, exclusion and division; as well as to the exploration of ambivalent transcultural solidarities, collaboration and struggle.

This thesis is oriented towards the investigation of the opportunities for ‘positive futures’ in and through sport in Serbia. It critically explores the social significance of established and emerging sports—football (grassroots programme) and rugby league—in the challenging social context of Serbian society via the theoretical prism of social capital. Contemporary debate on sport’s social role, underlining its multidimensional capacity in the creation and maintenance of social capital and associated socially cohesive processes—social inclusion, social integration and active civic participation—in and through sport, is often instigated within the developed world academe, and has not been oriented to questioning the link between sport, social capital and community benefits in the contexts of ‘transitional’ societies residing at the European semi-periphery. This thesis seeks, hence, to address this void by examining the social implications of sport for a multitude of communities in the context of semi-peripheral Serbia. In particular, it investigates the extent to which, and the ways in which, selected sports foster or impede the creation of different forms of social capital instrumental in sport and community development, including the role of wider social and sport policy contexts in these endeavours. Methodologically, the study deploys a qualitative multiple-case study approach using semi-structured individual and group interviews in conjuction with content analysis of official documents and direct observation of selected cases. The exploration of evolving contexts of selected sports against the backdrop of Serbia suggests that the representation of different forms of social capital varies among researched cases relevant to their position within the meso sporting context and to specific traits of the wider social context. In this vein, as a dynamic and transferable social construct, social capital generated and maintained in and through explored sports floats between bonding and bridging points on an axis with linking social capital residing closer to the bonding point on this axis. In these constellations norms of reciprocity are positioned as the key cultural element of the emerging social capital models that assist in opening up the opportunities for expanding social cohesion via social inclusion, social integration and active civic participation. Likewise, the evidence from the study challenges a dominant social capital conceptual approach by portraying the ways cultural elements of the concept—trust and norms of reciprocity—are mutually interwoven, context-dependent and how they interact in their structural webs within extracted sport social capital models. As evidence from the research further shows, the nature of social capital in regard to the explored sports corresponds to the ways socially cohesive processes are established for different scale community benefits. Yet, the reflextion of the correlation between the nature of social capital and the nature of socially cohesive processes in and around selected sports indicates that bonding social capital generated in and through sport may have the capacity to maintain socially cohesive processes while an inherently positive association between bridging social capital and community benefits in and through sport in this particular social context needs to be revisited. Finally, in examining the environment for sport and community development in Serbia, it is indicative that a pro-social sport policy context should comprehensively account for the wider social relevance of sport and its ability to imbue bottom-up cultural change at both sport and society levels. This awarness is central to policy recommendations formulated in the conclusion of this thesis. This study thus provides an original contribution to knowledge by probing the nexus between investigated sports and the nature of social capital created, the role, position and interrelatedness of distincitive structral and cultural social capital elements within the created sport social capital models, associated social benefits and pro-social sport policies in the semi-peripheral context of Serbia.

This thesis analyses Scottish households' tenure choice behaviour by using economic approaches. The data set comes from the 1996 Scottish House Condition Survey (SHCS). To estimate the household's tenure decision behaviour, two simulation models with different structures are developed. The first tenure choice model contains a simple one-level choice set. A multinomial logit model is employed to estimate three choice alternatives: owner-occupation, social renting and private renting. The second tenure choice model contains a two-level choice structure assuming that the household firstly decides to move or stay and then chooses a tenure alternative. A nested multinomial logit model is employed to estimate the decision to move/stay and the choice of three tenure alternative. The determinants of the two tenure choice models not only include household attributes but also include housing attributes. The household attributes generally consist of the household's demographic and socio-economic variables, while housing attributes include dwelling type, location and neighbourhood variables. In addition, this thesis also includes the housing subsidy and rationing variables to estimates their impacts on tenure choice. The estimation results show that the household long term income, the user cost of housing, housing subsidy and rationing variables, as expected, have the most significant influences on households' tenure decisions in Scotland. Moreover, three policy issues are derived from the results of the tenure choice models. The first issue discusses the simulation of the influences of changes in the income tax rate and the mortgage rationing ratios on tenure choice. The second issue analyses income inequality and tenure polarisation. The third issue examines the distribution of housing subsidy between tenures and income levels.

The aim of this thesis is to examine the extent to which homelessness is a gendered phenomenon. In the homelessness literature direct comparisons between men and women are rare, and the ability to compare is complicated by the tendency for research to be either on 'single homelessness' or 'family homelessness'. This thesis addresses this gap and systemically explores the ways in which homelessness is a gendered phenomenon. The research for this thesis focused on homelessness practices in a specific British city. The approach was an ethnographic one and included interviews with homeless people, homeless service providers, statutory housing officers and an observational element in specialist homeless person's assessment centres. The research found that the services provided to homeless people are not neutral in respect to gender. There were found to be differences in the treatment of men and women while homeless and in the options available to them. There were gender differences in the staff and client approaches at the homeless person's assessment centres. The use of discretion in the provision of help and support for homeless people led to different treatment for women and men. Housing officers generally viewed homeless women as more vulnerable than men, and felt that reduced options for women in terms of service provision and accommodation meant that they deserved more favourable treatment as a result. There were also found to be gendered assumptions built into homelessness legislation. Although homeless women are often seen as more vulnerable than men this was not found to translate into better service provision or options for women. In general there was less emergency and supported accommodation for women although that which was available was smaller and often better quality than men's. There were some clear gaps in provision for homeless people, especially for people with children. The uptake of resettlement services was affected by staff perceptions that women were more able and willing to move into independent accommodation than men.

This thesis provides an account of the lives and experiences of a group of female intravenous drug users in Glasgow. Based on fifteen months' participant observation of the women in their own setting and in-depth interviews carried out at the end of this period, it is the first full ethnographic account of the lifestyle of female drug users. It charts their entry into drugs, the various ways in which they provide for their drug use, their relationships with friends, partners, family members and children as well as attitudes towards professionals such as Social Workers with whom they come into contact by virtue of their status as drug using mothers. Finally, the efforts the women make to give up their use of drugs are examined along with the reasons which make these endeavours difficult. The evidence suggests that, ironically, the lifestyle which evolves around their use of drugs offers an arena in which the women are able to find a degree of independence and purpose otherwise lacking in their lives and which makes their drug using lifestyle attractive even when disadvantages become apparent.

More cattle, less deforestation? Land use intensification in the Amazon is an unexpected phenomenon. Theories of hollow frontier, speculative behaviour and boom-bust all share the prediction that livestock production will remain largely extensive. Yet between 1996 and 2006 productivity of cattle grew by an astounding 57.5% in the average Amazon municipality. How can this unlikely outcome be explained? What consequences for deforestation and human development? I provide a new framework for the analysis of the link between intensification, deforestation and development, focusing on four key elements: (i) frontier migration, (ii) land speculation, (iii) the rebound effect hypothesis, and (iv) the boom and bust hypothesis. Does rising land productivity of cattle increase deforestation? If so, how? Based on a comparative case-study approach I assess the micro-level foundations of the proposition that intensification leads to frontier migration and deforestation. I employ an innovative procedure to collect georeferenced survey data that I then use to provide an initial test of the proposed model of land use intensification and frontier migration. I further use secondary data and spatial econometrics to look for evidence of a positive relation between cattle intensification and deforestation (‘rebound effect’). The results suggest a substantial land-sparing effect, whereby intensification in consolidated areas is associated with lower deforestation in frontier municipalities. Do booms in deforestation lead to busts in development? I use different sources of secondary data to scrutinize the theory that predicts welfare to bust as deforestation advances, and find consistent evidence against the supposition that deforestation impacts welfare in either direction. Land use intensification is the opposite of a bust in agricultural output, so the rejection of the boom-bust hypothesis is in agreement with the depiction of a rising land productivity. This does not preclude deforestation from affecting long-term welfare in the Amazon or in the rest of the world, neither does it imply that conservation should not be a policy objective. It suggests that policymakers facing explicit short term welfare targets at the local level may focus on other policy variables than deforestation.

The DIYbio (Do-It-Yourself biology) group was established with the aim of turning biology and biotechnology into a creative practice accessible to everyone. The group is composed of graduate and post-graduate students and drop-out graduate students, but also disenfranchised researchers and professionals who see in the initiative the possibility of reviving their passion for science. Inspired by the analogy of the personal computer as a 'spokes-technology' for a free, egalitarian and decentralized society, that of the free and open-source software movement, and inspired by the image of the Victorian amateur and his home laboratory, DIYbio members organize regionally in what they call 'community laboratories,' or they practice in the comfort of their homes. Based on a series of interviews with DIYbio members, participants' observations of DIYbio's transient practices and a literary analysis of DIYbio members' use of social media, this thesis traces what I provisionally call 'the making of a personal biology.' Starting from the narrative formation the network, it then moves from the foundation of the DIYbio network in 2008 to the establishment of the first 'community laboratories', tracing the contingent orchestration of a diverse set of people, sites, tools and events, into a four-year community building effort. Due to its recent emergence in the field of Science and Technology Studies, only a limited number of research initiatives engage with the DIYbio network. Such works, mainly in the form of dissertations chapters and short articles, are analytically rich but limited in their observations, and often focus only on specific aspects of the network (Aguiton, 2010; Roosth, 2010; Delfanti, 2011; Meyer, 2012). This thesis recognizes the emergence of the DIYbio network as a cultural phenomenon in itself, and addresses the gap in the literature by tracing how DNA became hackable and biology became personal. Following Donna Haraway's effort to critically address the politics of technoscience as a practice of 'turning tropes into worlds' (1997: 59), the overarching topic of this research is how the trope of the biohacker became a world, and what type of world it became. The aim of this research is, therefore, to explore how members of the DIYbio network and biohackers define themselves, construct their identities and organize their work. This research also aims to situate the discourses and practices of DIYbio members in a context where governments and industries are intensifying their effort to make the coming century of biology into a reality.

This thesis is a study of three public libraries, two in the Berlin district of Wedding, and one in Thornton Heath, south London. In these neighbourhoods with high levels of ethnic diversity, poverty and transience, the libraries offer a ‘window’ onto their localities, spaces in which local concerns, ideas and practices of contemporary multicultural urban life are played out. Through ethnographic fieldwork in two European cities, this thesis reflects on the particularity of the library as a local institution, and the ways in which larger political concerns emerge in these institutions. In interviews with library staff and in participatory work with library users, I trace how forms of social need and competency, questions of social difference and social justice, and pervasive concerns with demonstrations of value are spoken and unspoken in each site. In considering institutional narratives from library staff alongside the voices of library users, multiple interests and needs are made audible, and the library emerges as a space where expectations and priorities must be negotiated on a daily basis. The thesis explores the library as offering forms of public life and visibility to groups for whom ‘publicness’ is not a given: young children, older women, and teenagers. It argues for the library as an important interstitial space, a place ‘between’ the public life of the street and other forms of public participation, and as a site of social mediation. At the same time, it demonstrates the contingency of public space, the tensions around its use, and points where the library comes up against the limits of its institutional capacity. This thesis contributes to the sociology of public life, public space and public goods, exploring these issues through a highly visible yet under-researched institution, ‘placing’ this discussion within a nuanced account of the city neighbourhoods in which the research is located.

The Fairtrade movement in the UK has witnessed impressive growth over the last ten years. Fairtrade products are now available beyond the dedicated network of church halls and Oxfam shops and through the mainstream retail sector. Whilst this growth has been widely represented as the result of thousands of individual citizen-consumers ‘voting’ for fairer trade, this thesis tells a different tale. Moving away from accounts of consumption that rely on models of conscious, expressive and reflexive choice, the study demonstrates the importance of paying attention to the increasing institutionalisation of forms of collective Fairtrade purchasing, as well as the ways in which orientations towards consumer goods are guided by levels of commitment to varied social practices. Based within a Fairtrade town – a place with a community of Fairtrade supporters who are actively campaigning to switch the systems of collective provision within the town to Fairtrade-only lines – and employing a range of mixed-method research techniques, this thesis uniquely pays attention to both the ‘Fairtrade supporter’ and the ‘non-Fairtrade supporter’. In so doing it highlights why attempts to change people’s behaviour through the provision of information alone are unlikely to be successful. Consumers are not infinitely malleable and the practices that guide their routine consumption are supported by a whole range of collective structures, including cultural norms and discourses, institutional frameworks and infrastructures of provision. These are not easily transformed through interventions aimed at the individual level, in other words individuals’ behaviours, attitudes and choices. The thesis also contributes to debates about levels and types of citizen-engagement, interrogating the assumption that those who do not engage in Fairtrade consumption behaviour are apathetic or lack certain types of knowledge. Instead the findings suggest that citizen-consumers are capable of expressing reasoned objections and scepticism to the model of individual responsibility that is being directed towards them.

This is a thesis about the changing place of animals in post-Franco Spain, with particular reference to bullfighting, popular festivities, and pet-keeping. The thesis argues that since the ‘transition’ to democracy (1975-1982), which made Spain one of the most liberal social-democratic states in Europe, there have been several notable developments in human-animal relations. In some important respects, Spain has begun to shed its unenviable reputation for cruelty towards animals. Three important changes have occurred. First, bullfighting (corridas) has been banned in the Canary Islands (1991) and in Catalonia (2010). In addition, numerous municipalities have declared themselves against it. Second, although animals are still widely ‘abused’ and killed (often illegally) in local festivities, many have gradually ceased to use live animals, substituting either dead ones or effigies, and those that continue to use animals are subject to increasing legal restrictions. Third, one of the most conspicuous changes has been the growth in popularity of urban pet-keeping, together with the huge expansion of the market for foods, accessories and services - from healthy diets to cemeteries. The thesis shows that the character of these changing human-animal relations, and the resistance they encounter, can only be properly understood within the context of Spain’s historical trajectory since the 1970s. Aside from the transition to democracy, among the more important influences are the continual urbanising/modernising processes; entry into the EU and the move towards ‘Europeanism’; the rule of democratic law (after forty years of Francoism); the rise of an effective animal movement; the public rejection of political and personal violence; ongoing and vigorous debates about local, regional and national ‘identities’, and the popular desire to see Spain as ‘normal’ (civilised) rather than ‘different’ (primitive).