This thesis uses the empirical setting of the UK retail book trade to critically assess sociological accounts of work and consumption and their relationship to the self. Drawing on talk with bookshop workers, representations of the book-trade and trade press, it examines the ways in which the book-trade is historically constructed, both as a market for symbolic goods and as a distinctive type of workplace. This distinctiveness is put to use by both firms and workers in the organisation of production and in the construction of occupational identities. Its roots, though, are in the historical construction of the idea of self, drawn from romanticism, and a view of culture as related to notions of self-development. A key element of the romantic self (Campbell 1983, 1987) is its critical distance from the market and from processes of commodity exchance. As such, the creation and distribution of cultural material is rhetorically removed from broader processes of production and consumption. In the context of the book trade this generates tensions between cultural and commercial imperatives which feed into employment relationships. Books and reading are also examined as particular types of objects and activity that have been discursively associated with the development of self. These associations allow for particular orientations to work in the retain book industry which problematise accounts of the self as diminished or colonised in the context of the retail or service environment. Whilst accounts of the contemporary workplace emphasise the extent to which the 'selves' of workers are shaped by managerial initiatives, the example of the retail book trade suggests that worker conceptions of the self allow for critical distance from aspects of the employment relationship and for the aesthetic appreciation of work experiences. Rather than exemplifying the reflexive self of late-modernity, this thesis argues that this bookselling self is also embedded in relationships of cultural capital (Bourdieu 1984, 1996).

The aim of this thesis is to illustrate how stories and extracts from stories can be used to investigate issues centred on organisational identity in the British Parachute Regiment, the `tribe' at the centre of this research. This thesis employs a narratological approach (Brown, 2001) in an autoethnographic study (Ellis and Bochner, 2000) in which I myself, as a member of the `tribe' and as a scholar, am centrally implicated. By adopting this methodology the thesis includes a reflexive examination of me as a Paratrooper and as an emergent scholar. These identities can be understood as two constituents of my own `parliament of selves' (Mead, 1934). By using myself as `subject' and conducting an analysis of my own `internal soliloquy' (Athens, 1994), I was able to frame a study to explore and analyse my methodology, and to illuminate the processes of autoethnographic research on which I was embarked by reference to notions of reflexivity, paradigm incommensurability and representation. The resultant story of my research is an interpretive account, constructed between the `polyphonic' voices of my brother Paratroopers who volunteered their stories as part of my research, and myself. Data collection involved interviewing 68 other Paratroopers for between 30 and 120 minutes using a semi-structured interview schedule, either at their place of work or in their homes. These interviews were taped, fully transcribed and analysed using a form of grounded theory. The interviews were conducted with three interconnected parts of the `tribe' - full time serving soldiers of the Parachute Regiment, part-time members of the Territorial Battalion, and members of an extended `brotherhood' of retired Paratroopers who were active members of the Parachute Regiment Association (PRA). I analyse my data using two theoretical frameworks. First, I make use of Albert and Whetten's (1985) understanding of organisational identity to interpret what Paratroopers believed to be central, distinctive and enduring about their Regiment and themselves. In so doing I also consider issues of image (Dutton and Dukerich, 1991; Dutton et al., 1994) and reputation (Fombrun and Shanley, 1990). Second, I employ Elsbach's (1999) model of organisational identification (identification; disidentification; schizo-identification; and neutral-identification) to analyse individual-organisation relationships. In particular, I focus on what I refer to as `strong', `weak' and the `dark side' of organisational identification (cf. Dukerich, et al., 1999). I then conduct four readings of the data in which I have addressed: (1) issues of representation and credibility in autoethnographic research; (2) organisational narcissism (Brown, 1997) (3) the symbolism inherent in the attire worn by Paratroopers both at work and play; and (4) the `implied contract' between Paratroopers and the Regiment (Watson, 2001) with particular reference to ‘breaches' and `violations, ' which in turn affect the strength of organisational identification. Finally, I draw some conclusions regarding my research contribution.

The historiography of early modern violence has generally focused upon the quantification of homicide over the longue durée. However, such approaches, predicated on the assumption that violence is a transhistorical phenomenon, conceal the differences between past and present discourses. This thesis makes an original contribution to knowledge by showing the significance violence held for contemporaries. This is achieved by locating violence within a wide cultural framework. Employing a largely qualitative methodology, the thesis elucidates the relationship seventeenth-century religious, political and physiological thought had with conceptions of violence. Drawing together existing work and utilizing a variety of primary sources, the thesis demonstrates the diverse meanings invested in violence, including the significance attributed to weapons and the parts of the body targeted. Historical research into violence has sometimes been theoretically uninformed. The thesis redresses this by engaging closely with definitions of the concept 'violence', including those developed in other disciplines. It examines and rejects the (often implicit) claim that violence is intrinsically irrational. It asserts that, as a type of emotional performance, violence served an important communicative ftmction. Force was also used to meet specific material objectives. The thesis argues that seventeenth-century violence was part of a process and, accordingly, situates it in relation to preceding and succeeding events. It assesses the use of force in defining economic and social status within interpersonal relationships. The thesis explains the role played by those who intervened to stop fights. It shows how violence advertised problems in relationships and prompted peace-making efforts. The thesis contends that views of its harmfulness relative to other sanctions have changed substantially, making it anachronistic for historians to regard violence as necessarily deplorable and to interpret declining levels as an index of civilisation.

Four texts from Arendt and Benjamin are the scene of our thinking. We enact the question of time as a refusal to abide by the modern conception of time, where the present is the only ground of the real. We argue for a notion of time, in which all that-has-been is considered a site of real experience. Firstly we discuss Arendt's book On Revolution. Through issues such as history, the eventful and revolt we show the usefulness of the question of time to further our understanding. Secondly in Arendt's 'What is Freedom', freedom is discussed beyond the private individual, as a matter of plurality, of living together. The question of time shows freedom grounded beyond the individual's present, in the historical time of plurality. With Benjamin's essay 'On some motifs in Baudelaire' we show poetry as a challenge to the symbolic environment of the commodity world. Poetry appears as a keeper of our relation to the time of memory and language that precedes us. In Benjamin's 'The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility', we distinguish art from technology through the question of time. Art's experience involves an active relation with what-has-been, with past generations; it challenges the technological way of relating to the world that destroys the depth of human expenence. Finally, Arendt and Benjamin are presented together, stressing their use of history and tradition to address the problems of modernity. Their effort to think the eventful is related to their negation of historical progression. From the question of time, their thinking teaches us a form of critique that denies the preconception of presence as being the totality of the real. Under their gaze presence is revealed as a changing surface under the sway of history, of time.

In this thesis I examine theoretical underpinnings to policies of equality of opportunity and in so doing, offer the case for: a) including classism within the realm of equality of opportunity policy; b) a re-evaluation of ethnic monitoring procedures to embrace contemporary concerns about the category construct of ethnic identity; c) the development of an ethics of sex relations to complement strategies to combat material sexism. In supporting my case I explore enlightenment conceptions of equality against contemporary late and postmodern debates about difference and otherness. This exploration includes an assessment of Italian and French theories of sex difference. I conclude with an assessment. of the tension between social and private determinants of disadvantage and inequality.

This research study is concerned with the concept of social inclusion, its significance, its origins, its definition and its history. It looks particularly at its development in the United Kingdom since the election of a Labour Government in 1997 and, in that context, the implementation of a Social Inclusion Strategy by a County Council referred to throughout as ‘Someshire’. It offers as an example of reflective inquiry an evaluation of aspects of the implementation of the Strategy led by the Council’s Education Department and some comments on the Council’s own, previous, evaluation of the whole Strategy. Through this study, it engages with a range of stakeholders including schools, County Council Officers and representatives of parents and school governors in an attempt to discover what has gone well and why. It concludes with a set of recommendations for action by a range of parties who, in their different policy contexts, might wish to promote social inclusion. Finally, this study has been written by a senior Local Education Authority Officer. This results in the emergence of two voices within it. In Chapter 1 there can be perceived the voice of the traditional researcher, attempting what Schon describes as the ‘technical rationality’ of traditional research. In Chapters 2, 4 and, to some extent, 5 the voice changes to that of the ‘reflective practitioner’ with its reliance on the ability to intuit, know-in-action, an ability derived from over thirty years working in education, principally as an educational manager.

Whereas a number of influences have directed the attention of sociologists and others towards language as a feature of social phenomena, these same influences have served to reveal wide discrepancies in the place accorded to figurative language, and to metaphor in particular. This has proved to be the case both in respect of the phenomena studied and of the subsequent writing. These influences have included, inter alia, 'the linguistic turn' in philosophy, the rise and fall of structuralism both as philosophy and as a model for anthropology, and also in the development of ethnomethodology from phenomenology. The thesis specifically locates the enquiry within the writer's biography and is not sited within anyone traditional discipline, but has rather been a reading 'between literature and science' and one 'privileging' metaphor over concept. The attempt to explore the 'privileging' of metaphor over concept renders problematic an understanding of language as langue, and prefers parole. Rendering language problematic has consequences for how knowledge and science are understood. In parallel with the reading, an ethnomethodological study of a school was undertaken in order to provide a context in which the outcomes of the reading could be sited and compared, leading to a consideration of metaphor within ethnography. With these starting assumptions, a report is made of a limited number of authors who have been widely acknowledged as influential in considerations of metaphor. Aristotle is read, through and against recent interpreters, as if an ontology of metaphor were considered undesirable. This leads to an understanding of metaphor as a tool. Hobbes is seen through the work of Quentin Skinner as one who, influenced by his contemporary Descartes, is critical of the use of metaphor in spite of his articulate use of it. Vico, not widely influential until the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, reveals a diachronic picture of the primacy of metaphor in relation to the development of concepts, later supported by Herder who offered a complementary, though synchronic, version. Nietzsche, writing in a post-Darwin context, sees the formation of metaphor as the fundamental human drive and links it with truth as a value. Work on metaphor during the latter parts of the twentieth century is described beginning with I. A. Richards, leading to brief considerations, inter alia, of Max Black, W. V. O. Quine, Mary Hesse, Rom Harre and Hayden White. Writers in the social sciences who have been explicit about the part played by metaphor, Victor Turner, R. H. Brown, R. A. Nisbet and D. McCloskey are acknowledged. Donald Davidson is seen as particularly influential, denying the possibility of a separate notion of metaphorical meaning and confirming a denial of langue. Richard Rorty is seen as a writer who has treated metaphor positively in his Contingency, Irony and Solidarity and his use of metaphor there is examined in its variety. Throughout, the Nietzschean view of the formation of metaphor as the fundamental human drive is connected with Cohen's view that metaphor cultivates intimacy. It is on this basis that the above writers, some of whom would otherwise be seen as belonging to different genres, most prominently philosophy, have contributed to social thought, and to the place of metaphor within it. The insight into metaphor as a fundamental human drive and as cultivating intimacy is then linked with the view that metaphor becomes valued as concept by virtue of the work done in linking past action to new circumstances. This combination, one linking metaphor with pragmatism, is used as a pattern by which to inspect others' writings. The widespread rejection or devaluation of metaphor in social theory could then be related to its role having been undermined by the rhetoric of natural science, though freed somewhat by T. S. Kuhn, an undermining which threatens creativity and the cultivation of intimacy with its implications for the formation and sustaining of communities. The supposition, for reasons of the production of social science, that once the analogies contained in or suggested by a metaphor may thereafter be discarded, is resisted on the grounds that history is overlooked, persons are no longer seen in relation, knowing and certainty work to bring play to an end, learning is transformed from personal engagement to instruction, community is replaced by rules for rational conduct, and obedience replaces discovery and growth. Metaphor explicitly identified offers hope.

This work provides an explanation for the existence of youth that goes beyond the analysis presented by the mainstream sociology of youth and its critics. This involves not only a deconstruction of the sociology of youth, but also a deconstruction of the nature of reality which it supports. I undermine this reality by utilising a theory of abstraction developed by Karl Marx initially from his work on alienated labour and later through his theory of commodity fetishism. Following Marx I suggest that the real world is in fact an abstract (virtual) reality. As part of that reality youth is an abstraction which exists in a concrete form. I trace the development of this abstraction to its manifestation in its most modern form as youth. I suggest that youth has always existed, but not as youth. I argue that the modern form of youth was derived in 1948 as the product of a particular configuration of the productive consumption between capital and labour. I explore the development of this relationship as it manifests itself in its various youthful forms (: Elvis-the teenager ... punk) and through a particular regulatory device (: the training state). I conclude that there is no future for youth as youth, by which I mean there is no work, by which I mean there is no money, by which I mean there is no adulthood, by which I mean there is no responsibility, only not responsibility. I suggest that the sociology of youth, and in particular the work of the cultural theorists, e. g. S. Hall, and the practical policies that it supports are, in fact, condemning youth to its existence as youth, for which there is no future. Although the subject matter of the work is youth I am also concerned with the nature of my own subjectivity. This concern includes my own subjectivity as a co-operating employee of the training state and as a subject involved in academic research. I become what I am: an immanent part of the social reality I am trying to explain. This incursion denies the detached perspective of social science and demands a critique of its methodology which I support with reference to painterly (: Cubist) and scientific theories of relativity. I connect these more complete explanations of the real world with Marx's own theory of relativity: the law of value. This engagement with relativity enables me to investigate the determined forms of social existence, e. g. time, space, subjectivity, youth and social life itself, beyond these determinations and, therefore, beyond the future.

This thesis shows the ways in which the strategies and tactics of the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) have evolved, in response to changes in the world economy and society and as part of the development of an international industrial relations system. It uses a series of cases to examine key features of the organisation and to show how it has responded to important challenges. These include: the creation of a separate European trade union organisation and the nature of the ICFTU's relation to it; the relations and the search for unity between the ICFTU and its Christian rival, the WCL; the campaign against apartheid in South Africa and violations of human rights in Chile and other countries; the rise of women's participation and representation within the world body, and most importantly, the development of the international trade union movement's campaign against the multinational corporations and around the theme of 'globalisation'. I conclude that the ICFTU is constrained on all sides as an organisation - through limited independent powers of action, disunity among its affiliates, the decline in the membership and influences of national unions, the scarcity of resources, and other factors - but that it has been able to act effectively under certain circumstances and when certain key conditions are met, such as the willingness to act among affiliated unions that was built up around the problem of apartheid, or the leading role played by the confederation in promoting women's equality.

The current thesis aims to clarify some aspects of the relationship between biology and social bonds. The central task is to demonstrate that, despite clear problems of some past approaches claiming to represent biology, there is non-reductive compatibility between the perspective from cultural approaches documenting processes of social bonding in humans and the perspective from basic biological theory. In demonstrating this compatibility, the thesis also attempts to contribute to delineating the utility and limits of applying insights from biology to understanding aspects of human social behaviour, and to sociological study in general. The areas of social bonding and social relationships under focus are mainly at the level of individuals and primary social groups, rather than a structural-functional approach often employed in classical sociology of the family and comparative sociology. The thesis initially reviews recent cultural approaches to understanding social bonding, and notes the potential academic value of a clarification of the association between social kinship and physical ('related by blood') kinship. In reviewing biological theory on social bonding and social behaviour, it is argued that classic sociobiological interpretations of this biological theory are erroneous in some crucial respects, and a different interpretation is argued for. Evidence on processes mediating social bonding in social mammals and particularly in primates is reviewed. It is demonstrated that circumstantial, social and contextual 'cues' typically mediate the formation of primary social bonds in these species, not genealogical relationship per se, and that these findings are compatible with basic sociological theory. In the human case, it is demonstrated that the current interpretation of biological theory is also compatible with established disciplines closely associated with detailing mechanisms of social bonding (such as attachment theory). The consensus here is again that social bonds are mediated by various social and contextual cues rather than genealogical relationship per se. Contemporary cultural approaches to describing processes of social bonding are investigated and found to be also compatible with the present interpretation of biological theory. With this basic compatibility demonstrated, the possible implications for analyses of patterns of social bonding in human societies is discussed. Delineating the scope of the biological perspective underlines the importance of analysing sociological and cultural influences on patterns of social bonding, including historical, economic and political factors. This is illustrated with some examples.