The main purpose of the following inquiry is to emphasise the importance of a phenomenon long neglected by the majority of the human sciences, the artefact; each one of us, no matter what age, sex or culture, is in contact with artefacts every moment of our lives yet despite this they have received scant attention. The study begins by outlining a definition of the artefact, highlighting those characteristics which, in combination, ensure its centrality to social life before, through a discussion of Popper's ideas, proceeding to see how material culture can be conceptualised as meaningful. In order to understand how meaning becomes attached to the artefact the notion of objectification will be analysed and, consequently, so shall the importance of both the type of activity and the physical nature of the materials involved in the artefact's production. Picking up on the theme of materiality this aspect of material culture will be shown to pose major problems to any interpretation of the artefact along semiological lines; language and material culture are evinced to possess fundamentally distinct characteristics which make comparisons between them far from straightforward. These differences will be analysed further, concentrating specifically on the role of context in the establishment of meaning. This leads on to the proposal that our understanding of artefacts can occur on three levels; three forms of knowledge are thus described of which a linguistically formulated type constitutes just one kind. The penultimate chapter tackles the ways in which artefacts affect us, how they are active elements in our relationships with them; therefore, a dialectical position is postulated in which both artefacts and agents take part. Finally, the study concludes by stressing some of its wider implications and suggests a few of the practical situations to which it can be applied.

This thesis explores online sociability practices in a discussion website for feminist activists in Central and Eastern Europe. It examines the constitution of identity, community and social action focusing on interactive, generic, technological, and discursive context of online communication. The project draws its methods from action research framework and virtual ethnography, and investigates key themes of the thesis through designing an online discussion forum and participating in its collective discussions. Its analytical strategy is informed by sociolinguistic approaches which perceive language as relational, dialogic and encompassing action. Drawing on a variety of theoretical frameworks, including Bakhtin's philosophy of language, speech act theory, contemporary approaches to genre studies, feminist theory and praxis debates, cyberfeminism and actor network theory, I analyze identity, community, and feminist action as sites of social action shaped by interactive exchanges, generic forms of communication, technology, and feminist discourse. On the one hand, I interrogate how commonsense/popular feminism constructs online feminist action and agency, and on the other how the textual/discursive/virtual context of the Internet challenges and has the potential to shift the understanding of these terms. I argue that on the new terrain of the Internet, speech and action have been reconfigured and that the modernist understanding of embodied action and self determined subjectivity that informs traditional action research as well as activist strategies has to shift. This thesis further argues that certain strands of radical feminism constitute a common rhetorical place through which the participants negotiate their identity, authority, the terms of membership and articulate action in an international and virtual speech community. It describes these 'common places' as idiomatic feminism and implies that they function as a metanarrative/ meta-political commonsense that crosses international borders. This thesis points to\vard the need to rethink questions of action and agency on the Internet and become more attuned to the rhetorical-material-discursive context of their production.

The research undertaken for this largely qualitative dissertation draws on newspaper articles, oral histories, historical documentation, open-ended interviews, and to a lesser extent, questionnaires, in the effort to ultimately confirm the extent to which the benefitting forces of globalization have fractured any existing traditional-historical cultural body of knowledge and expression among the Caymanian people. Indeed, by 2009 some Caymanians had long been verbally denouncing the social and cultural ills of globalization – inclusive of multiculturalism – on their so-called traditional, unassuming way of life, some of them clamoring for an extensive purge of the many foreign nationals in “their” Cayman Islands. Yet, other Caymanians have become somewhat invested in the idea of multicultural “oneness” ostensibly for the sake of peaceful coexistence, harmony and prosperity as these work towards the promotion of a global, borderless cultural awareness. This dissertation relies on theoretical frames centred both on the discrete natures of, and the dualistic struggle between, these two opposing ideological-cultural forces. That this struggle is taking place in the present age, I anticipate the ways in which more modern understandings, which are potentially open to liberating subjectivities, must clash with “historical”, xenophobic and nationalistic viewpoints, viewpoints which have constantly proven contradictory given their adherents’ complacent acceptance of, and participation in, a localised economic prosperity substantively dependent on foreign input. Thus in aggregate terms, this dissertation pinpoints the various effects of an evolving scheme of values and counter-values on an ideologically torn Caymanianness whose contradictory traditional half is especially fighting for its “cultural purity” in an era where its ‘reinvented’ logic is being more and more regarded as anachronistic and somewhat irrational.

This thesis examines some perceptions of collective behaviour and psychology in some nineteenth and twentieth century literature. Focusing on selected works by three novelists, Charles Dickens's Barnaby Rudge (1841) and A Tale of Two Cities (1859), Emile Zola's Germinal (1885) and Elias Canetti's Auto-da-Fe (1935), it is an attempt to analyse the cultural representations of the nature, psychology and behaviour of crowds from 1841-1960. We attempt to contextualize the models of the crowd present in each novel and the interpenetration of the development of crowd theory and political experience. We also evaluate the novelists' attitudes towards the crowd and the implications of their approaches for public policy. We argue that Dickens, failing to distinguish between individual and collective psychology, has a pre-modern perception of the crowd. Zola, placing collective behaviour in a positivist framework presents a modern view of the crowd psychology that prefigures in essentials the classical crowd theory of Le Bon. Canetti, questioning the approach of received crowd theory, and the traditional presumption that the crowd is necessarily unconscious, instinctual and anti-social, presents a post-modern interpretation of the crowd which corresponds to the highly original insights of his crowd monograph, Crowds and Power.

Economic theory traditionally explains choice under risk through the preferences of the individual, yet many important economic decisions are made by groups. To increase our understanding of the implications of group decisions and enrich our theories accordingly, we need empirical and experimental evidence on groups. Although economists have conducted controlled laboratory experiments on individual choice for many decades, only recently have researchers begun to use the experimental method to study group decisions under risk. This thesis contributes to the study of group decision making under risk by providing a cross-disciplinary review of the growing literature on this topic, followed by three experiments on risk-taking by groups. The first experiment investigates the role of communication and peer effects, the second experiment investigates group composition, and the final experiment focuses on information sharing in groups.

The thesis expands the field of scholarly enquiry on the Cuban intervention in Angola beyond the frame of geopolitics into the area of cultural politics. It considers the relation between Africa as a cultural and political `territory' in the Cuban imaginary and the epic internationalist mission known as Operation Carlota. By focusing on representations and manifestations of 'Africanness' in discursive practices ranging from culture and the arts to domestic and foreign policy, the enquiry illustrates how the notion of Cuba as Latin-African evolved in relation to changes in revolutionary ideology during the period known as the quinquenio gris, and with regard to the swell of liberation movements throughout the African Diaspora. My approach proceeds from Victor Turner's theory of liminality, which discusses how ritual behaviour and symbolism - rites de passage - may be used as concepts for an understanding of social structure and processes With this view in mind, I construct a theoretical framework that conjoins the notion of ritual in Cuba's Africa derived religious practices with the more general idea of war, or in this case internationalism, as a social ritual. In this way, I demonstrate that the Angolan Experience was essential to the transformation of Cuban collective identity from Latin American to Caribbean by the 1980s. This shift, I claim, was sponsored, on the international level, by the symbolism of the military mission as an epic re-enactment of the West African Diaspora/Caribbean myth of return, and, on the national level, by slave iconology. The methodological technique used combines a critical hermeneutic reading of cultural productions with postcolonial styles of social and cultural analysis.

This thesis explores the influence of organizational workplace cultures on the lived experience of work-life balance for individual employees. It focuses on the experiences of a specific professional group called occupational therapists and samples these in two workplace organizations in the public sector; one healthcare and one social services setting. In-depth interviews were used to gather participants’ accounts. Findings suggested that the social services setting had more temporal flexibility, and a more supportive culture of work-life balance than healthcare, but that both organizations utilised power and performance to the advantage of organizational outcomes. Individual employees had little autonomy, control and choice over work-life balance and both organizations created and maintained a state of work-life imbalance as opposed to work-life balance for their staff. Both organizations used the individual occupational therapist’s time and energy as a human resource in the workplace, irrespective of the subsequent impacts on the individual’s personal and family well-being. There was a notable absence from participation in the community and wider social and natural environments in all accounts shared. This study posits that having time and energy for such activities in daily life would enhance well-being at multiple levels of significance and create a more balanced, sustainable and resilient model of work-life balance. Findings suggest that work-life balance is a co-produced phenomenon, with complex interconnected relationships and argues that viewing work-life balance as a whole rather than in its parts is necessary if we are to achieve an egalitarian model of work-life balance, valuing individual well-being and resilience and sustainability of human time and energy over organizational success. This study proposes that organizations need to adapt their cultures to develop a more egalitarian and employee-centred approach to work-life balance but identifies that cultural change at organizational levels alone would not be effective in challenging work-life imbalance.

Sure Start Children’s Centres deliver a wide range of services to families with young children. For over a decade an important aspect of Sure Start has been collaborative work involving diverse practitioners, professionals, agencies and organisations. The role of Children’s Centre Teacher (CCT) was established in 2005 with the aim of improving children’s social and cognitive development. This qualitative study examines the experiences of individual CCTs, paying attention to their descriptions of role, their professional identities and how they experience and understand collaborative working. The study uses two methods to collect data, iterative email interviews and personal interviews conducted on a one-to-one basis or in small groups. A total of 15 informants provided data through emails, interviews or both. In terms of role, the study finds that respondents report considerable differences between the centre-based role and that of a classroom teacher. Uncertainty, variability and change pervade their accounts. Despite this it is possible to identify key characteristics of the nature of CCT activity through CCTs’ comparisons of their new role and their previous work. In terms of identity, CCTs clearly position themselves as professionals and place themselves as senior members of the Children’s Centre team. However, identifying the CCT role as a unique profession, teaching specialism or discrete occupation is found to be problematic for a number of reasons. Informants endorse collaborative working, which they describe as part aspiration and part achievement, reporting a mixture of successes and barriers. Children’s Centre Teachers invoke two modes to describe the collaborative work they undertake, the first appears close to traditional models of interprofessional working, the second, which describes the majority of the work they undertake, casts CCTs as advisors and consultants to staff members they see as subordinate. The study also comments on how email interviews might be used in future research.

"'Love's Labours': Extreme Metal Music, and its Feeling Community" proposes an understanding of the nature of subcultural investments in music. It explores the distinct character of Extreme Metal music and the subcultural world that surrounds its fandom. In particular, it is concerned with the nature of attachments to and investments in subculture, investigating how fans feel part of a community, how identities are positioned and postured as 'Extreme Metal', and what processes and activities construct such identifications. Through qualitative research of a group of Extreme Metal fans, and drawing on a variety of theoretical concepts; it suggests that subcultural identities may be related to the processes of interaction and performance and the distinctive forms of subcultural habitus and expert labours linked to those activities. It further suggests that the fan/music relationship can be considered as a site of deep knowledges of 'self', performative labours and interpersonal relations in ways significantly more nuanced than previously theorised. It points to 'feeling' as a key feature of music fandom that provides the explanatory drive to take on, and embed oneself in, particular subcultural habitus, performances and kinship and thus subculture. It proposes that music subcultures can be understood as 'performative feeling communities' that anchor and forge forms of distinction.

This thesis is a discussion of the way young people of migrant and minority ethnic background experience schooling and plan for their futures within two different national contexts - England and Spain. It is based on a comparative and ethnographic fieldwork which I carried out in Birmingham and Madrid over the course of 14 months in 2007-2009. As part of the research, I did particular observation at a school in each city and interviewed a total of 54 young people. The thesis presents how they described their life at school, their plans and wishes for the future, and the influences which they considered important to their schooling and future lives. The education of migrant and minority ethnic groups is a topic that increasingly appears in public and political debates in Europe. Reports and research often describe education as crucial to socio-economic well-being and empowerment, but they also show a tendency among migrant and minority ethnic groups to be disadvantaged in terms of education. The literature presents a number of ways to understand this phenomenon and shows that schooling is affected by many complex and interlinking issues. Comparative research has good potential for exploring these complexities, but there is a gap within the existing comparative literature. Most comparative studies of migrant and minority ethnic youth in education are quantitative and analyse the situation of either large categories of young people or distinct ethnic or national groups. Furthermore, these studies focus almost exclusively on achievement and attainment. Thus, there is a lack of qualitative comparative research, which explores how young people from a variety of ethnic or national backgrounds experience schooling and plan for their future, and which discusses their experiences from a more holistic and contextual perspective. In this thesis I respond to this gap. I analyse the experiences of young people from a mixture of ethnic and national backgrounds. The data has been collected using qualitative ethnographic research methods. Finally, the findings are shaped by my informants’ narratives and perceptions and this has given the thesis a broader perspective than the traditional focus on achievement and attainment. The main findings arising from the data was the importance of social relations in influencing young people’s schooling experiences and life projects. Friends and family were described as particularly influential in providing support and socio-emotional wellbeing. In the thesis I analyse these findings through the lens of social capital. I argue that socio-emotional well-being should be considered a resource in itself and included in social capital theory. However, the analysis also shows that young people of migrant and minority ethnic origin do not all have the same conditions for accessing this ‘resource of well-being’. The thesis therefore concludes with a number of practical recommendations, aimed to improve the inclusion and general well-being of migrant and minority ethnic youth in schools.