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In this thesis I analyse paradigms for the conceptualisation of male-to-male sexuality as put forward in HIV/AIDS programming in India. This is an especially pertinent project; over the last decade, international and national HIV/AIDS agencies working in India have increasingly identified men who have sex with men as a ‘target population’ for community based intervention. By contrast, within the broader milieu of Indian society the notion of homosexual identity exercises little cognitive grip as a salient category for the constitution of specific persons. This is not withstanding ‘modern’, predominantly urban, middle class popularisations of ‘gay’ identity, nor the specification of various ‘indigenous’ categories of male-to-male sexuality, which have predominantly been outlined in policy oriented research. As a counterpoint to these concerns my research explores the experiences of men who have sex with men in Calcutta for whom categories of homosexual identity are either completely unfamiliar or, where used, inscribed within a far more subtle mesh of conflicting emotions and allegiances than current studies elucidate. Moreover, I argue that in many contemporary Indian contexts homosexuality is most often signified within relational tropes and social spaces made available within heteronormative parameters. Homosexuality therefore has an isomorphic correspondence to identity, meaning that policy and research needs better conceptions of the tacit conditions of sexual subjectivity. My thesis explores what this assertion means for the cross-cultural study of male-to-male sexuality and HIV/AIDS policy and programming.

The thesis looks firstly at creativity and the creative process, approaching the subject from a whole range of different viewpoints, such as the psychological, philosophical, biographical and anthropological angles. Following from this there is an exploration of the ways in which creativity way be awakened and unfolded. Special attention is given to the conditions and situations that are likely to encourage creative development and to the blocks and difficulties that inhibit its expression. Particular reference is made, on the one hand, to art education and to the art, leisure, and teaching student, and on the other hand, to art therapy and the psychiatric patient. The themes of the individual and the community are explored in a complementary way in the final two chapters. The thesis emphasizes the viewpoint of the student and the patient, but since these people do not exist in a vacuum, this involves looking also at the teacher, the therapist and society. With reference to the psychiatric field, other specific questions arise, for example: How may creative opportunities assist the healing process? What are the reciprocal influences of art and mental illness? Throughout the thesis the term 'art' is used in the visual sense, but references are made to creativity in other fields where parallel conclusions apply. The emphasis has been placed on the adult, but the subject of 'Creativity and the Teaching Student' involves some references to child art and 'Creativity and the Community' involves all ages.

The housing wealth experiences of ethnic minority home owners is relatively unexplored within the UK literature. This thesis makes a contribution to this field by exploring the experiences of African Caribbean post war families. There are a number of original points of departure to this literature that this study makes. Links are made with Caribbean migration and social anthropology literatures in developing fresh perspectives on the study of housing wealth among this group. The study avoids treating housing wealth in isolation from other networks within African Caribbean communities. Instead it develops a single asset network that positions housing wealth within a broader resource framework used to interpret home ownership careers and return migration planning. The study incorporates literature drawn from cultural consumption theory in exploring values and meanings attached to inheritances in the UK and Caribbean. An original methodological contribution is made in the use of life history methods in exploring consumption and transmission of housing wealth across two generations of the same family. The 13 families included in the study are drawn from Birmingham and London. The findings suggest that there is a complex interaction of networks used throughout home ownership careers. Informal financial networks in the form of intergenerational exchanges are used in supporting younger family members at the start of home ownership careers. There is evidence that inheritance of 'family land' in the Caribbean provided a focus for the investment of UK housing wealth to facilitate return migration. Other forms of housing wealth leakage took place, with evidence of investments in second homes in the Caribbean, kinship networks and entrepreneurial activity. This investment of UK housing assets in second homes across the Caribbean region suggests the creation of 'transnational housing markets'.

The British state has introduced increasingly restrictive immigration legislation in recent years, as part of an effort to create a hostile environment for undocumented migrants. For instance, the 2014 and 2016 Immigration Acts further criminalise working without papers, renting property, and driving as an undocumented migrant, in addition to restricting access to health care. Restrictive legislation has not, however, managed to deal with irregular migration, but increases breaches of immigration law. Instead of lowering net immigration, these new restrictions simply limit access to rights, and create vulnerability among undocumented migrants, which is experienced differently by men and women. Women without official immigration status mostly work and live in the domestic sphere, which can offer protection from the state. However, undocumented migrant women often experience domestic violence and work in exploitative settings, which are difficult to challenge, due to the fear of deportation and lack of access to support networks located in the public sphere. The question arises how undocumented migrant women perceive and learn about their rights while being confined to the private sphere. As little is known about the lives of undocumented migrant women in the UK, this thesis explores the role that rights and the law play in their lives. I draw on interview data, participant observation in migrants’ rights organisations, and sample applications to regularise immigration status based on human rights law, in order to investigate how undocumented migrant women perceive and relate to the law, how it structures their everyday lives, and the mechanisms they develop for survival. I analyse how the few existing rights that undocumented migrant women can claim are stratified and thus difficult to access. To claim rights, the women need free legal representation, which they find in community migrant support organisations that play a crucial role in actualising rights.

This thesis traces the settlement and history of an East Delhi resettlement colony, and the everyday and associational lives of its residents. Settled by the state at the height of the Emergency in 1976, from jhuggies demolished at the centre of the city, Punarvaspur sits within a longer history and politics of planning by the colonial and postcolonial developmental state. As such, Punarvaspur and neighbourhoods like it have long been, and continue to be the site of debates and anxieties about the place of ‘the urban poor' in the city, and of much NGO and political work. As the subjects of large-scale demolitions of housing and livelihood in the course of resettlement, residents' experience of these debates has been far from abstract. Even after 30 years, the aftermath of the resettlement still shapes social relations in the close physical spaces of Punarvaspur. For residents their frequent designation as ‘slum dwellers' makes them the subject of much development work, while by extension also labelling them as ‘illegal' ex-squatters. Drawing on the work of social theorists and geographers, particularly the work of Henri Lefebvre and Doreen Massey, the main aim of this thesis is to explore the spatial dimensions of the politics of development, through the lived experiences and spatial practices of its residents. By tracing how the socio-historical roots of planners' dominant ‘representations of space' are neither fixed, static, nor uniform, it can be seen how they are modified by the ‘spatial practices' and lived experiences of city dwellers as they are traced out over the fabric of Delhi. For instance, the space of the neighbourhood becomes a medium for the organisation and articulation of social relations in its public spaces. This can been seen in the marking of public spaces by groups through speech, organisational affiliations and concrete devotional shrines. Similarly, residents, NGOs, local politicians and others deploy ideas of morality, respectability, and difference to limit and enhance the agency and ability of themselves and others to act in the public space of the neighbourhood. In this way certain locales are understood as being in need of development as relationships around development are inscribed in space.

In the contemporary political world order that continues to be structured by the principle of national sovereignty, states remain the most important instrument for the delivery of rights. If we want to understand how human rights can be realized in practice, we therefore have to study the conditions and processes of their institutionalization on the state level. While the United Kingdom was relatively slow, compared to other western European democracies, in the domestic institutionalization of international human rights norms and standards, governments in Britain have between 1998 and 2008 created a complex human rights regime that still awaits a comprehensive analysis and assessment. This thesis fills that gap. Focusing on the Human Rights Act as the legal centerpiece, the Joint Committee on Human Rights as the parliamentary scrutiny body, and the Equality and Human Rights Commission for Great Britain as the largest human rights commission, this thesis examines the extent to which the British Human Rights Regime has contributed to the institutionalization of human rights in the UK. To that end, it develops and deploys the sociological ideal type of the human rights state as a qualitative analytical framework and as an external benchmark that is able to integrate the legal, political, and wider societal dimensions of effective human rights institutionalization. Based on the thematic analysis of case law, official documents and elite interviews with public officials, this thesis argues that the Human Rights Act, the Joint Committee on Human Rights and the Equality and Human Rights Commission have contributed to a significant institutional change in the domestic recognition and protection of human rights. They have introduced new rights norms and safeguards into British law, established new mechanisms for judicial and political rights review, and brought about important legislative and policy changes. Yet, their efficacy suffers from structural limitations that have been imposed so as not to fundamentally disturb the concentration of political power in the executive which is preserved by the constitutional doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty. In the Westminster system of parliamentary government, this doctrine continues to allow the executive to dominate the legislative process without strong constitutional human rights safeguards that would be domestically enforceable against primary legislation. While the preservation of parliamentary sovereignty was a key political requirement that enabled progress to the present state of domestic human rights institutionalization, it also prevents the sustainable entrenchment of human rights as fundamental and universally binding norms for the legitimate exercise of all juridical, legislative and executive state power, thereby leaving the British Human Rights Regime at permanent risk of abolishment or degradation.

This thesis has examined the associational lives of the educated African elite described in the Lagos newspapers between 1880 and 1920, focusing especially on articles about memorial associations, industrial and agricultural associations, and associations relating to the ceremonies ofthe British Empire. There are two purposes underlying this research. The first is to re-examine early colonial Lagos, which has been described as a divided society. The second is to re-evaluate the roles of the early Lagos press. Based on extensive examination of the Lagos newspapers, this thesis argues that the descriptions of associational activities in Lagos newspapers were part of a conscious project of the press tore-construct Lagos society by encouraging "unity" for an "African"/"Nigerian" way of progress. In addition to the Black Atlantic influences on the development of the idea of an African way of progress, it demonstrates the impact of Japan in the intellectual history of Nigeria. This thesis seeks to contribute to an understanding of the social life of the educated African elite and of press activity in early colonial Lagos within historical context that reveals new aspects of Lagos society between 1880 and 1920.

Firstly, the social functions of mass media are analysed, with critical assessment of some significant sociological and psychological literature on mass communication and related topics. It is concluded they operate principally to maintain definitional social categories in the context of change and to sustain a given level of public discussion. Secondly, leading theories of race relations and industrial relations are analysed critically; it is concluded that different theoretical approaches, typically applying to different levels of analysis, tend to be mutually contributive, not exclusive. Both sets of relationships are then briefly compared and contrasted. The nature of racial and industrial conflict in contemporary Britain is then surveyed, with reference to dominant perceptions of the situation and the objective character of these conflicts. Next, content analysis as a research technique is discussed, and the precise methods employed in this study axe described. Selected television and press coverage of the 1970 docks strike is then analysed, with a particular focus on levels of explanation, the degree of public participation in discussion, and the definitions provided of the situation. Certain related data are appended. The same task is subsequently performed in relation to immigration, domestic race relations, the sale of arms to South Africa, and some other topics. Certain related data are appended. Finally, these data are placed in their sociological context in Britain, by integrating them with an analysis of the social construction of consensus in that society. After discussion of certain theories interrelating culture and social divisions, together with analysis of certain institutions bearing on the construction of consensus, the particular role of the British news media, and the special functions of British ideologies of nationalism and objectivity, are surveyed. Conclusions for the relation between consensus and conflict in modern Britain are then stated.

This thesis investigates the Girls' Club Movement in multi-cultural London from the l880s to 1939 and situates it within the context of gender, class and race. Part One places the clubs in their historicalcontext and critically examines issues of poverty, sexual purity, morality, femininity and ethnicity. The ways in which ideas about race superiority interacted with class superiority in the formation of middle class values are also discussed as is the contemporary perception of working class and ethnic minority cultures. The cultural gap between the social classes is highlighted as are the forms of surveillance including disguise, which were undertaken in order to gain knowledge of working class life. Part Two looks at clubs in relation to the concerns discussed in Part One. Chapter Six (and the Appendix) survey the provision of clubs in London. Chapters Seven, Eight and Nine examine the clubs under the overlapping themes of protection, discipline and empowerment. The nature of this empowerment is examined in the context of the dominant ideology of married motherhood. Drawing on little-used club records and oral evidence, the thesis suggests that the clubs were part of a middle class initiative which aimed to re-make working class culture. The interaction between the club organizers and members is examined and it is suggested that a straightforward imposition of middle class values was not possible as a variety of factors were operating. Questions are raised about the possibility of 'sisterhood' within unequal class relations and 'social mothering' is considered as a form of humanized policing.