Synthetic biology is an emerging hybrid discipline that aims to apply an engineering approach to biology, in order to render biology controllable, predictable, and ultimately engineerable. Herein I explore synthetic biology as a project to control life at the molecular level through the lens of an ethnographic study of a newly formed academic synthetic biology research centre. Within this overarching narrative, I tease out two main stories regarding the field. First, I explore the topic of disciplinarity, investigating the work being done to establish synthetic biology as a hybrid discipline. Drawing on the ideas of repertoire, doability, and epistemic cultures, I explore the conflicts and compromises inherent in the attempt to form a hybrid discipline out of biology and engineering. I describe the strategies being employed to bridge this epistemic cultural divide, and the challenges in doing so. Second, I explore the work being done to bring the goals of the discipline to fruition. Synthetic biology’s dream of rendering biology engineerable is rooted in a reductionistic vision of life. This approach to biology raises both practical and conceptual issues. Thus, in exploring this story I address both the practical day-to-day work of synthetic biologists attempting to apply an engineering approach to biology, and the challenges these synthetic biologists face in conceptualising the products of that work. Third, I draw these stories together and show that synthetic biology is one among many disciplines emerging at the intersection of biology and engineering. I suggest that this fertile, if complicated, disciplinary crossroads may be the site of a conceptual shift in the way we ‘do’ and think about biology and ultimately, life.

Whilst there has been a high volume of research exploring quality of life, the specific issues important to the quality of life of people from older black and minority ethnic groups living in the United Kingdom (UK) remains relatively under explored. The aim of this research was to explore and understand the concept of quality of life held by older Chinese migrants living in the UK. The findings of this study provide an understanding of what is important to older migrants and why, as well as providing insight into the issues involved in cross-language and cross-cultural research. A qualitative approach was taken utilising grounded theory methodology. Data was collected using semi-structured interviews. 29 participants aged between 52 and 78 were interviewed; 17 interviews were undertaken in Cantonese with the aide of an interpreter. Quality of life emerged as a multi-dimensional concept and numerous influential factors were identified. Data analysis also resulted in a conceptual explanation of why these factors were important to participants - the concepts of identity, belonging and value systems emerged playing a crucial role in their lives and migration and ageing were identified as key variables. This led to a substantive grounded theory being developed that demonstrates that participants are involved in an ongoing process of constructing a harmonious sense of self across their lives, and that this is paramount in their quality of life. The research findings are related to existing theory and knowledge and how they extend or challenge them is discussed. The research supports the proposal that quality of life is a multi-dimensional, complicated concept and extends this to demonstrate that the sense of self is important in its construction and retention. Recommendations are made regarding application of the research findings and for the design of cross-language and cross-cultural research.

This thesis offers a comprehensive examination of the dilemmas posed by cyberspace for contemporary social research and in how far current ethical frameworks can manage the risks that may emerge in this new research environment. The study is situated in the period of 1998 to 2010, during which the social uses of rapidly converging technological tools led to the extension of the social world into a new social sphere of social interaction called cyberspace. Social scientists have been quick to explore this sphere; however, as the dominant discourses are based on ideas of newness and difference there is uncertainty over what kind of space it is, whether we can transfer existing methods and ethics and what rules apply in the conduct of research. The thesis first investigates the extent to which the technological tools and ethical dilemmas encountered in cyberspace are in fact new or different. This then necessitates a detailed engagement with the conceptualisation of cyberspace. Thereafter it closes a gap in dominant conceptualisations of cyberspace by offering insights into its legal and regulatory foundations. Next, the thesis reflects on legislation and regulations to identify emerging risks that emerge in everyday social research practice in the online environment. These risks are then used as vignettes to test current ethical guidance’s ability to manage them. The thesis argues that disciplines within the social sciences need to be continually reflexive about their encounters with new spaces, and concludes that cyberspace demands significant engagement with the difficulties posed by the rapid pace of change of technological development and regulatory and legislator foundations in order to manage risk in online social research. Thus while online research is the focus, the potential of this thesis is to offer a historical insight into the reflexivity of the discipline in particular in how successfully it encounters new spaces of/for research.

This thesis is an exploration of the experiences of young people on the autism spectrum as they navigate their social world. There is a dearth of qualitative literature which gives voice to the unique challenges faced by this population within society. The experiences of both victimisation and romantic relationships are explored; phenomena which are well recognised as impacting on wellbeing and mental health. It is hoped that this thesis will contribute to understanding how young people make sense of and manage these experiences to inform future clinical support. Chapter one is a critical systematic review of the qualitative literature exploring how children and young people on the autism spectrum experience and cope with victimisation. A database search yielded ten studies which met the specified criteria for inclusion. Young people's experiences fell broadly into two themes: impact on wellbeing and self as at fault with methods of coping sought from both internal and external sources. The findings had important clinical and research implications and called for further exploration of the potential impact that the phenomenon may have on this vulnerable group. Chapter two is a qualitative empirical study which explored the lived experience of romantic relationships for young women on the autism spectrum. Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) was employed to analyse the data of five participants from which three superordinate themes emerged: 'Navigating Ambiguity', 'Identifying Vulnerability' and 'Constructing the Future Self'. The findings served to broaden our understanding of the needs of this group to guide future clinical support. Directions for further research and limitations are discussed. Chapter three is a reflective account of the researcher's experience of conducting qualitative research and working clinically with young people on the autism spectrum. Parallels are drawn between the experiences reported by participants and those experienced by the researcher as a Trainee Clinical Psychologist. The impact of these experiences is discussed in terms of construction of the future self.

In this study, I examine how the BBC and ITV News at Ten covered the Mid Staffordshire hospital scandal between 17 March 2009 and 17 March 2014. The analysis focuses on the construction of healthcare and deviance in TV health news storytelling, and the institutional and individual social actors involved in the process. The failings themselves included the mistreatment and sometimes death of hundreds of patients at a local hospital in Stafford. These events led to an institutional scandal, where not only the local institution but the entire NHS, its culture and its leadership were identified as deviant folk devils. Drawing on approaches from sociology, criminology, journalism and media studies, I analyse the case study from a social constructivist perspective. The theoretical and conceptual framework includes storytelling, discourse, encoding and scandal, whilst the methodology combines analyses of TV news content with interviews with BBC and ITV news workers. Thereby, I engage with the reports themselves, the process of encoding them, and the power relations involved. The production of TV health news was negotiated between health and political specialists, who used different narrative strategies, such as interviews, to make the storytelling engaging. As for the TV coverage of the Mid Staffordshire hospital scandal, it went through four different phases: activations, reactions, amplification and justice. Each phase had its characteristics in terms of social actors and scandal processes, which served to drive the storytelling forward until the narrative became fixed by 2014. As such, I found that the process of scandalising the NHS reflects deeper and ongoing social changes regarding the media’s construction of powerful institutions and individuals as well as the wider issue of trust in authorities.

Since the 2013 nationwide protests in Brazil, the coverage of social issues by the country’s alternative media has reached unprecedented levels of notoriety. Media producers have laid bare the consequences of inequality, as seen in bad public services, crime and violence among the poorest, and episodes of class prejudice in the country’s biggest cities. This thesis aims to set new parameters to analyse the coverage of this alternative media scene, based on a framework called the peripheral media. It investigates the contribution that this amalgam of small media outlets can make to the politicization of inequality in Brazil. With limited infrastructure, could producers create a different type of politicized awareness based only on their discourse? How could the alternative media thus open a path to a more democratic media environment? This research has invested in interviews with media producers based across the country, and in a frame analysis of their content, to find common strategies used to raise the awareness of an indifferent mainstream society regarding inequality. Evidence has shown producers transforming past mainstream stereotypes, as well as acting to reframe crime as political events and to deconstruct the trivialisation of everyday inequality. This thesis contends that the alternative media’s strength lies more in its ability to create counterhegemonic discourses than otherwise thought, also suggesting that media democratisation could come increasingly from the margins of society.

This thesis studies the operationalization of culture in Turkish society using sociality of food and eating as its operational laboratory. It is primarily interested in the construction of taste and the organization of social practices in light of Turkey’s complicated socio-cultural constitution, its contested identities and nation state formation, as well as socio-political transitions. Bringing these interconnected elements together, the thesis is interested in deciphering the mechanisms behind the construction of taste in Turkey and the making of social identities in an ever-changing society. In this regard, the thesis works within the ambit of Bourdieusian theories of culture and aims to present an innovative mode of approaching taste and identity that goes beyond the more conventional static ordering and stratification of culture. Rather, the thesis explores the contradictory positionings that characterize everyday lives of individuals in Turkey (more specifically Istanbul), which can manifest themselves clearly in their food cultures. Food facilitates a unique insight into the active making and remaking of cultural distinctions and identity, since food is about sociality, practice and organization, formality and commensality; and as this thesis will also argue, it also extends to notions of cosmopolitanism, modernity, tradition and authenticity. The thesis uses food as an informative lens to challenge prior manifestations of social positioning based on stable cultural and economic markers of identity. Instead, the thesis identifies expressions of shifting markers and currents of thoughts and attitudes, in particular contrasting accounts of modernity and tradition, as they relate to how individuals distinguish themselves amidst social change in wider society. The unique findings of the thesis manifest that indeed taste is a complex matter; markers of taste are not necessarily static or stable. As this thesis will highlight, Turkish individuals deploy a situational logic in their practices, which can also manifest itself as an incongruous use of the modern and traditional together. The situational logic behind taste echoes and reaffirms Bourdieu’s theory of the fields; each field has its own ‘general laws’ and ‘specific properties that are peculiar to that field’ (Bourdieu, 1993b: 72, italics in original). This finding alone falls contrary to many works in the literature, which envision a static field of social practices, and supports this thesis’ main argument; food cultures (or cultures for the same matter) are contextual. The unique, non-Western Turkish case study also presents a rather unorthodox showcase of mixed practices across different classes, challenging the notion that class alone can account for differences in social practices. Focusing on lived experiences and evident tensions in social practice, the thesis argues that social positions are a highly fluid matter.

Neoliberalism is both a political ideology and set of practices which facilitate the governing of individuals from a distance. This study identifies the privatisation of risk and responsibility as one of its key elements. Taking as its case-study the field of work-life balance (WLB) and flexible working practices in the UK, it traces the manifestation of this imperative within and across the levels of the state, employer and employee. Part I begins by conceptually examining the response of the British state to the ‘new social risk’ of WLB, and the construction by employers of the typical ‘flexible’ worker in relation to traditional notions of ‘work-life culture’. Part II provides an empirical examination of the theoretical framework. Extending the concept of work-life culture, findings are presented from a qualitative, critical case-study follow-up to the UK Government’s Third Work-Life Balance Employee Survey (2007). Contrary to official flexible working discourses, employee experience of the flexible working process at a ‘best practice’ Big Four accountancy firm is shown to not be ‘win-win’. Rather, such experiences are complex and double-edged – that is, infused with neoliberal notions of privatised risk and responsibility. New opportunities need to be seen alongside negative consequences, particularly stalled career advancement.

This thesis considers the emergence of the new middle class in post-reform China. It argues that Western class categories do not directly apply to the Chinese situation and that the Chinese new middle class is distinguished more by sociocultural than by economic factors. Based upon qualitative interviews, the study looks at entrepreneurs, professionals and regional party cadres to show the networks among these different groups and the continuing significance of cadres. The study also looks at generational differences. The older generations are pragmatic and business-oriented, rather than personally oriented in their consumption. They also show strong collective identities, but these are based in personal networks rather than in a sense of a common class location that they share with others outside their personal networks. In contrast,the younger generations appear more flexible and hedonistic. They tend to be more individualistic, materialistic and oriented to personal gain. In neither older or younger generations is there much evidence that the Chinese middle class is taking on a political role in advocating political reform alongside market reforms as is suggested by some Western stratification theorists. They are in the vanguard of consumption but they are the laggards in politics.

This research explores a particular group of Taiwanese young men and their gendered experiences. It draws upon theories of late modernity, cultural studies, and feminist research. A primary aim is to explore the dialectical interplay between the existing gender configuration and how it is culturally lived out. This thesis argues that through processes of detraditionalization, young men are able to lead a life outside of a traditional gendered route, such as that of an earlier generation. Rather than the ‘norm-al’ biography, what is endorsed by the younger generation is a ‘do-it-yourself’ biography. This will be illustrated by the young men’s narratives about their gendered experiences in the context of consumption and blogging. However, local tradition does not disappear in contemporary Taiwanese society. Tradition is understood as a complex resource, in making sense of their gendered lives, in relation to a notion of filial responsibility. A generational self-awareness, marked by difference and continuity, is intensified by a tension between existing tradition and processes of detraditionalization. Deriving from cultural understandings of the younger research participants, in comparison to those of the elder generation, this qualitative study endeavours to contribute to the under-theorized notion of tradition in a late modernity framework. It also considers the importance of how gendered reflexivity is unevenly embodied, and has becomes a contemporary strategy for the continuation of local tradition. By emphasizing the significance of understanding (late modernity) gender and (traditional) culture via their lived experience, this research wishes to bring together some of the experiential, theoretical, and methodological complexity involved in the making of young Taiwanese men.