This thesis investigates how digital media participate in and contribute to the emergence and discussion of women’s issues in Egypt and Saudi Arabia, in complex intersections of online and offline activity. Specific focus is placed on digital media’s intrinsic complexity and agency, and their interplay with socio-political, economic, legal, and cultural practices. I will specifically ask questions such as, how does an issue work through technological forms of development, and how is it techno-socio-political? How do digital media enrich, reshape, and co-constitute women’s issues in Egypt and Saudi Arabia? In answering these questions, I explore how certain women’s issues are formed, emerge, and become central in Egypt and Saudi Arabia. These explorations involve a reflection on the computational turn of current cultural and social practices2 and the significance of algorithms and software in the making of our socio-cultural realities. They also necessitate an understanding of the countries’ locales, accounts of women’s movements, struggles, and discourses that, inevitably, involve Islamic Tradition. Asking such questions also means exploring how online activities enrich current discourses of women and gender studies in a Middle Eastern context. The resulting work sits In between a number of disciplines and approaches and calls for a bespoke conceptual and methodological approach, built on a combination of methodologies, including close reading of history and literature on the topic, and qualitative and quantitative analysis of digital content through digital media tools. For this purpose I have employed software such as Gephi, Netvizz, and MOZ SERP. Moving beyond an understanding of media as a tool and construing them as constitutive parts of an entangled network made of heterogeneous actants, I introduce the concept of a multi-layered and networked map. This concept is a mode of investigation and a tool of analysis that seeks to understand and discuss the diverse and continuous transformations of certain women’s issues in these two countries as they emerge and evolve online. The visualisations of the quantitative part of my analysis are published on the website that I have created, available at http://www.oxycoms.com/clb. This thesis tries to find a location at the intersection of digital media, gender studies, and studies of the Middle East. At times, specific problematic aspects of each field are at odds with each other, and I attend to the ways in which they touch and contradict each other. Through the concept of the multi-layered and networked map I will trace and follow the intersection of theoretical thoughts, accounts of women’s activities and movements, online activities, and findings of the new methodologies and tools of online social networking analysis. I will discuss how they combine and coalesce, bringing to life what I address as technowomen. I hope to contribute to the current theoretical and methodological discussions in digital media, media, and cultural studies, to discussions in women and gender studies on the digitised reality of movements and activities.

This thesis is about the migration decision-making experiences of Kenyan and Nigerian women migrants in London. Its aim was to investigate the influence of culture, family and networks on the women’s decision to migrate. The study used in-depth interviews and focus group discussions (FGDs) to gather data. The four theories of migration decision-making used to illuminate the data and understand the women’s experiences were: value expectancy theory; place utility model; network and system theories. The results revealed that the sociocultural expectations of women in Nigerian societies influenced the migration decisions of some Nigerian women. It was a migration motive for some women who were stereotyped by gender in their society of origin and it was also a part of the migration decision-making negotiations, within households, especially between spouses. This was not true of Kenyan women who were least affected by gendered sociocultural expectations in their society of origin. Children also indirectly influenced the decision-making of married and single mothers. Single mothers focused almost exclusively on the needs of their children, whereas married women accommodated both their children and spouses’ interests. Young single women were more likely to discuss their migration plans with their parents, but for a few, migration had to be negotiated before taking a decision. The results also indicated that the women studied used various types of networks, linked differently, within a migration system. Women were interested in the type and quality of the information provided by their network(s) rather than in its gendered nature. Finally the findings also showed that the idea of ‘gendered information’ exists whereby certain information is given specifically to men or exclusively to women depending on the recipient’s life stage and reasons for migrating. This study contributes to the small body of literature on women’s migration decision-making while adding new knowledge about what influences decision making among women from two African countries. It lays foundations for further research case studies on factors affecting African women’s migration decision-making.

In the last 40 years there has been a surge of academic research into grandparenthood as a result of increased longevity and changing family structures. However, limited research has been identified that explores the experiences of young grandparenthood in England, despite academic researchers’ assertions of deviant young grandparenthood made in the 1980s. Maternal grandmothers have been reported to be the most involved grandparent in the lives of their grandchildren. Further, there is likelihood that the transition to young maternal grandmotherhood is a consequence of young motherhood (of mother and/or daughter). Young motherhood literatures report that mothers of young mothers (maternal grandmothers) can be a primary source of support for their daughters, yet this body of research rarely focuses on the maternal grandmother. With the current cultural norm of grandparenting childcare in the UK and the UK Government’s objectives of increasing women in work, improving maternal health, child health and economic self-sufficiency for young mothers, it is important to understand how young maternal grandmothers are, or are not, contributing to Government targets whilst balancing their own working and family lives. This study makes initial steps in addressing these neglected areas of research by exploring the lived experiences of 10 young maternal grandmothers (aged 35 to 42 years at first transition) living in England. Data was collected using face-to-face semi-structured interviews, prompt objects and photo elicitation in order to answer the research question, ‘what are the lived experiences of young maternal grandmotherhood?’ Guided by British sociologists’ conceptualisations of family life and relationships and the use of Interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA), data were analysed at an idiographic level before moving on to explore convergences and divergences across person cases, resulting in the emergence of shared patterns of meaning and experience. Analysis of the transitional stage to grandmotherhood identified two essential experiences: Experiencing acceptance (or lack of acceptance) of her daughter’s pregnancy and experiencing acceptance (or lack of acceptance) of her grandmotherhood. Analysis of being a young maternal grandmother identified three essential experiences: Experiencing grandmothering through time, distance, places, spaces and inanimate objects; experiencing grandmotherhood in the social world (the influence of others and on others); owning and romancing the grandchild, experiences of connectedness and disconnectedness. The study concludes with a discussion of the current findings in relation to existing literatures and new understandings. Consideration is applied to the research design and the perceived strengths and limitations. The wider implications of this research are presented with specific focus on the potential to develop a conceptual framework for use in intervention measures for mothers (young maternal grandmothers) and/or daughters (young mothers) and recommendations for possible future directions in this research area.

This thesis is about the place of gender roles and relations in global food production, based on an extensive ethnography of tomato production and processing in Turkey. Broadly, it looks at how attempts to integrate Turkish agriculture and food industries into the global economy have affected rural populations including women and men, but particularly the transformative consequences for women’s labour. The main question guiding the research is to ask how constructions of, and the availability of, women’s labour shapes and is shaped by the interaction between the global economy and local dynamics. In order to answer this question, I chose to engage with tomato production and processing because tomatoes have the highest export rate of all fresh and processed fruit and vegetables in Turkey. My participant-observation followed the path taken by tomatoes produced in Western Turkey for one of the biggest Japanese tomato processing brands. This included my work on the tomato fields for all of the spring planting and the summer harvest in 2013 and in a tomato-processing factory in late summer and autumn 2014. The research also drew on in-depth interviews with different social actors in the global tomato production chain in Turkey, including members of landowning families and the factory manager. I completed my fieldwork by travelling to South-eastern Anatolia (March, 2014) and staying in the homes of the Kurdish seasonal migrant workers, with whom I worked on the land in Western Turkey (in 2013). In looking at the transformation of rural women’s labour in Turkey, my sociological focus comprised the gendered division of labour in factory, field and domestic work; different forms of patriarchy; the intersection of inequalities, including those of gender, ethnicity, class and age; forms of workers’ consent and resistance, as well as the interwoven nature of the relations of production and reproduction. Focusing on these aspects of women’s lives has reshaped this research; it began as a study of women’s labour and turned into research about gender in global food production, although women’s experiences are still at its heart. My thesis is that these processes can be best understood by applying the term ‘intersectional patriarchy’ and its material manifestation 'el âlem'. The ultimate goal and contribution of my research is to integrate women’s reproductive work into global commodity chain analysis and contribute to labour process theory with the help of these ‘locally’ developed terms.

Policy frames in England and Melbourne rely upon unrealistic understandings of young peoples’ transition experiences. Nebulous conflation of ‘youth’ with ‘transition’ insensitively infers a desired state of adult independence is an outcome of the capacity to follow correct transition paths. These understandings are consistent with a political interest in the individualised decision making competencies of young people. This is particularly relevant to ‘care leavers’, whose transitions are problematised, rendering their futures ‘risky’, and disregarding their perspectives. The life stories of a sample of 20 foster care-experienced young people were supported through sensory ethnographic principles. The associated methods evoked narratives of past experience within care trajectories, tracing self-representations into the present, and sense making of independent futures. Participants’ transition biographies derived from a methodological and analytical orientation exploring the biographical-relational facets to transition. Metaphors of transition and independence were revealed, shaping development of a contemporary anthropological frame. This thesis argues for a refocus upon the relational context to transition, and contests the contemporary significance of persistent debates regarding ‘structure’ or ‘agency’ as arbitrators of youths’ future. Supporting a sense of relatedness is crucial when ‘family’ is absent, particularly when moving forward to a desired future requires high degrees of affective recalibration.

During the period 1850-1913 the landscape of Irish childcare witnessed significant changes. The Famine left thousands of children orphaned or deserted in Irish workhouses and Ireland was forced to confront the question of how best to raise these children of the poor to be respectable and self-sufficient adults. The period was defined by attempts to answer this question and by 1913 a new system for such care was in place. This was a system dominated by a belief in institutionalisation, mainly in industrial schools, of children as beneficial both to the children and to Irish society, and driven by a fear and mistrust of the poor as parents. The developments during 1850-1913 have not previously been examined in a coherent and cohesive manner. This thesis aims to do so, thus adding to the understanding of the attitudes and approaches to childcare for the poor in Ireland. The thesis will also make use of quantitative analysis in a manner not previously done in order to understand the evolution and development of childcare institutions. The first chapter focuses on the Irish Poor Law, its relation to children, and the development of voluntary, charitable childcare institutions. The second chapter examines the increasing criticism against workhouse care through two case studies. The third chapter explores the rejection of foster-care in Ireland in the form of boarding out from workhouses. The fourth chapter analyses the rise of the reformatories and industrial schools managed largely by the Catholic Church. The final chapter explores how the increasing interest and concern for the children of the poor resulted in the development of an increasingly extensive framework of legislation that, by 1913, touched on almost all aspects of the lives of the children of the poor and their families.

This thesis explores the working realities of gay police officers and performers in relation to ‘gay-friendly’/‘gay-hostile’ worksites and embodied sexual identity, developing an understanding of the meanings gay workers attach to their working lives by mobilising conceptual resources primarily from sociology. Deep seated assumptions pervade current perceptions regarding gay male sexuality and certain occupations. The idea is that there are gay industries like fashion, nursing and the performing arts. In contrast, occupations such as the police and the armed forces are often seen as homophobic, yet a dearth of academic research investigates the lived experiences of gay men located within perceived ‘gay friendly’ or ‘gay hostile’ worksites. Acknowledging this as a missed opportunity for developing empirical insight, I bring to the fore the work realities of some of these overlooked people. Taking the performing arts as an example of a ‘gay-friendly’ occupation, the police as an example of a ‘gay-hostile’ occupation, and drawing on in-depth interview data with 20 gay performers/police officers, I show that the perspectives and experiences of these men allow us to nuance existing research on how LGB employees understand, value and experience ‘gay-friendly’ workplaces, an emerging construct in the organisation studies literature. Focusing on the significance of embodied, sexual identity for the performance of the occupational roles of interest allows this study to consider the relationship between gender and sexuality at work. Literature on the gendered nature of work along with the promising literature on (homo)sexuality in the workplace have proceeded relatively separately, with the exception of the literature on sexualized labour and the commodification of women's (assumed hetero)sexuality in sales-service work (Tyler, 1997). The effect is that the experience and performance of gender and/in/through sexuality at work has been neglected as a topic of empirical investigation. Although sociologists argue that sexuality cannot be understood without reference to gender, and vice versa, few organizational scholars explore the experiences of work with this in mind. This thesis addresses this gap in knowledge. It brings together the perspectives of gay performers and police officers and highlights the prevalence of a „gender imperative‟ throughout the day-to-day lives of these workers. In detailing the workplace experiences of my participants, this thesis also builds on existing studies that tend to focus solely on the general working lives of gay employees. Gay workers face important contextual issues relating to 'passing', 'coming out' and homophobia. Although these are key areas of interest to existing literature, studies so far fail to address these concepts in detail with reference to specific occupational settings. In other words, the research contributes to the area of lesbian, gay and bisexual (LGB) disclosure and management at work. Stigma-based models (Goffman, 1963) are particularly useful here in framing some of the empirical insights of my research.

This thesis explores how mothers and children in the UK are affected by domestic violence, resist it, and actively support one another's recoveries. The focus extends beyond 'incidents' of physical violence, into the commonplace, the subtle and the everyday. This thesis shows that supportive mother-child relationships may enhance the well-being and recoveries of both mothers and children. It highlights the need to expand professional supports that repair and strengthen mother-child relationships. The study is located on different theoretical ground from most research in the domestic violence field. Usually, within the field, mothers' parenting is seen as promoting or not promoting resilience in their (passive) children. Often, children supporting mothers is seen as inappropriate and indicative of children taking on 'adult roles' or being 'parentified'. There has been little attention to the ways that children, along with mothers, may be active in producing the strong, supportive mother-child relationships that promote resilience and well-being. By contrast, this study conceptualises children, along with mothers, as active contributors to mother-child relationships. Mutual supports between mothers and children are viewed as potentially positive and productive. Thirty participants, 15 mothers and 15 children (aged 10-20) from the UK with experiences of domestic violence, were interviewed for this study. These interviews were conducted using a semi-structured, feminist-informed approach. Participants were recruited through organisations that support those with experiences of domestic violence, using a combination of purposive and snowball sampling. All participants were residing in the community, and the majority had never accessed refuge services. Ethical approval to conduct the study was granted by the University of Nottingham. This thesis presents findings that show how children supported mothers, while mothers continued to parent and support their children. The children and mothers interviewed described supporting each other in multiple ways. During the domestic violence, helpful supports could occur even as mothers and children struggled to communicate about what was happening and suffered negative behavioural and mental health impacts. Some mother-child relationships were more strained than others during this period. This study identifies five factors that influenced the extent of the damage caused to mother-child relationships during the domestic violence. These factors centred on the behaviours of perpetrators/fathers (their treatment of the children, the types of abuse they perpetrated, and the extent to which they undermined mother-child relationships) and the impacts of these behaviours on mothers and children. In the post-separation violence phase, children and mothers were on the 'frontlines' of each other's recoveries. Often, they acted as 'recovery-promoters' for one another, especially when they had received professional supports that repaired and strengthened their relationships. Recovery-promotion frequently occurred in subtle, everyday, age-appropriate ways not usually considered in previous research, including the giving of compliments and praise and 'having fun' together. However, mothers and children also described exchanging some supports that may have been more problematic, and not all mothers and children were able to support one another to the same extent. Based on these findings, this thesis proposes a framework for identifying the different levels and contexts of supports exchanged by mothers and children, and their complex, varied impacts. This framework has utility for future research, policy and practice with domestic violence survivors.

With its origins in sociological debates about individualisation, personalisation and the transformation of intimacy, this research explores the long-neglected subject of the surnames of married women. Drawing on in-depth biographical interviews with 30 married or once-married women, respondents are found to engage in complex negotiations with cultural assumptions about wifehood, motherhood and the family when called to change surnames upon marriage. Through their interviews, women account for their surname ‘choice’ via a range of, often-contradictory, discourses – thereby identifying marital naming as an issue of tension and struggle for wives, as well as for women considering marriage. Their ‘talk’ frequently calls upon debates of social stability and change, as well as ideas of autonomy and connectedness. Overall, their narratives speak of social control and a dominant institutional structure in life – and women either accepted the norms of naming or dealt with the consequences. This finding was underscored by the responses of 453 people to a street survey. For interviewees, the opposing role of surnames in marking out both individual identity and social connections led to conflicts. Relational identities were often placed in opposition to autonomy. Yet, women more frequently positioned themselves as interdependent negotiators rather than autonomous agents. For interviewees, surname ‘choices’ were imbued with social meanings and were not rated equally – their choice of surname either ‘displayed’ that they were ‘doing gender well’ or ‘doing gender poorly’. However, discussions of gender were largely absent or neutralised in the interviewees’ accounts, while women who kept their maiden names spoke about feeling the need to silence their naming decision. The research concludes that marital naming forms part of women’s exhaustive efforts at ‘relationship work’. Married women were accountable for their surnames as assumptions of marital naming were found to pervade notions about wifehood. Whatever surname an interviewee decided upon, she was responsible for conducting a gendered and classed performance, and her surname ‘choices’ involved both personal sacrifices and gains.

Gender inequality continues to exist in the labour market and this project contributes to discussions on why women are not equally represented in management hierarchies relative to their labour participation rates. Competition is the central lens used to evaluate current debates and add new perspectives to gendered processes in management. As an area of research, competition is largely neglected in the gender and management body of work. This study is important in exploring how as a concept and a practice, competition can operate in organisations and in the individual careers of men and women managers. Informing the thesis is a review of theories including gender performance, individualization, stereotypes and management styles which contribute to building a framework for understanding and engaging with competition and competitive relations. Adapted from Bradley’s (1999) model of gendered power, competition is defined as a series of dimensions which are investigated to research how and in what ways competition is gendered. Qualitative data was collected and analysed with the findings indicating a confused and often contradictory picture demonstrating how managers engage with competition and competitive relations. Within organisations and management hierarchies competition, some managers claim, remains distant from their experiences at work and is not widely discussed. For others external competition located within the marketplace is strongly identified with, whereas other managers cite personal competition and its role in their own self development as the base for their experience. Suggesting competition is a single concept or has a single location for practice has limitations. The model designed and used in this project builds competition as a multidimensional concept which can be explored across a range of activities and attitudes examining how increased visibility and understanding of competitive relations can inform those management practices and policies which sustain gender inequality.