Thesis--Göteborgs universitet, 1985. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 106-113).

Thesis (doctoral)--Göteborgs universitet, 2002. / Extra t.p. with thesis statement inserted. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Michigan State University, 1990. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 158-162).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1982. / Typescript. Vita. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 258-265).

The thesis examines the connections between being physically active and becoming empowered. It centres on the experiences of women and investigates their involvement in physical activity and how this relates to the rest of their lives and their subjectivities. In so doing the research explores the relation between physicality and social power, and considers the role of the body in the construction of gender power relations. The key concepts used to explore this area are agency and structure, hegemony, negotiation, empowerment and physicality. More broadly the research has been informed by debates in feminist postmodernism and poststructuralism. The main data set were generated through interviews with twenty-eight women with additional information coming from questionnaires returned by one hundred and seventy-two women representing a range of activity levels, ages and class locations. The findings were generated largely from the experiences of white women living in a market town within commuting distance of London. The findings demonstrate the potential for women to become empowered through their bodies, as a result of being involved in physical activity. The acquisition of new skills and the discovery of new physical potential in their bodies such as feeling stronger, having more energy, were foregrounded by the women as being important to them. This led them to feeling more positive about themselves and their potential. There was nothing to suggest that particular activities were more empowering than others, although the context and purpose of the activity was found to be important. There is little evidence of there being any difference between working-class and middle-class women in terms of their experience of empowerment or disempowerment through physical activity. The findings also highlight the need to set an understanding of physical activity within the context of intra-household relations. By doing this it is argued that we are better able to understand how the construction of women's subjectivities operates simultaneously across fields of activity.

The aim of my diploma thesis is to find relevant causes of increasing amount of one-person households in Czech Republic. The ČSÚ files nearly 83% increase in this type of household in the last 15 years. My hypothesis is such, that a great role in this phenomenon plays social, economic and demographic factors. The theoretical part of my diploma thesis will be based mainly on dates available from the ČSÚ. I focus first on analysis of the single member households as a complex, following by part which will be considering the causes of this phenomenon. Sub-groups, by which I will look for the causes for increase in the amount, will be single member households of young people, so-called singles, and pensioners. The applied part of my diploma thesis will be based on evaluation of the role which this type of households play as a recipient of social benefits (rentiers) and also as an active contributor into the treasury (singles). I would like to; draw a prediction of the expenditures of social policy if the situation continues by the same rate from the results of my analysis.

Philosophiae Doctor - PhD / South Africa is paradoxically an interesting case study. On the one hand, it is characterised by widespread and persistent poverty and extra-ordinary levels of unemployment. On the other hand, South Africa is quintessentially a migration destination country, ranking among countries with the highest number of migrants from other African countries. While it currently hosts more than three million international migrants, which represents approximately 4.2% of the country’s entire population, nearly half of the South African black population live in poverty and grapple with income inequality, unemployment, food insecurity and hunger. Much like their South African counterparts, international migrants are not immune to the conundrum of poverty. Added to the poverty-related social challenges that confront the natives of South Africa, foreign nationals in South Africa endure the migration-specific risks, shocks, hardships, deprivation and vulnerabilities.

Although household archaeology has been around for a number of years now, it has been slow to truly catch on as a way to learn something about the people of ancient Israel as a whole. Many archaeologists historically were only interested in the monumental architecture like: “palatial and storage complexes, cultic complexes, cemeteries, and fortification systems” (Hardin 2011:12). Archaeologists have realized that studying the basic housing and activity areas of the people that inhabit cities and the outlying areas lead them to have a greater understanding of what is really happening on a day-to-day basis. Understanding what is happening in a small family’s daily life provides information about how the society as a whole might be working. While household archaeology can be studied anywhere by essentially the same methods that will be used in this thesis, my focus will be on the Iron Age II of the southern Levant.

This dissertation examines rural families responses to global and local situations that have made earning a livelihood as a farmer very difficult. Drawing from original research, including a household livelihood census of 195 households, interviews with 72 people, participant observation, and archival research, the dissertation explores how rural families have responded to declines in domestic agricultural markets fueled by global and national forces and local environmental change. It asks: what impact will small farming families responses to these forces of change have on peoples identities as peasants? I argue that while great change is underway in the countryside, peasant identity continues to flourish as people on the ground re-work and re-negotiate what it means to be a peasant. This research provides a voice to those often overlooked by macro-analyses of economic, political, or cultural development by providing rich ethnographic details on how global forces impact otherwise out-of-the way places. This dissertation critically examines what is meant by development and change, what development and change look like in a local, grounded context and what current trends can teach us about the future of rural areas both in Costa Rica and in other regions of the world experiencing similar phenomena: increasing educational opportunities for youth, a continued opening up of agricultural markets, a blurring of the line between the urban and the rural, and declining environmental quality.

This dissertation explores the social and political strategies performed by an intermediate elite household, Sak Ch'en, in an effort to maintain their social status and power in the evolving landscape of La Milpa during the Late to Terminal Classic Transition (A.D. 800-850/900). Explicitly, this research investigates how Sak Ch'en preserved the continuity of social order by exercising their funds of power and by feasting, gifting, and storing socially charged goods. Excavations were conducted at one residential complex during the 2009-2012 field seasons at the site of La Milpa, Belize, to delineate the political, social, and economic dimensions of intermediate elite household life during large-scale structural changes of the polity. Analyses of recovered ceramic assemblages and additional artifacts demonstrate the presence of feasting, the storage of socially valuable goods, and the production of cloth items during the Late to Terminal Classic period. Feasting in Maya society was enacted as a social, political, and economic strategy, which enabled the ruling elite to attract political support and create exclusive alliances. It is my deduction that at Sak Ch'en, feasting operated as a forum to display household rank, validate status, and maintain power through food acquisition, production, consumption, and distribution. By hosting a feast, Sak Ch'en inhabitants solidified existing political and socioeconomic relationships and encouraged the development of new household associations. Analyses of spindle whorls at Sak Ch'en revealed the production of cloth goods for local consumption and possibly gift exchange. Gift-giving may have been employed at Sak Ch'en as a strategy that binded individuals or groups into reciprocal debt relationships. Further, the gifting of food during this unstable period publicly displayed access to, or possession of, surplus at Sak Ch'en, which strongly reiterated asymmetrical economic power relations between households. Lastly, the storage of goods reassured the replication of activities and rituals tied to ideological concepts of social order. These strategies were implemented at Sak Ch'en as reiterative mechanisms operating to guarantee the reproduction of household power and status. / text