This thesis explores the tensions present in left-wing projects of renewal in the 1970s and 1980s by examining the activism of one city; Sheffield. It finds that behind the 'Socialist Republic of South Yorkshire' lay a more complex set of relationships between activists from different movements, strands of activism, and local government. It sets out Sheffield City Council's attempt at a new left-wing politics, its form of 'local socialism,' and explores how the city's wider activism of trade unionism, women's groups, peace, environmentalism, anti-apartheid, anti-racism, and lesbian and gay politics was embraced, supported, restricted or ignored by the local authority. Despite deindustrialisation and contemporary discussions of the decline of class politics, there was a persistence of class and a dominance of the labour movement in Sheffield. Unsurprisingly archival evidence, oral histories, and photographs point to tensions between class and identity politics. Yet, the focus of this thesis on how a number of new social movements and identity-based groups operated in one place, and its detailed analysis of the sites, methods, and relationships of activism has revealed the extent to which tensions existed, not only between class and identity, but between the different subjectivities represented in new social movements and identity politics. In this way, Sheffield's activism sheds light on the wider British left, showing the resilience of class-based politics and how popular notions of renewal were limited by conventions of solidarity.

This thesis explores the nexus between identity construction and the outbreak of violence. It focuses on the cases of violence in Georgia in the early 1990s, in particular – Abkhazia and South Ossetia. The author takes an historical, process-based approach to the question of how violence “came about” in Georgia. Using previously unpublished archival material and extensive, in-depth interviews, the author traces the process of the development of inter-ethnic relations in Georgia over the course of several decades and provides a detailed examination of how these relations evolved from tensions to violence. As the thesis demonstrates, ethnic fears and hostility between Georgians on the one hand and Abkhaz and Ossetians on the other – one of the important contributing factors to the outbreak of violence – were neither deep-rooted nor long-standing; rather, they were socially constructed. Still, despite its socially constructed nature, the author argues for bringing ethnicity back in the debate and proposes a more flexible, multi-layered analytical framework in order to integrate constructivist and primordialist views on ethnicity and ethnic group formation in the study of ethnic conflicts and violence. The result is a shift of analysis from self-centered manipulative elites to more “boundedly rational” actors who operate within a socially constructed reality shaped by Soviet nationality policies and historical and cultural narratives (embedded in myths and metaphors of ethnic groups concerned).

Little psychological research has examined the cultural context of Honour Based Violence (HBV) within South Asian and Middle Eastern communities and the cultural factors that are used as ‘justifications’ for this type of violence. This thesis examines these issues via three approaches; a systematic literature review, an empirical piece of research, and a critique of a psychometric measure. Chapter two explores the attitudes, experiences and beliefs of South Asian and Middle Eastern men, across the globe, regarding HBV to identify themes that are prevalent in the context of this crime. The papers collectively found that male dominance and patriarchy, female chastity, religion and culture, socialization, and the need for education are common themes in the context of HBV. Chapter three investigates the attitudes of British-born young South Asian males toward ‘honour’ and HBV are explored in a qualitative study. Focus groups are analysed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA). Four themes are identified that relate to the cultural context of HBV. These are 1) Gendered accountability in honour; 2) The ‘honour code’ – factors that drive HBV; 3) The role of the community and cultural rules; and 4) Fixing ‘honour’. Chapter four presents a critique of the Domestic Abuse, Stalking, Harassment and Honour Based Violence (DASH) risk checklist. It finds that the tool is acutely based on a narrative review of secondary and existing research and lacks evidenced evaluation. Collectively the thesis advances understanding about the cultural context of HBV and forms the basis of preventative work and interventions within British communities where HBV is most prevalent.

Focusing where possible on folk and early popular music as historical documents, this thesis investigates how successive waves of culturally alien Irish immigrants were able to overcome hostility and eventually integrate into the population of New York City. It establishes that legacies of Protestant reformation, British domination and Catholic deprivation carried from Ireland and Great Britain combined in New York City with economic and political competition to invigorate latent anti-Catholic and anti-Irish hostility. This process was greatly aggravated by the huge and incessant scope of immigration; and the unsuitability of a poorly-educated, rural people for settlement in an increasingly urbanised commercial industrial environment. Irish Catholics refused assimilation because it required the rejection of their heritage. Instead, they opted to integrate en masse through the acquisition of political power, a far longer process marked by ebbs and flows of fortune and opposition. Employing lyrics and the wider culture of folk and popular song, as well as period newspaper reportage and modern scholarship, the thesis traces the chronology of Catholic Irish integration beginning with the establishment of state and national sovereignty in late 1783. The Introduction provides broader thesis overview and definitions. Chapter One establishes that by 1700 official British colonial policy purposefully discouraged Catholic settlement in New York. Chapter Two shows conservative Federalist opposition to providing equal religious and political rights. Chapter Three examines the dual impact of Ireland's Great Hunger and America's Second Great Awakening. Chapter Four investigates the opportunity and challenge presented by the American Civil War, and the catastrophic Draft Riots of 1863. Chapter Five sees the Catholic Irish banish Orangeism, gain control of Tammany Hall and then the mayor's office. Throughout, songs illuminate the Catholic Irish path towards integration.

This thesis examines and re-evaluates what interculturality means and how it manifests itself in contemporary Asian Shakespeare performances. The thesis is organised into four chapters. The first three chapters focus on the distinctive theatre cultures of South Korea, Hong Kong and Singapore respectively. Each of these three chapters includes brief historical surveys that trace the development of Shakespeare production, and contextualises the diverse approaches to, and concepts of, intercultural Shakespearean performativity in these countries. These chapters also contain performance case studies that are representative of twenty-first century Asian Shakespeare productions from South Korea, Hong Kong and Singapore. The close analysis of these selected Shakespeare performances explores the larger topics of authenticity, translation and identity. These performances also demonstrate how theatrical interculturalism impacts and complicate the ways in which we understand these common subjects in Shakespeare performance studies. Through these historical reviews and in-depth performance analysis, the thesis reassesses the value and validity of existing intercultural theory, and attempts to expand this field of study by suggesting alterative ways of thinking about intercultural Shakespeare performance. Chapter Four puts forward a proposed model of theatrical interculturalism that can be used to consider and discuss different types of (inter)cultural exchanges that materialise in Shakespeare performance.

Drawing on empirical data, this thesis investigates the interplay of cultural differences in the ways Persians practice, negotiate, and sustain their partnering relationships across cultural differences; reasons for and implications of failure; and the extents to which Persian intercultural partnering practices could be understood in relation to wider social processes. I grounded this analysis on the Pre-Partnering, Prevailing-Partnering, and Post-Partnering Practices, and argue that Persians in intercultural partnering relationships ‘do partnering’ in relation to Internal, External and Intergenerational social positionings. I suggest that participants’ in-between cultural identities help them to sustain their partnering relationships, with negotiations centring on the interplay of five cultural sources: gender, religiosity, relationality, life course, and language. Failure in partnering relationships are usually attributed to shifting positions on the continuum of cultural identities, due to participants seeking their best ‘me’, which is social, and is defined through personal relationships with wider social connections. Partnering practices in the particular context of this study may not align with the claims of detraditionalization theory. I argue that religion should be considered independent from other forms of traditions to understand the wider social processes relevant to construction of contemporary family lives.

This study offers a critical insight into the practice of theology and pedagogy with marginalised members of society with regards to what liberative praxis may mean as part of everyday living. Its characteristic feature is that it adopts a womanist approach to the process of constructing a new theological pedagogy in collaboration with British African-Caribbean women. In a manner suitable for the British context it centres the educational experiences and connected knowing of marginalised British Christian African-Caribbean women, as a resource for addressing complex issues in society. Accordingly, the experiences and wisdom of these Black women passionate about justice, freedom, spiritual development and relationships provide the raw material for this articulation of a liberative Spirit-led pedagogy. A process described as ‘womanistization’. The result is a broad and inclusive approach to research and biblical hermeneutics. The researcher and researched engage in dialogue as open and honest ‘candid participants’ employing their experiential imagination and wisdom to re-read scripture and translate their renewed faith into liberative action.

This thesis argues that, catalysed by technological and architectural developments, as well as by altering moral codes of conduct, by the early twentieth century, Manhattan had become a nexus of spectacle, its culturally distinct districts and numerous heterotopic spaces providing quasi stage-sets for impromptu and everyday performance. The theatre extended its embrace across the modern metropolis and conceptual stages could be found almost anywhere and everywhere: the subway, the elevated railway, fire-escapes, roof-gardens, shop windows and skyscrapers. These unofficial stages took their place alongside the busy lives of city dwellers. Using examples from literature, as well as elements of magazine culture, cinema, theatre, visual art, photography and music, this interdisciplinary thesis demonstrates the ways in which everyday theatre came to be played out day-to-day in the districts of Greenwich Village, Harlem and the Lower East Side. I explore how performative language and themes infiltrated mass culture, as literary and artistic representations of the city intermingled reality with the theatrical, often providing a smoke-screen for harsher truths. I incorporate works from a cross-section of writers including Djuna Barnes, Floyd Dell, Nella Larsen, Jessie Redmon Fauset, Langston Hughes, Mike Gold and Anzia Yezierska, as well as artists such as John Sloan, Aaron Douglas and Jerome Myers.

Considerable historical attention has been paid to the end of Empire in Britain’s East African colonies and the consequences of this for postcolonial states. The forced migration of minority South Asian populations from the new nation-states of East Africa has received considerably less attention. South Asians remain at the margins of African and British national histories, constructed variously as either fringe opponents of anti-colonial nationalist movements or marginalised minorities. Yet re-assessing the history of these ‘refugee’ communities has the potential to enhance scholarly understanding of both colonial and postcolonial power relations and migrant-refugee identity formulation and re-formulation. Moreover, studies of migrant communities in Britain have tended to treat South Asians as a homogenous group, paying relatively little attention to the specific identity trajectories of those who were expelled from the new nation-states of East Africa. In contrast, this research takes as its starting point the transnational experiences of East African Asians as multiple migrants, exploring the reformulation of political and cultural identities during the course of their expulsion, migration and resettlement in and between postcolonial states.

Background: Several studies have documented differences between individuals from different ethnic groups in terms of the way in which medications are viewed. These views can potentially impact on medication adherence. However, comparisons of adherence between rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients from other minority ethnic groups and South Asians have not been reported. Method: Two studies were undertaken in patients with RA: a quantitative survey (180 patients) to investigate the relation between demographic, diseases related and psychological variables and a qualitative study explored the reasons for poor adherence to medications used in RA. Results: The quantitative survey undertaken for this thesis demonstrated that South Asian RA patients exhibited more negative beliefs about medicines and lower levels of adherence to RA medicines than did their White British counterparts and were more dissatisfied with the information they received about their medicines. Results from the interviews showed that four interlinking themes influenced adherence in both South Asian and White British ethnic groups. Conclusion: This thesis has demonstrated that some beliefs about medicines and illness perceptions differ between the South Asian and White British ethnic groups; these beliefs and perceptions are important in understanding differences in adherence between these two groups.