This thesis contributes to the discipline of historical research through the detailed local study and analysis of micro-economic developments and social trends within the 'market town' of Cranbrook, Kent and its neighbouring parishes. In particular this study examines the symbiotic relationship between the market town as a nodal point for industry and commerce within the context of the local economy and social structure of its rural hinterland. The nature and incidence of demographic growth within Cranbrook's neighbourhood during local periods of epidemic disease and economic dislocation, provide a context in which to examine the extent to which the Wealden wood pasture agrarian regime could absorb and sustain demographic growth within individual local economies. Social relations within Cranbrook, show that the town was not isolated from its rural hinterland. The inhabitants of the town and the countryside interacted within a local economy based upon textile manufacture and farming, which effectively defined the complex social hierarchy of the 'neighbourhood'. Kinship-networks among longstanding resident families and their comparative status, wealth and influence within individual parishes, show the importance of familial relationships to business success and social status within the community. Parish office holding among Cranbrook's 'chief inhabitants' are explored within the concepts of religious ideology and social control in early modem England. Cranbrook society is examined within the context of developing religious attitudes and puritan ideas, which took hold and flourished in this period. The thesis also investigates the slow decline of the broadcloth industry in the region and contributes to the proto-industrialization debate. The effect of economic recession in broadcloth manufacture is examined against the decline of the neighbourhood population, the contraction in market demand for Wealden broadcloth and increased poverty.

Summary Natural phytochemicals are currently used in the treatment of many diseases. Cancers are just ones of them and they are ranked among the most common and the most serious. Phytochemicals in the form of cytostatics are used in chemotherapeutic treatment of cancer. In future there could be included among cytostatics also some alkaloids from the family of Amaryllidaceae, whose testing for a selective cytostatic effect on tumor cell lines of colorectal carcinoma Caco-2 and HT-29 and on normal cell lines of human intestinal epithelial FHs 74 Int is a subject of this thesis. There were tested 17 alkaloids isolated from plants of Chlidanthusfragrans, Zephyranthes robusta and Nerine bowdenii. Particularly alkaloids from plant Zephyranthes robusta namely haemanthamine with this values: IC50 = 0.99 plus/minus 0.14 microM for tumor cells, Caco-2, 0.59 plus/minus 0.01 microM for tumor cells HT-29 and 19.47 plus/minus 8.86 microM for normal cells FHs 74 Int, Lycorine with values IC50 = 0.99 plus/minus 0.08 microM for tumor cells Caco-2, 1.2 plus/minus 0.01 microM for tumor cells HT-29 and 22.68 plus/minus 0.09 microM for normal cells FHs 74 Int and Haemanthidin with values IC50 = 3.29 plus/minus 0.91 microM to tumor cells Caco-2, 1.72 plus/minus 0.11 microM to tumor cells HT-29, and 11.63 plus/minus 0.86 microM for normal cells FHs 74 Int proved a significant anti-proliferative activity. From these results there is evident the selectivity against colorectal cancer cell lines. For this reason, those tested alkaloids are suitable for further testing and for study of their biological activity against tumor cells in the terms of in vitro and in vivo.

The notion of empowerment has become a Western ‘buzzword’ within the development lexicon over recent decades, especially in relation to improving the socioeconomic and political status of women in the developing world. By exploring narratives of Cañari indigenous women in the Ecuadorian Andes, this thesis considers the meaning of empowerment, as evolved and theorised by the West, in relation to an indigenous context. It employs an exploratory, interpretevist and phenomenological approach to understanding the everyday lived experience of individuals and how they engage with the world around them. It seeks to understand the processes that indigenous women might go through in order to become empowered, considers any potential factors that might influence processes of empowerment for indigenous women, in addition to observing the possible outcomes of empowerment in both their individual lives and for the wider community. It draws attention to the idea of collective empowerment, or power with, as a dominant feature of empowerment in Cañari women’s lives, reflecting the significance of both the family and community in indigenous culture. Focusing on the individualism that pervades Western notions of empowerment does not always fit the meaning of empowerment in non-Western societies. This thesis seeks to demonstrate how.

Wales is commonly divided into ‘more Welsh’ and ‘less Welsh’ places, although very little is known about the ‘least Welsh’ parts of Wales (dubbed ‘British Wales’ in Balsom’s ‘Three Wales Model’). Indeed, some contemporary analyses claim that devolution has made Wales ‘more Welsh’ to the extent that British Wales no longer exists. However, these claims of cultural homogeneity overlook the persistence of regional class divisions in Wales, with the ‘least Welsh’ parts of Wales remaining the most affluent. This thesis contributes to the understanding of this overlooked region by exploring Welsh identity in the British Wales town of Porthcawl. Using a longitudinal ethnographic approach, I investigate how locals negotiate a Welsh identity and whether class and place influence this process. Yet this is not just a study of local place: my analysis of everyday Welshness is located within a wider Gramscian theoretical framework which conceptualises devolution as a process of passive revolution. My study finds that locals feel very Welsh, undermining ideas that British Wales is ‘unWelsh’, and that place influences local identification with Welshness. Locals understand Welshness to be hierarchical, and measure their own Welshness against discursively constructed ideals of linguistic Welshness and working class Welshness (the latter being more prominent). Using Bourdieu, I show how locals work to reconcile the clash between their local (middle class) habitus and the national (working class) habitus. Understood as a working class habitus, Welshness has both positive and negative connotations. Locals subsequently move towards and away from Welshness in different contexts. The micro helps illuminate the macro, and everyday life in Porthcawl is punctuated by Welshness, rather than being structured by it. Whilst the molecular changes of devolution are observable in Porthcawl, locals occupy a British cultural world, and the national deixis remains British. These findings are indicative of a post-devolution interregnum.

This thesis attempts to account for post-Soviet Russian national identity and nationalism ‘from below’, employing the ‘thick descriptions’ of the nation reproduced by ordinary Russians across social and generational lines. It examines the current equilibrium in mainstream nationalist hegemonic discourse, shedding light on the vitality of the nation as an ‘imagined community’. In doing this, nationalism is viewed as a set of discursive formations that make claims about how or what the nation is or should be. A central aim in this research is to highlight what discursive constructions are shared or contested across a representative sample of the Russian population. In order to offer a meaningful assessment of nationalist discourse, this research employs ethnographic fieldwork driven by a grounded theory approach. With fifteen months of fieldwork in three Russian cities, this permitted room for exploration and siginificant redirection of the research focus. This helped reveal the interconnections between certain common, foundational elements of national identity and the structure of a dominant nationalist discourse. Previous research has often focused on the challenges of Russian nation-building given the complicated heritage bestowed by the Romanov and Soviet empires. This thesis identifies certain historical and cultural factors vital to the shaping of Russian national identity today. It also identifies a current hegemonic nationalist discourse and unpacks how it is relevant to the majority. This dominant discourse is built on certain myths and versions of normality, much of which takes the late Soviet as ‘normal’ and the wild nineties as ‘abnormal’. The thesis also explores how the above is contested. What is argued is that, at the current moment, the challenge of anti-hegemonic nationalist discourses is, for many people, neutralised by the appeal of a particular geopolitical vision. This research outlines how visions of the nation are weaved into commonly shared notions of identity and underlines how the current status quo is held together.

This thesis examines women’s everyday experiences of leisure in two neighbourhoods of urban Turkey, drawing on qualitative data derived from interviews and observations with women living in the city of Bursa. By examining the relationship between women’s leisure and their labour, everyday mobility, and socialisation at a neighbourhood level, the thesis contributes to contemporary debates on leisure within the wider feminist literature, as well as to the current growing interest in everyday life in Turkish social science literature. Examination of the feminist literature on women’s leisure suggests that contextualising leisure within the structure of women’s everyday as a whole is fundamental to an understanding of their leisure. The more contemporary feminist studies on women’s leisure focus on how to understand the dynamic and ever-changing nature of power struggles between different groups, with different capitals and identities, in a specific context. The newly emerging studies on women’s leisure within different country contexts, outside of the North American and European sphere, foreground the necessity to embed leisure experiences within socio-cultural aspects of the context, where additional dynamics, such as the role of religion or the meanings attributed to family and individual independence may significantly differ from Western societies. The current thesis builds on and expands these later works by projecting the empirical focus on Turkey and thereby shedding light on the relevance and limitations of the existing literature in explaining women’s leisure in other contexts around the world. It critically engages with the existing research on (women’s) leisure in Turkey, which is scant and embodies certain limitations. The findings presented in this study illustrate that the prevailing gender order, which confines women to the ideals of the heterosexual family, plays a central role in regulating leisure behaviour. Class, particularly, gives shape both to the existence of leisure spaces in one’s neighbourhood and constructs the “respectability” of social behaviour differently. The thesis makes an original contribution to the existing feminist leisure research in terms of rethinking traditional assumptions about leisure, broadening the definition of leisure and highlighting the significance of local cultural context. It also makes an original contribution to research on gendered everyday in Turkey by evidencing the usefulness of the concept of leisure as a lens to investigate the urban everyday, beyond the dichotomies of work time, free time, workspace, family space, production/consumption etc.

Background In 2014, 27.0% of births in England and Wales were to mothers born outside of the UK. Compared to their white British peers, minority ethnic and migrant women are at a significantly higher risk of maternal and perinatal mortality, along with lower maternity care satisfaction. Although existing literature highlights the importance of midwife-woman relationships in care satisfaction and pregnancy outcomes health professionals report difficulty in providing services to minority ethnic and migrant women. However little research has explored the factors contributing to the midwife-woman relationship for migrant and minority ethnic women. Research Aims To explore relationships between migrant Pakistani women and midwives in South Wales; focusing on the factors contributing to these relationships, and the ways in which these factors might affect women’s experiences of care. Method A focused ethnography in South Wales; semi-structured interviews with 10 migrant Pakistani participants (eight pregnant women, one husband and one mother) and 11 practising midwives, fieldwork in the local migrant Pakistani community and local maternity services, observations of antenatal booking appointments, and longitudinal reviewing of relevant media outputs, such as UK news reports of issues relating to migrant people. Data were analysed concurrently with collection using thematic analysis. Findings The midwife-woman relationship was important for participants’ experiences of care. A number of social and ecological factors influenced this relationship; including family relationships, culture and religion, differing healthcare systems, authoritative knowledge, and communication of information. However, differences were seen between midwives and women in the perceived importance of these themes. Findings therefore suggest that in order to understand how midwife-woman relationships are created and maintained, more needs to be done to recognise and address these differences. Due to the complexity of the relationships between themes a social ecological model of relationships is forwarded as a means of visually capturing the complexity of the findings, as well as potentially shaping midwifery education and clinical midwifery practices. Conclusions and Implications Findings from this study provide new theoretical insights into the complex social and ecological factors at play during maternity care for migrant Pakistani women. These findings can therefore be used to create meaningful dialogue between women and midwives, encourage collaborative learning and knowledge production, and facilitate future midwifery education and research.

Ethiopians have felt their presence in the UK mainly since 1990 when a large number of refugees from Ethiopia and Eastern Europe were admitted by the UK government at the time of dismantling of the communist bloc, to which Ethiopia and Eastern Europe belonged. This thesis examines the opportunities, barriers, exclusively practices and disadvantages Ethiopians face in the UK labour market, and how they are integrated into it. In order to achieve this, the study categorised the group into the ‘unemployed’, the ‘(hired) employed’ and the ‘self-employed’ and investigates the needs, problems, aspirations and issues for each of these groups. The study approaches the issues using face-to-face interviews based on structured questionnaires; participant observation; focus group and key informants and investigates the relevant themes and variables from the refugees’ perspectives. According to the findings of this study, in addition to the challenges faced by non-political migrants, owing to a variety of pre-asylum, host country and policy factors, refugees also encounter unique challenges in their interaction with and endeavours to integrate into the host country labour market. Ethiopian refugees are typical refugee groups. Like most refugees of other countries of origin they originate from the less developed part of the world facing, on arrival, a different host country system which is far from easy to integrate into. Whilst data used is those of Ethiopians, therefore, the findings of the study are intended to help give insights into the wider refugees and make inferences about their interaction with the UK labour market. In order to do so, the variables selected and explored are the most generic common attributes, needs, challenges and ambitions of refugees.

Sociable folk dancing in the UK is an organised group activity in which a significant number of people take part, often practising folk styles which have their origins in other countries. These groups are generally not run for profit, operate under the radar of media attention, and consequentially their activities remain largely hidden from view. This thesis addresses the fact that there have been no in-depth studies of these groups. It reports on the findings of a detailed ethnographic research project, to offer in-sights into the practices and motivations of participants in social dance. The thesis answers the key question: ‘What is the meaning and significance of participation in these folk music and social dance styles to those taking part?’. An interdisciplinary and ethnographic research approach was adopted to investigate two such folk styles: Cajun and Zydeco, and Scandinavian. This approach allowed research participants to make a significant contribution to the focus of the research, and to inform the subsidiary questions: ‘What are the concerns and interests of those involved in social folk dance?’, ‘What is it that makes involvement in these dance practices so appealing?’, and ‘What are the overall benefits of being involved?’ The research produced an interpretive account of these practices, through investigating sites of participation in these dance styles in the UK, which were explored by means of immersive involvement in their dance practices. This gave an insight into the way in which participation was organised and managed, and allowed for introductions to be made which were followed up with thirty in-depth interviews. The study revealed that despite the stylistic differences between the two dance styles and how they are practised, both nevertheless benefitted participants in similar ways. That dance events are organised on a not-for-profit basis was particularly important to participants, and encouraged loyalty and cooperation, promoting feelings of empowerment and ownership. An atmosphere of supportive inclusion was also built in to the loose organisation of events and activities, which allowed a consensus to develop where social attitudes and ideas could be negotiated, cultivated, and shared. This created a sense of belonging to an unboundaried, and fluid community or social network, a safe environment in which participants were able to experience dance as a communicative and expressive dialogue between individuals and within the group. This thesis argues that participants found their involvement in these dance styles socially and personally satisfying, and that this made a considerable contribution to their individual wellbeing. The research found that sociable folk dancing served as a vehicle for community, improving participants’ sense of self-worth, supporting creativity, and well-being. These findings complement clinical research that champions dance, and social dance in particular, as a healthy and worthwhile leisure activity. This thesis supports the results of such scientific studies into the benefits of dance by providing supporting evidence from within a social setting. This has implications for further research, and for policy and practice, whether dance activities are pursued formally or informally and whatever their aim.

Liverpool has some of the highest rates of preventable disease in the UK. Obesity levels in young people are increasing and diet and decreased activity levels are implicated in its progression. The eating habits of young people are far from ideal and there is a need to develop initiatives that can bring about positive changes in lifestyle. The aims of this research were firstly, to assess the eating habits, factors affecting food choice and the motivations for change in young people, and using the data collected, to design and pilot a questionnaire to facilitate the development of a nutrition intervention. Studies assessed the validity and reliability of a self-administered Food Intake Questionnaire (FIQ). Results suggested that the FIQ had face validity and reliability, being able to detect a change in eating habits of ± 10% in a sample of 100 children over a three-month period. A validity study showed that the FIQ had criterion validity for sugary (r = .34) and fatty foods (r = .21) intake, when compared to a three-day diary and interview method. Six hundred and ninety seven schoolchildren aged 11-13 years completed the FIQ and children with 'good' and 'poor' diets were selected to take part in separate focus group interviews. The focus group data described a food culture in which young people classified their foods as 'Junk" and "parental" foods as "proper" food. Definitions of dieting were elaborate, and including various strategies such as "cutting down" and "going on a health week". The data also suggested that health was a poor motivator of change and that school nutrition interventions based on physical activity and "well being" factors would be more effective in facilitating change than a medical, disease oriented approach. A combined questionnaire was designed to evaluate factors affecting intake (as identified by the focus groups). It was piloted in a separate school. The results showed the most frequently reported foods included sweets, crisps, fizzy drinks and chocolate. Discriminant analysis of the BCQ identified five factors able to separate diet groups at the extremes of the distribution (good and poor diets). These included: perception of health, influence of peers, and school activities. In conclusion, two tools have been developed to enable the eating habits of children, and the influences upon them, to be evaluated. In addition using these tools to gain an understanding of the cultural influences that affect eating habits enabled a nutrition intervention more relevant to the cultural imperatives of adolescents to be planned.